Amazonian New Beginnings

Today marks the end of my first 3 weeks of working at Amazon’s Fulfillment Center new my house. So, what are my thoughts?  The first two things that stand out above everything at this time is that I am beyond tired and I am wracked with pain.  Not that bad kind of pain either.  The good kind that reminds you that you are getting stronger from the physical activity.  I have even lost just shy of 10 pounds since staring. I can stand to lose 3+ pounds a week for a little bit.

OK…let’s break down some of the pros, the cons, the cool and amusing things being at Amazon so far. Let's start with cons...

CONS:

My Schedule (also a partial pro, more on that later). I work night during the grave yard shift normally from 6:45pm to 5:15am. On MET shifts (Mandatory Extra Time) the shifts are from 7pm to 7am. Those shifts suck. As a result, I sleep from around 8 or 9am to 1 or 3pm.  This is causing me to not see my family as much. Viki and I are crossing paths as I get home and she gets up for the day…that sucks.

I am tired…tired beyond belief.  For the past 25 years, I have been in a leadership role at the theatres.  Despite being in charge, I did have to have some physical labor from time to time but I had “minions” to do the majority of this work for me.  As a result, I became more sedentary over the years and packed on some weight. Suddenly being thrust into a physical job requiring to be not only on my feet for 10-12 hours (used to that), but I am also physically moving, stowing and packing merchandise on an incredibly massive scale has taken a temporary toll of draining me to brink of exhaustion and given me pain to muscles that I did know I had, mainly the ones in the core.

I am at the ground level of something new.  Being the one on top of the food chain at the theatre and going through hell due to corporate take overs & restructuring, DM gaslighting, backstabbing crooked GM’s in a corporation that does no oversee them that well and COVID, I left the industry I desperately love.  It hurt. Still hurts even 3 weeks later at the new job but that pain is a little dulled now seeing that Regal has closed all of their doors again, AMC is on the brink of bankruptcy, the studios pushing for home streaming/digital releases…the theatrical exhibition industry is the closest to death I have seen it and it will takes a few years for it to recover.  It will eventually but I do not have time to wait.  I had to get a job and quickly and they had quite a few to hand out even it is at the bottom.

On The Job Music.  Every once in awhile, the leadership will fire up the PA systems in various parts of the warehouse floor and start blasting music. 90% of the time it has been modern top 40 pop trash.  You know, where it is either some female vocalist that is plain wailing away (think Mariah Carey, Witless Hussey, etc) or the crap that is overly autotuned and the melody sound likes it was made up by some child with no knowledge on how music or music theory works and they are singing in their bedroom when no one is watching. The other times it has been the worst of the poser hair metal bands with half of them with White in their name.  Man oh man I hate that trash.  Luckily the robots and the conveyors can overpower that noise.

PROS:

My Schedule. I get “me” time. Lots of it.  I also get to actually live my vampire life style and sleep during the day and be up all night and not feel guilty about it now due to working the grave yard shifts.  I am also working 4 days and off 3 days.  The extra day off WILL be awesome when the schedule gets back to normal.  Prime week had us all getting a TON of overtime. My 2^nd and 3^rd weeks I got nearly 20 hours of OT and I am getting an additional bonus for having perfect hours and attendance during Prime week.  I will take the money

Physical Activity.  I have been way too sedentary for the past decade or so.  Nothing wrong with sitting on your butt from time to time but the theatre made it easy for me to fall into that lifestyle and I have gotten a bit chunky around the middle as a result.  Being physically active for 10-12 hours nearly nonstop during the shift has caused feel muscle pain and fatigue on an epic level on the first week.  I have also have been hitting near aerobic/cardio levels of activity. Fatigue and exhaustion on the first week was EXTREME.  However, as each day goes by, I am adjusting and getting used to it.  A bonus is that I am losing the weight I put on the proper way through the activity.  Not like how I was losing weight 2 years ago under the Regal DM gaslighting stress diet program that they put all the GM’s on when the new company took over. Assholes.

The ability to use my skills later.  After 30 days, I can looking into moving into other departments. I have skills in financial, administrative, tech, IT, maintenance, HR, training, customer service, food service, marketing, PR and all thanks to the movie industry.  I can use some of those in some capacity in other departments at Amazon.  I am looking at the AR floor robots on the inbound side of the building in either programming them or repairing them. The whole AR robot stow system they have is incredible to see in action and cool as hell on how it works.  The way they store items in the warehouse for picking and packing is genius. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason because the stowing of items after their uncrated is random…very random.  Again, no rhyme or reason…at least on the surface.  However the computer systems knows where everything is throughout the roughly 2.5 MILLION square feet of floor space spread over 4 floors and 64k storage pods and 5k AR robots shuffling said pods around.  This link shows the AR floor in action…cool shit. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUx-ljgB-5Q

 

AMUSING THINGS & OBSERVATIONS:

I have seen the orders put together and get sent out to you.  Some are amusing…

1.  There are a ton of people getting their freak on out there. Lots and LOTS of dildos, vibrators, “massagers”, lubes and other toys getting sent out.  Even had one order with 21 dildos.  I guess they were for some sort of 21 dildo salute.

2.   Lots of good pet parents out there. I have packed a number packages with a ton of goodies to spoil your pets.

3.  This one is the biggest amusement…a shit ton of you order things on small orders that can be easily picked up at your local Walgreens or convenience store.  A single mall order with a single stick of eyeliner, a pack of gum, a pack of batteries, a box of hair dye and nothing else.  Nothing in bulk. I know COVID has had an effect on people’s shopping habits but getting a handful items ordered on line that could have been easily picked up if you just drove around the corner to a local shop.  Hell…I don’t care.  It keeps me employed but I do find it odd even during a pandemic.

4.   Did I mention 21 dildos?

5.  The employee pool is a broad spectrum people. Evenly mixed across the board on anything you can categorize them for.  I think that may be a side effect of COVID fucking with people’s livelihoods and Amazon being available to take on the labor pool.

6.  Dildos

 

Overall, I like the new environment and it is kinda cool for the moment to not have any responsibilities.  This is all despite getting my ass kicked physically.  Come November, I will start looking into the tech side of things and robotic apprenticeships or looking into leadership roles.  I cannot be a mindless drone for much longer.  I thrive better with some responsibility.