Saturday, October 6, 2012

October Already!?!??

I can't believe it's October already!  That means I've been at work at Amazon.com for a little over a month and Kevin's been at it 3 weeks.  Just as we were getting into the routine, they changed our schedule this week and messed it up.  

Normally we work Sunday through Wednesday.  This week we had Sunday off and worked Monday through Thursday.  You wouldn't think that would be a big change, but it made this week seem REALLY long!

Last night was particularly crazy.  Every year Amazon does what they call "stress testing" in preparation for the Peak Season.  What they do is try to simulate the amount of orders going through the system during Peak to make sure everything (people, equipment, software, etc.) is up to the load.  So yesterday we went to work at 2pm instead of 5pm and got off work at 12:30 am instead of 3:30 am.  That part was okay.Some of the day people stayed later as well, so from about 5pm until 7pm we were supposed to have the largest staff on hand and see how the system fared.  

Only challenge was that someone caught a piece of clothing on the fire alarm pull (at least that's the story) shortly before 5pm and everything came to a halt.  We all evacuated the building.  It took about an hour for them to make sure everyone was accounted for and for the fire department to declare the building safe.  For the rest of the evening things were pretty messed up.  But it all pays the same and we got home early.  It was just a bit frustrating.

Today was our usual catch up day -- a little sleep, grocery shopping, laundry and catching up with the neighbors.  It seems to have gotten a bit chilly, so tomorrow we're going to have to dig out some cool weather clothes and stash some shorts.  Think we'll put some soup in the crock pot and take it easy.  

Next weekend we'll be heading to Kansas City to watch Northwest Missouri State play football and the weekend after that I think we're helping Kevin's sister move.   In between we'll be putting in our days (nights) at Amazon and looking for something to do in January.


5 comments:

  1. I sure hope they figure out a way to keep the conveyors from backing up/shutting down during peak. That's my worst memory of problems. Such fond memories of running around with boxes from one conveyor to the next to try to get them to the shipping department. I talked to the new guy Steve yesterday and he confirmed our start day of Oct. 18th and that we will be pickers on 8 shift. So, we'll be working with you guys on Mondays and Tuesdays if all goes as planned. I actually volunteered for night shift. As much as I hated it last year, I really don't want to be setting an alarm and Kevin prefers the night shift. I shall survive!

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  2. Hey, see my reply to your comment on my blog about sending me an email. :)

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  3. Are you sure the fire alarm was pulled on accident? Good way to slow things down a bit. Of course it has to look like it was an accident else the perp would be in deep doodoo.
    You may want to rest a bit in January after the crazy work at Amazon.
    B-safe.

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  4. Enjoy your soup and relaxing on this cloudy and chilly, fall day!!

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  5. Thanks for the comment about the wifiranger, I will check out the sources you gave me.

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