4 more Saturdays!

The end is near, as we only have to get up early on Saturdays for 4 more weeks!  The volume is picking up at work, and there are so many people in the building now.  When we started on September 30, you could pick for several hours without seeing anyone.  Now there are people all over, and another group of 20 or so temporary employees started today in picking.  We had over 130 pickers this morning.  When we started, there was about 30 in the morning.

The last 2 Saturdays Dan and I, along with a few other pickers, have volunteered to work in ICQA, which is the inventory control/quality assurance department.  With this job, we take our scanner, go to the bin on the scanner, count all the items in the bin, enter it on the scanner, and move on to the next bin it assigns us to.  Unlike picking, there is very little walking around.  It is a pretty easy job, although you have a lot of bending/squatting to look into the bins closer to the ground.  And there is no time required to do this job.  With picking, your scanner tells you what item to get, and where it is located, and it will have a little timer telling you that you how many seconds you have to pick that item.  ICQA is very laid back, and you get to browse more at the merchandise.  But we both prefer picking, as we like to keep moving.

We only get one tv channel here, the CW, which plays endless episodes of The Peoples Court.  But they are constantly running commercials advertising the live broadcast on NBC of The Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood on December 5.  Today I noticed a bin full of the audio CD’s of the “music from the live event”.  So I’m not sure how live it is!  It is available now as a pre- order.

I also had time today to look at the Susan Boyle “Home for Christmas” CD.  I have picked a lot of these, and it looks like a pretty good Christmas album.

Originally, we were to have off next Tuesday, and work Black Friday instead.  That way, Amazon didn’t have to pay is overtime.  But now they are offering voluntary overtime on Tuesday, so we signed up for that.  In December, we will have mandatory overtime on Fridays.  There are 2 weeks that we may be able to get additional overtime, so we could be doing six 10 hour days each week….ka-ching!!$$$

Quote for the Day:  “The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today” – Elbert Hubbard

Happy Thanksgiving and Veteran’s Day!!

As with Halloween, Thanksgiving has come early here in Campbellsville.  Amazon had a catered Thanksgiving meal of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, pumpkin pie and apple pie today, for all the employees.  It was very good, and we both appreciated the gesture by Amazon.  My pedometer read 11 miles at the end of our shift, so I figured I burned off everything I ate…could have had another piece of pie!!

Amazon also paid tribute to all the employee’s that are Veteran’s, and gave them a special pin.

Today the 12th and final group of workcampers started, so Amazon handed out the 2013 Amazon Camperforce t-shirts to all of us as we left.  People were very excited about the color of the shirts this year, turquoise.  There is a day in December that we are all supposed to wear them.  Amazon has lot’s of activities planned in December for all their employees, to keep us going during peak season.  It should be an interesting month.

Tonight they are predicting an “artic blast” coming thru, with temperatures below freezing.  We might even see a snowflake or two!  This just gives us further incentive to keep looking at more campgrounds in Florida for February!

Last week we did go to the National Corvette Museum and the Corvette Assembly plant in Bowling Green, KY.  I have been having problems uploading photos with this slow as molasses internet, so I will wait to post on that until I can get the photos working.

We signed up for voluntary overtime on Thursday.  We have to call the morning of, to see if it is still on, as it could be cancelled.  So place your orders folks, so we can keep busy!

Last night we had dinner in town with another couple, Phil and Rudee.  I have been following their blog for a year or so, and they are now working at Amazon for the first time as well.  It was great getting to meet them in person, and listening to their adventures.  You can check out their blog at http://workinrvers.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow is our “Friday”, which means “happy dance Tuesday”!!  I have a few other ladies that join in with me on the happy dance!  It doesn’t take people long to catch on to doing a little dance at the end of the workweek!

Quote for the day:  “On this Veterans Day, let us remember the service of our veterans, and let us  renew our national promise to fulfill our sacred obligations to our veterans and  their families who have sacrificed so much so that we can live free.” – Dan Lipinski

 

 

And God said…..

….shop at Amazon!!  Today I was going around picking the merchandise, and my scanner said “Communion Wafers”.  I paused for awhile, as I thought these came from some special store, but apparently not!!  I guess they really do sell everything.

Makena wants to know which one of her dog blog followers ordered the book “The Wonderful World of Squirrels”?!!  I picked one of those books today.  Makena would like to borrow it, so she can look at the photos!

Dan said he was ready to call Human Resources today, to see if I told them to make him exercise more.  He was pretty pooped out tonight, as he had to pick in all 3 buildings.

When we got home, Makena was ready to play football.  During the week, the tent site area is empty, so we have been taking her over there and letting her run around off leash…..shhhh, don’t tell the park ranger!

Monday thru Friday morning, the tent site area is vacant.

tent sites

tent sites

It is really a beautiful area, right on the lake.  During the week, this area becomes Makena’s playland;

Playtime!!

Playtime!!

RV’ers have a lot of pets.  Lucy has been trying everyday to get Makena to play with her.  She is very friendly, but Makena loves people, not other dogs.  Makena needs her cousin Reagan to come and visit to play with Lucy.  And Rudy can come down and chase all the ducks and geese that hang around the shoreline!

I just want to play with you!

I just want to play with you!

 

Quote for the day:  Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. – Roger Caras

 

 

 

 

A Giant Scavenger Hunt

Today was our first day in our specific job assignment at Amazon.  We are assigned to Picking, which is the most mobile of all the jobs.  Today was just a five-hour workday, and the first half was going to “Picking School”.  We had 2 excellent and patient trainers that worked with our group of 10 Workampers.  In very simple terms, you have a scanner, and it tells you where to go in the building, what aisle, and what shelf and bin.  The hardest part is just figuring out where to go, as there are 3 buildings in the warehouse, all connected. I felt like we were on a scavenger hunt all afternoon.

