Gettin' in the Rhythm

October 26, 2016
This post is going up way late due to changing circumstances in our lives. I'll update on the next post.

Amazon work days are all consuming. The four 10-hour days require discipline which my creative nature always fights. Up at 5 am, wash up, dress, load prepared lunch into lunchbag, eat breakfast, and out the door into the dark by 6 am. Thankfully the Amazon Fullfillment Center is just a short 7-10 minute commute from our campground. That gets us inside by about 6:15 am with time to visit our lockers, short talk with friends in the breakroom, and then a quick bathroom break before clocking in between 6:25 and 6:30 am. Then we have a five minute walk to the Stand-Up gathering area. We find a hand scanner for the day, load in a fresh battery and join the big crowd there.

We live in this box much of the week.

The big screen illustrates stretching exercises which we all do in unison, while the manager makes announcements and motivates us to work hard picking “smiles” for our Amazon customers. After that, we consult our scanners for our first assignment and walk off to our designated “mod” and begin picking items from bins and throwing them into our yellow totes on our rolling carts. Full totes get dropped onto the closest conveyor belt to be transported across the huge building to be packed and shipped out.

The big box is quite warm so we dress appropriately for work.

The rest of the day consists of more of the same. Walking 10-15 miles up and down the long aisles and often up and down stairs as we are transferred by a notice on our scanners to report to a new mod. We have a fifteen minute paid break mid-morning and another one mid-afternoon. The priority on our breaks is sitting down and eating! We clock out and back in again for lunch, and visit stand-up again after lunch to repeat stretches and get an update on the morning's progress.

Just before 5 pm we leave the mods, turn in our scanners and work our way to the front of the building to join the crowds waiting to clock out. A quick trip to our lockers and we make the short commute home. Bedtime is supposed to be 9 pm. The four hours go quickly. First, sit and recover for a while. Then make dinner, shower, lay out clothes for the next day, pack lunches, and try to have a few minutes to “relax”. Being a night person, my body refuses to shut down at 9 pm, so I read for awhile, sometimes a long while, and finally try to go to sleep. I am somewhat sleep deprived on work days!


Currently we have three days off. That will change sometime around Thanksgiving when we will go to mandatory overtime and work five 10-hour days. Having only 2 days off makes it hard to recover physically and be sure to get laundry and groceries done. With three days off we tend to “veg out” the first day and get our chores done on the other two days. At least we get paid time and a half for the overtime day, and the main reason we are here is for the money, so we keep the December 23^rd contract deadline in sight. What makes the Amazon job bearable is knowing that there is an end in sight.


My other challenge is meal planning. As a creative, if I have no other creative outlet during the day, which I don't working at Amazon, I can create a good tasting healthy meal for dinner. That helps keep me sane. The problem is that I am too tired to do much cooking and fall back on leftovers and super simple meals. But, even super simple is too much some days. Monday, at the end of our work week we joined our friends Lyle and Lynda at the only restaurant in this dry county that serves alcohol. It was nice to sip a beer and eat a huge burger, which I would not normally order, but my body was screaming for fat and calories after a day with more walking than usual. We are at the time of the season when the hiring is ramping up so everyone is trained by the time Amazon Peak arrives with Black Friday, but the orders haven't ramped up yet. That requires a lot more moving around the warehouse to find items to pick, hence more than the usual walking and stair climbing. But, hey, not only are we here to make money, but to participate in the Amazon Fitness Plan!!! (Will I have “Buns of Steel”? Maybe...maybe not...)

Happy hour with our next-door neighbors.

Campfires are mandatory for happy hour.

We have two more days off. Friday morning will come way too early and after sleeping in for three days, I will have a short night. I treasure my alone time late at night and can't always give it up. Got to balance sanity and sleep! Greg is humming along, but seems to require an impromptu nap in the comfy chair on the afternoon of his days off. As if he isn't getting enough exercise already, he goes off on his bike on our days off and explores the nearby state park. He needs his nature solitude to cope with our long busy days.



Not many photos to share. I'll be back up when I get a chance and have something to write about!