They BETTER Keep Me
I got to talk to the whole group of people I was hired with today. Well, with the exception of that friend I made- she quit, I guess. But the other woman there asked if they had hired me full time yet or now. I honestly have no clue, and I think I still have a month of being a temp before it's decided. I hope they keep me. Really, even if I were the slowest person in the world, I think it'd be a bad move to get rid of me when they're so low on people as is.
Perfect example being today. We had a 2500 piece truck and only three people to work the line (as one was throwing the truck, one was scanning in Electronics, and the third was sorting break packs). We barely had any room to begin with, and it was only made worse when we had to fit nineteen freaking pallets of grocery. >.< I am so glad frozen didn't come today.
We asked management for some people to help us. Yeah... that didn't quite work out.
Us: Hey, can we have some extra hands back here to get things done?
Management: No. ^_^ But hey! We're going to take one of you to help us!
Us: O_o
Finally around seven thirty, they gave us two people. Thank God. It helped some, I know. Because by break time (quitting time for the other shift), we were only half done. >.<
Since the other two had already had their break, they got to stay to work on the truck. When Aaron and I came back, we found they hadn't really paid much attention to stacking neatly, which was a pain later. Once we got back to working, the truck was finished at about a quarter to ten. Not including break-packs. Oh, it was awful. The whole day was awful. I mean, even my lunch was hell. I got back there put some money in the pop machine for my Sprite. No Sprite came out. Thinking maybe it was sold out, I [ressed the button to get my change back. Ha! Yeah, it ate it. So I had to go back to the front of the store to get some from Customer Service. Then I went out to get a Sprite from the exact same kind of machine as the one in the break room... only it costs thirty-five cents more out there. (SIGH) My break was half over once I got back. Oh- and then there were no forks. I hate to eat my ramen noodles with a spoon. Should've called it a day then.
When it came time to pull pallets, we had minimum help. At a quarter to midnight, we finally were able to start unloading the truck. The second pallet of dog/cat food was about my height, and a real pain to pull out. Once it finally started moving, the worst sound you can ever hear when taking something like that out hit my ears. What would that be? The sound of dog food pouring when there's no bowl.
Once I got it away from the wall, I discovered a whole in one of the bags (in the middle, naturally) as long as my forearm. Couldn't tape it up in there so I tried pulling it out first. That didn't work either. Got stuck, as we sometimes do, on the lip of the ramp. When that happens, you either push it back and pull fast or attempt to get it out by sheer will force. Neither worked. After Aaron returned from pulling something, we tried together but that was made of fail too. Just ended up aggravating the hole in the dog food bag more. We figured out why we couldn't move it though- half the pallet was starting to lean back the opposite way, making it impossible.
Management came back to help, with the pallet jack meant for the real heavy lifting. Only it didn't work out well either. Actually, it just ended up knocking the leaning half of the pallet backwards and onto the floor. Yep- there went more loose dog food. >.<
It took Aaron and I several minutes just to restack those. Then he pulled while I tried to sweep it up. That took twenty minutes in itself. The bag was two-thirds emptied by the time we could get to it. The people who load those trucks up to send to us are horribly careless. It's really getting on my nerves.
Anyways, so it was really getting late by the time we were back to pulling. And we hadn't done backstock or sweeping yet either. Ben said it would help out if we could stay a little longer, but Aaron bailed at one (he's gotten talked to about overtime before and thus avoids it like hell). I, on the other hand, chose to stick behind and at least make the back room look somewhat decent. I got everything else off of the truck and swept, not bothering with back stock. Even so, it was nearly an hour of overtime. Yeah, not good. Got to work that off. I plan on going home early on the next no truck day.
I'm so glad the schedules change tomorrow. Paul, Sue, and Kathy from the other shift will now be working on ours from here on out. Without the overlap, unloading the truck will be harder, but we'll be able to pull faster, too. And I hear we're getting two more people, too.
Ick. I'm sleepy and sore and now I'm going to bed.