After our 15 minute break, they let us loose, and we started to pick actual customer orders.  There are no names or anything associated with the scanner.  Everything is done by bar codes.  And there is no rhyme or reason about what is on the shelves.  The Stowers (people who put the merchandise away to be picked), just put the merchandise wherever they find an opening.  So you can pick 5 items from one shelf, and then 5 more of the same item in another aisle.  And the variety of items is amazing.  It’s very fast paced, but not very difficult.

And yes, I decided I better start wearing my glasses, so I can read the tiny little print on some of these items!

Tomorrow we have another 5 hour shift, and they will probably give us orders in another building.  Today we just stayed in one building.  I am going to try to find my pedometer, and see how much walking I am doing.  They have coolers of bottled water all over the buildings, and free Gatorade and coffee in the break room.  Of course the safety lady stopped and reminded me to keep 2 hands on my cart when I am going down the aisles.  They are very safety oriented at Amazon.

Makena was very excited to see us when we got home, and we went for a long walk around the park.  They are starting to decorate for Halloween here at the State Park as they have a big Halloween Party in a few weeks.  The park is also starting to fill back up, and there are lots of kids, which was a bit puzzling. Kentucky has no standard start date for their schools.  The schools around here start in early August, and they are now on a Fall break for the week.  And they are done in May.  The schools in the northern part of Kentucky are on a different schedule.

Quote for the day:  If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito – Dali Lama

Nose to toes

Day 2 at Amazon was orientation on all the rules, paperwork and safety training.  The most important paperwork was how to input the code for our employee discount!!  We will probably pick up some optional overtime to pay for the items we need for the camper.

in the afternoon, we received a lengthy tour of the warehouse, along with our safety training.  Our trainer repeatedly used the phrase to keep your nose with your toes, to avoid twisting while bending.  We had to demonstrate that we could lift boxes up to 20 pounds without assistance.

Tomorrow we will start learning our specific jobs, and we only have to work 5 hours.  Amazon has discovered people can’t go from not working to working 10 hour days very well, so they ease us into the jobs.  We were probably the youngest in our group of 50 that started today, but there are much younger full-timers than us.

Quote for the day:   If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun!  Katherine Hepburn

 

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s Off to work we go!

We are staying at Green River State Park here, all paid for by Amazon.  It is the only park that does not have sewer, so Amazon pays for a “honey wagon” to come once a week and pump everyone’s tanks out.  The fact that we don’t have to deal with “dumping” for the next 3 months is another nice feature of this park that we chose.

pump and dump

pump and dump

After the important stuff was taken care of, we drove into town to begin our new jobs.

Welcome to Campbellsville

Welcome to Campbellsville

 

Today was “meet and greet” day, where we met the general manager of our plant, as well as our “camperforce” administrative team.  It was nice to put faces with the folks we interviewed with.  We received our assigned positions, shifts and days.  Amazon always makes sure that couples will have the same shift/days.

Dan and I will be working the day shift, 6:30am – 5:00pm, on Saturday/Sunday/Monday/Tuesday.  So for those that worked with me at the hospital, my Sunday “happy dance” will now be done on Tuesdays!!  We will be “pickers”, which means we will be picking the merchandise off the racks and taking it in carts to the packing area.  We will learn more this week about the job, but basically, we will be walking 6 – 10 miles/days.  So we are getting paid to exercise!!!  Bonus!

Tomorrow we have orientation, and then safety training.  Amazon is very big on safety training.  Wednesday thru Friday, we will be working 5 hour days on our specific jobs.  Then we will have off Saturday, and then Sunday starts our regular work week, but only 7 1/2 hour days.  The 3rd week we will go to the full 10 hour shifts.  Amazon refers to this as ‘work hardening’ to get everyone accustomed to the physical nature of the jobs.

At our meet and greet, we also received a big bag containing coupons from local stores and restaurants, and brochures with free or half-off coupons of some tourist attractions in the area.  The Amazon folks said the community really likes it when the workampers come into town, especially the veterinary clinics, since the majority of RV’ers travel with pets.  That was a nice little bonus, and we will definitely check out some of the places on our off days.

After we finished today, we drove down to the marina part of the state park, to see what was there.  Lots and lots of houseboats.  Some of these are pretty big.

view of the marina

view of the marina

There is also a dam up the road.

 

Green River by the dam

Green River by the dam

dry side of the dam

dry side of the dam

Tomorrow it’s back to packing lunches!!!

Quote for the day:  “Believe you can, and you’re halfway there” – Theodore Roosevelt

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to Campbellsville

So I posted this blog, but Dan noticed that half of it was missing, so I will try again!

Today many of the campers around us packed up and left, so the campground is pretty empty.  We were able to meet a few more fellow workampers from Amazon.  A couple of them will be starting with us tomorrow.

We drove around Campbellsville to see what is in town.  There are a lot of Dollar stores, a Wal-Mart, Lowes and a Kroger grocery store.  Will have to check out the Kroger store later this week.   Had a few loads of laundry to do, so we checked out the “outdoor” laundromat they have here.

IMG_20130929_151608_665

view from the laundry

view from the laundry

 

 

 

There is also a mini golf course that Dan was checking out by the laundry.

mini golf course

mini golf course

My blog is acting funny tonight, having typing issues.  Also received some e-mail that

people are having problems following along on the blog.  Not sure what is going on, as we are all new to this!  Hopefully we can get this figured out.

Tomorrow is our “meet and greet” day at the campground across the street from Amazon.  We will find out what shift, position and days of the week we will be working.

Stay tuned!

Quote of the day: “There will always be serendipity involved in discovery” – Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO of Amazon.com