Pitter-Patter

6:32 am - Tuesday - November 13th - Campbellsville, KY - 36º F, 95% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the north......heavy cloud cover, rain, with a chance of snow at 8 am today.  Forecast high is 39º F.....it's going to be a chilly, wet one today!  Low tonight will be 27º F.

Monday was our 'Friday'.....only four days of work this week.  As I wrote earlier, we opted not to accept VET (Voluntary Extra Time) for Tuesday.  Frankly, I don't know if I could have done five 10 hour day again this week.  Monday, however, was a much better day for me physically.  I don't know what was going on Sunday, but I felt much better at the beginning of my shift than I thought I would, and I felt pretty good through the first three quarters of the day, but by the beginning of the fourth quarter (2:45 pm to 5 pm) I was dragging.  When the chimes went off at 4:50 pm telling us it was time to begin to put our totes on the conveyor belt, and begin walking to the front of the building to punch the clock I could not have been more relieved and happy.

So, we have 3 weeks of work in the books, and will be beginning our 4th week on Friday.  By this time next week we will have reached the halfway point and have just 4 weeks to go before we are released and head south to warmer climes.

We have a nice group of people we hang out with during breaks and lunch, and we spend a lot of time laughing.  I always wonder if we will form the same type of friendships we have in the past, and although each year is different, with a different mixture of people, it is that for which I hoped.  The last time in Fernley, NV we formed friendships with a mostly younger group of people.  The first time here in Campbellsville it was 100% people in our age range, and that is how it is coming down this year.  We seem to attract, or are attracted to (a chicken,  or egg proposition) happy, energetic people and Charmaine, Howard, Diane, Don, Leonard, Darlene, Fred, Dick, Steve and Karen are all of that.....in spades.  Not only do these relationships during breaks and lunch make Amazon more bearable, but when we see each other on the floor walking from one pick to another, or one area to another we stop and chat for a second, and laugh about something almost every time......there is nothing like shared suffering with people who have a sense of humor!

As you get used to the particular Amazon FC in which you are working you develop likes and dislikes about certain Pick Mods.  I like P-2-C as there have not been stowers up there in a long, long time, and it is very easy to find that for which you are hunting.  P-1-C and P-1-E, P-2-E, P-3-E, and P-4-E are exactly the opposite.....the stowers have been working those Mods for a couple of weeks, and all the bins seem to be at 110% capacity making it quite difficult to find anything in a short amount of time.  Often I have to remove everything from the bin to find the item on my scanner.  I like P-1-Q for the same reason, and P-1-J, P-1-N, P-1-K, P-3-k and P-4-K for the same reason.  As with any job you must take the good with the bad.  If I am working in a Mod that is easy to 'pick' I can average about 110 picks an hour.  If I am in one of the Mods with heavy stower action my average slips down to about 60 per hour.

Some pictures for your viewing pleasure to illustrate some of the terms I use each day.....'stower', 'picker', 'tote', 'conveyors'........

These are 'stowers'....they put merchandise in the bins so we 'pickers' can pick it (above and below)

This is a 'picker'.....notice the Motorola scanner in her hand as she looks into the box to find the item on her scanner screen, which has probably been ordered by someone within the last few minutes

There are literally miles, and miles of conveyors.....you can see both types in this picture (the conveyor going uphill is a belt driven conveyor, and the one in the foreground is roller driven) all running at full speed all of the time.  Those yellow boxes are what we call 'totes'

A 'picker' pushing a 'pick cart' down a lonely aisle looking for the next pick

The 1/4 mile uphill walk home is always sweeter on your 'Friday', and this one was no different.  Even though we were both tired to the bone we giggled, and laughed all the way home knowing we would not be re-entering the concrete bunker on Tuesday, or Wednesday.  We will each be working a 5 hour shift on Thursday.....TLE the morning half from 6:30 am to 11:30 am, and me from 12 pm to 5 pm.  We can do those 5 hour shifts standing on our heads......not that we would want to, right?

We watched the series finale of 'Last Ship', and then the entire English Premier soccer match between Tottenham and Chelsea......it was a great match right to the end, and was won by our favorite, Tottenham 1-NIL.  We finished off the evening watching another recorded episode of NCIS: Los Angeles.

By 12 am it was raining, and it rained the rest of the evening, and is still raining as I write.  Listening to the rain pitter-patter on the aluminum roof just makes everything in the world seem right for just a little while.

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