Day One Exposed

It’s officially started. We have our ID badges, Chris’ first ever. We completed and passed our Picking School. It has begun.

Day 1:

We walked 3 miles and stood for hours during our school lesson for our only half day. We can clearly see how an easy day would consist of a minimum of 10 miles of walking. It was the standing still, or trying to, on those concrete floors that killed us. I’m so glad we didn’t choose one of the jobs that has to stand in one place all day long!! We’d both rather be walking!! We have a much better understanding of our job now and it’s kinda like playing hide & seek and BINGO at the same time. Fun!!

We took a tour through the whole process from beginning to end, each stage the product goes through from the trucks bringing it in to the trucks taking it out for delivery. It’s so interesting and unbelievable the capabilities of the computers to know where each piece of product is and where to send it – simply amazing!! I know I keep saying that but I just can’t wrap my head around how organized the computer programs have made the system. Did you know that company’s contract Amazon to be their business’ warehouse? Big and small companies entrust Amazon to receive, store and ship their products. And they do it without the customer ever knowing…

So, when we got home, we both hurt. My feet hurt, my knees hurt, my back ached, my shoulders were tight, my elbows hurt – did I leave anything out? Nope – everything hurt. We were tired and starving!! I couldn’t believe how hungry we were at 10:30 pm. I was practically drooling on myself while I was warming up left overs for dinner. I couldn’t imagine standing in the kitchen to cook a real dinner. I told Chris we may be eating a lot of cereal after work and opting to cook in the “morning” before work instead. We’ll figure something out… Bonus – we both slept so well. Nothing like passing out after a long day (or half day) at work.

I met a lovely young lady in the stacks while we were practicing. She’s a temp and has been with Amazon for a couple of months. She thought I was a temp too because I was only a little bit older than her. She was speechless when I told her I was a workamper and what that meant – she had never heard of such a thing. She was so excited about the concept she said she couldn’t wait to get home and tell her hubby all about it. And it finally came up in picking school how old we really are. We’ve been getting the looks but no one had actually asked yet. We don’t mind the looks or the question. It’s funny to us to watch their reactions.

The temp lady I met was also a wealth of info on the schedule for overtime. She said she worked her half day week, then a 40 hour week and after that it’s been all you can eat overtime up to 60 hrs a week. She’s been working a 60 hour work week since. We may take a 50 hour week or two before we dive into the 60 hour weeks but as long as they’re offering it we’re gonna take it. We’re here to work and make that money!! The offer of overtime before December just sweetens our pot for the new rig!! So don’t think we’ve fallen off the face of the earth if you don’t hear from us – we’re just working our butts off – literally!!

We’re headed into town today to do some grocery shopping and try to find a place to get my nails done, need to shorten these bad boys before our shift on Sunday. I’ll probably do some bulk cooking to make our first full week easier on us. Besides, home cookin tastes so much better than anything you can buy for the microwave in the store and it’s a ton better for us too!!

With much love

Madcap