Another night one the books. Survived, both the Amazon half day and cold, snowy night.
It seemed easy to stay up to 4 am while I was sipping on a KaDapple and touring around KY. It is harder to imagine feeling quite as energized standing on a thin foam mat sorting through 24 return items an hour.
Yesterday was the first day of job training. That experience comprised of a young, greasy kid named Bradley reading a Kindle full of paragraphs of the job description. We could barely hear him, and my hiker nose cold smell his stale breath from across the totes.
After a long time, confusing 4 hours of standing listening, we were informed we were expected to get to work. The campers all fumbled with our bins of returns, trying to follow the computer prompts, which of course, had a million exceptions for everything. I personally crashed my computer, a scanner gun, and manager computer in one go. As tech as I am, I cannot quite claim all the props on that. More like, Amazon system glitching constantly. We were told to pull a cord if you get stuck in the conveyer, but pull hard – it doesn’t always work. If you have a problem, hit the blue light, but don’t expect anyone to come over for at least 20 minutes – just keep going.
The job is severely mundane. Fine, I get it, this is why Amazon didn’t even do an interview, they just need you to follow instructions, and use your non-robotic arms to unpack crap Americans decided they didn’t want after all. For 10 hours at a time. I watched from my little computer station all the movement around me in other departments. “That could have been you if you started in November,” I cursed myself. The pickers were all hired to work through November and December, not that any of the emails I got from HR indicated that. Their idea of giving you information is more on a ‘I don’t know’ level. I would say ‘need to know’ status, but I honestly don’t think they even know half the time.
I reflected back to our tour, and Rosie, a woman who said she’s worked there for 10 years. “You’re going to love it here!”, she proclaimed. “I’ve been here 10 years, it is so wonderful!”. I think me and Rosie might have different perceptions of a fun work environment.
To end on a good note, I think I am pleasantly surprising my co-workers with having a personality, and quickly picking up on things. I’ve decided I’ll just hustle along till someone tells me I’m doing it wrong.
