Well after being out of the work force for so long and getting settled into our new home, I thought I should see if I could get a temporary job over the Christmas season. Carol and me are traveling to Hawaii and joining up with Ryan and Erinn for a ten day vacation in the middle of January, so applying for any serious job would be out of the question until we return.
So I went to my favorite job site and found that Amazon.com was hiring for the Christmas season, so I went through the screening process and got the call I was hoping for on the last week of November.
Well having never worked in a factory setting before I wasn't sure what to expect. I was told that I would work 4 - 10 hr. day's, but on my first day on the job they shifted to mandatory over time week so then I was required to work a 60 hr. week at 4- 12 hr. day's and and extra 12 hr. day through the week.
So after some quick training I was sending packages off to expecting customers,Amazon is a high rated on-line shopping site and has a very high rating for customer satisfaction, so a lot of pressure is put on it's workers to perform with no problems or mix ups.Each day our shift was expected to send out over 30,000 packages so at 2 shifts a day that is a lot of boxes.
I was put on the loading dock the first week and I loaded trailers (wow what a work out ) I lost a few lbs. , and got back into shape fast. The next week I was put on a slam line where I put boxes together and put products into them ,added packing and taped them up and slapped a shipping label on it . I didn't do it all my self , we worked as a assembly line with 4 others.
To help with the monotony of the job I would think of myself as Santa's helper with all the toys that would pass through our line, heading for the family Christmas trees.
Now that the Christmas rush is coming to a close and shipping can not be assured before Christmas day ,Amazon has been thinning out some of the workers for the work load has been reduced.So each day everyone comes to work not knowing if it will be there last . To be honest if they let me go I wont mind to much for the experience showed me that I am not factory material, for the repetitious boredom would kill me. I give much credit to the ones that do this day after day.
As I am writing this blog it is just 2 days to Christmas and Carol and me wish you all a merry Christmas and a great and blessed new year.
