NOTICE: TODAY IS CANCELLED DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST!

That's how I feel today.....let's just cancel this day by popular acclamation, and do something else......we are ONLY 3 days into our 5 day, 10 hours a day, work week, and I'm starting to feel like all I do is work and sleep with a little nourishment thrown in along the way for good measure.  Even though we only worked 1.5 hours on Monday, I have been physically in that Amazon building every day this week, including last Sunday morning when I exited that building for my one day off.  When I walk out that Amazon door Sunday morning at 4:10am in a few days I will have been in that building every day for 7 straight days.  I am only awake, and conscious.....believe me, they are not the same thing......at home for a few hours each day.....my conscious reality takes place at Amazon for 10.5 hours most every day of the week.

I don't know how people work this night shift for years on end.  I can't go to sleep right away when I get home around 4:15am, so I "unwind" a little, and go to bed at 5am.  Almost every day I wake up around 10:30 to 11am.....that's only 5.5 to 6 hours of sleep with an hour nap thrown in later.  I need 8 hours of sleep......at least that's what I thought when we arrived in Campbellsville.  Apparently I don't......have I been wasting 2 hours sleeping every day, all my life, when I could have been up staring blankly at my computer screen an extra two hours every day?  I was thinking last night.....no, wait...it was 3am.....in the middle of the last 2 hour stretch......how clear headed I felt after 9 hours of work, and averaging less than 7 hours of sleep all week....7 hours if you cobble together the sleeping in my bed with the semi sleeping in my lounge chair during the day.  It's one thing to do this as a lark for 2.5 months, but can you imagine doing this for months, or years on end?  And yet, I know that families all across this country live this life.  In many cases one spouse works the night shift and the other the day shift.....TLE works with me, so we see each other in passing on the floor of Amazon, at breaks, at lunch and at home......but how does that work in the real world where people are working just to survive, and only see their spouse in passing as they come home from a 10 hour shift, and their spouse heads out the door to do the same?  How does that work when there are kids involved?

We have become friends with several people who work here full time, and they can't even tell me how they do it.....they just do it.....day after day, week after week, year after year.  It's like we are in this sort of bad dream, but we know we'll wake up soon, and go on with our lives, but they are stuck in that dream......uh, reality.  It makes me realize how blessed TLE and I were to have normal Monday through Friday daytime jobs all of our work lives.  It's one thing to have this kind of schedule if you are young, and single with no dependents, but it's quite another if you are "married with children".

This is our first 5 day week at 10 hours per day.....there are still a few 6 day work weeks lurking in the not too distant future.....like next week.  If we are lucky we will be off Sunday and Monday, and back to work Tuesday.  If we are a little unlucky we will just have Sunday off, and working 6 days next week......23 days to go.

In last night's shift TLE and I started out our evening back on the floor for about an hour before we were called up to HRV for the rest of the night.  This is our saving grace.......the time really flies by up in HRV.....it is like our own little Amazon world up there.  We "pick", we pack, we resupply, we empty trash cans, break down boxes.......and we chew gum.  Our supervisor, Jan, chews gum all night, and frequently offers each of us a stick.  I'm not a gum chewer, but that gum she gives us is good stuff......how do they make gum that keeps its flavor for two hours?  On a side note, I managed to get up and down the HRV stairs 6 times last night without setting off the security alarm.

Our night shift is picking and shipping out over 170,000 items per 10 hour shift right now.....that is just one shift at one Amazon facility.  Items include DVD's, video games, books, rings, watches, bracelets, ear rings, dildos, vibrators, calendars, x-rated calendars, x-rated books, various and sundry automotive parts, flashlights, more watches, and some stuff even I am embarrassed to mention.  Another saving grace being in HRV is we don't see the x-rated stuff anymore.....just expensive watches, necklaces, rings, bracelets, and an occasional really expensive cell phone.

Thankfully we have made good friends with whom we spend time laughing with at breaks and lunch, and outside of work, otherwise this experience would be completely without any redeeming value, other than the money flowing into our bank account every other Friday.

Okay, that's my rant for the day......you can ignore the notice, and continue on with your day.  I repeat, the day is not cancelled....there is still a lack of interest, but please continue on with your regularly scheduled day.

Thanks for stopping by!