One week at Amazon complete. A larger amount to go.

I could say orientation went well, but honestly it was a little scary.

Lesson learned: when you have a temporary job – keep your mouth shut and just be positive about everything. I made the mistake of honestly completing a survey rating certain instances as “Fair”, which cause uproar in Amazonland. Not one, but 2 bright yellow safety vests scurried over to my work station, as I struggled through returns. “I noticed you rated the first day as “Fair” for the process of getting you guys in, why is that?”, a girl with glasses, looking no older than 18 briskly asked me. I shrugged, “well the people kept getting locked out of areas, had no lockers for us, didn’t even tell us not to bring in things because we would need lockers…”, I trailed off. She looked so wound up that this conversation was even happening, I was beginning to highly regret completing that survey at all. “Specific instances, I need very specific things.”, her eyes continued to bulge.

I thought back to us forming a line to get our pictures taken for badges. The woman who I had been emailing for the past few months, Sherrie Perry, I’m not kidding, took our photos one by one. The creepy gypsy guy smiled as I posed for her. “Looks like you’ve perfected that.”, he smirked. “Gross.”, I thought, but smiled at him as I walked back to my chair.

Sherrie had taken all the photos, and mentioned to the other HR girl that she would sent them right off so the badges would be made today. I shook my head. I knew based on her correspondence that there was no way she would send them. Sure enough, halfway through our 100th series of slides, I heard a giggle. “Whoopsie, forgot to send those!”, she exclaimed, to no one in particular. Needless to say, the badges were not ready by the end of the day.

I looked back at the teen with a yellow vest and a piece of paper ripped from somewhere. I was not going to tell her this story. I felt so stupid. Out of the corporate world for too long I suppose, reinstalled my faith in people in companies a little too much. I was instantly sent back in time, to the world I had come to hate so much, working for a big, self-centered, privately owned, money stuffing firm. I shook my head. It really is a nationwide mentality. Makes me feel crazy. Things are very simple to address to one another and there you have it. A+B=C. Not so in corporate America. Have an opinion on how to do something better? Well good news, there’s a flow chart for that! Created by a man (most certainly) in a suit, in the boardroom on the top floor of the building you will never have access to. Actually come to think of it, just leave your idea on the white board, and someone with a brain much bigger than yours will address it with useless adjectives that actually don’t comprise of an answer at all.

My blood starts to boil as teen yellow vest scribbles barely legible words on her ripped piece of paper. How on Earth did these 70 year olds, who worked their whole lives, had their houses sucked up by hurricanes, put up with these people? I took a deep breath. 2 months, I reminded myself, 2 months.

So, my goal of keeping my nose to the grind and not getting fired, was suddenly a potential reality. After the first 4 days no less. Winning?

A bonus was I discovered Ale 8 last night. Its essentially ginger ale (insert excited giddy smile). I couldn’t figure out at the gas station last night, why there was no ginger ale, so I got Ale 8 or whatever, and there you have it. Mystery solved. Look at me fully immersing myself into the new culture. As I collapsed all the guilt food items on the counter, the nice man complimented my coat, The Green Monster to be exact. It was freezing out. I was so annoyed from my survey debacle, I decided fuck it. This was my Friday, no gym for me, time to kill that flask of Bartons the lady sold me at the bar. I hate confrontation. Insert also being fragile from lack of sleep (thank you Russ maintenance man with bulldozer), missing Indy, and I decided me and Green Monster were going to hang in the truck listening to music, drawing our sorrows with an Ale 8 cocktail. (I can only assume Green Monster has bad days too, pretty sure she’s seen some shit considering her creation must have been around 1991). As I consumed Doritos with salsa and hugged my new best friend, the electrical radiator, I felt better. A phone conversation from a special human, and head banging to Def Leppard aided in the newfound hope. And probably the vodka, all the vodka.