Archive for the ‘Warehouse Blues’ Category

I had my six month evaluation at work today. I had a 3 (exceptional) in everything except Knowledge (2) and Attendance (4). It was a very positive evaluation. This apparently was good enough to give me a 50 cent raise. (In another three and a half years, maybe I’ll actually be able to meet our expenses!) It affects my paycheck on Monday, which is great since we worked a good six hours of overtime this week. We came in early (six a.m.) three days.

That included Tuesday so we could be sure to leave at four p.m. so everyone would have time to vote. I offered to print out a voter registration form for Berck, but he has said that he isn’t going to vote until he can do it from home. Our polling place happens to be the “clubhouse” attached to our apartment complex’s office. That’s about as close to voting from home as you can do in Oklahoma. But Berck changed his stance to only voting when there’s someone worth voting for.

Oklahoma apparently doesn’t have voting booths with little privacy curtains or individual voting machines. You have to use the marker they give you to complete the arrows next to the candidates you want. Then you feed your ballot into a voting machine that whirs and pulls your sheet into itself. I didn’t know which way to insert mine, so it probably went in upside down and was invalidated. The person who was supposedly manning it stepped up to take my marker after I had already watched my ballot gobbled up.

Berck and I stayed up pretty late, listening to NPR’s coverage and constantly hitting refresh on CNN’s website. The one thing we shared in this election was the excitement of watching the results come in on such a tight, tight race. Berck did some calculations and scribbled on a pad of paper until he came to the conclusion that it was all coming down to Ohio…before anyone else on the air did. And he was right.

I had learned my lesson four years ago about waiting up all night for the results, and I was glad I did when I got up in the morning and saw that it was still up in the air. I didn’t find out who had won until I was driving home from work that night.

I couldn’t celebrate with Berck, Mom and Dad are in Highlands this week, and the chalet doesn’t have very good cell phone service, so the only person I could call before nine was my brother, who also has Verizon. So I called Ben and said, “You’re the only person I can talk to!”

“Why?” he asked, “Where’s Berck?”

“You’re the only person I can share the exciting news with.”

“Why? What happened? Tell me!”

“The election!”

“Oh, yeah.”

Of course, he’d stayed up till two, when Fox called Ohio for Bush, so it was pretty old news by then. But it was new for me.

Okay, I think I’ll post the story about how we got our new telephone in another post.

We currently have no telephone service, so if you want to talk to us, you’ll have to send an e-mail.

In other news I got a call today (before we lost service) from Bankers Life and Casualty Company. They found my resume on Monster.com and invited me to an open interview they’re having tomorrow evening at six. By the looks of their website, they’re hiring insurance salesmen. Sigh. So anyway, that’s where I’ll be tomorrow evening.

Then I’ll come home and make an attempt at caramel apples to take to Friday’s “warehouse staff luncheon.” The theme is “food on a stick.” If the recipe works, I’ll post it.

Sent out more job applications today. Sigh.

I am so tired.

Berck is gone. He left early yesterday morning for Chicago to visit with his mom and his sister for Sydney’s birthday. I wanted to go, but my boss didn’t want me to go, we can’t really afford for me to take time off of work, and this way Berck can stay longer and teach Sydney how to cook.

Syd sent Berck an instant message recently saying to the effect, “I need to fry something for this recipe I’m following, and I know you told me that frying can be dangerous. My question is what oil is the least dangerous for frying?”

So I’m using my time alone to search for jobs. I’ve spent most of today doing that, and I’m about cross-eyed after looking through hundreds of classifieds. Otherwise, I did some shopping and got some Dr. Scholls inserts for my tennis shoes. I seem to be wearing through the foot of my right one. These gel thingies are really comfortable.

Although I’m not on my feet quite as much now. This week I got shifted from the puller crew to the in-checker crew. So instead of pulling stuff off of the shelves of the warehouse, I put stuff up. (Berck asked, “So if you’re not a puller, does that make you a pusher?”)

I’ve got a different schedule now: 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mon-Fri. But we usually end up working at least half an hour overtime each day…except Fridays, whey they tend to let us off early.

Stocking is a lot easier than pulling, at least, I think so. The pullers are timed and have to spend the whole day dragging a heavy cart up and down aisles grabbing stuff as fast as they can. In-checkers open packages delivered from UPS, FedEx, or by freight, make sure everything is there, and put them up on the shelves. So while I’m opening packages I can often sit down on the floor next to the box I’m unpacking.

My boss Barry, the warehouse manager, told us that he likes to put new hires on the pulling crew first, because it’s more structured and he can see how they’re doing, then shift them over to the in-checking crew. So I guess I passed the test.

More likely, I’m the only one who survived. Every single person hired after me has quit, except for the four most brand new people. The latest was my buddy, Brandi, who was hired just two weeks after I was. She confided to me Monday that she got offered a job in the little town where her church is (she’s a youth minister by night) doing office work for the city for the same thing we’re paid for grueling warehouse work. She was really excited, and I was excited for her as well but sad to see her go.

And irritated that I can’t seem to get employment that can support us.

So I’ve been playing the fill-out-the-application game all day. The last one I’ve found is an adjunct professor position at a local community college. It’s part time, but I’m qualified for it, so I’m a little excited. After I finish that, I think I’m calling it a day. This sure is a lot of hard work for little pay.