Saturday, February 4 - Amazon (Mercedes, TX)

 

Lots of people have asked us about our work experience at Amazon, so I thought I would write a little about my experience.

We worked there for 12 weeks – Starting October 2 – Ending December 22.

The 1st day was orientation. We sat in a room with about 40 other people and listened to all the rules and regulations, watched video on sexual harassment, and signed employment paperwork. One document was a confidentially agreement. I did not read this agreement, so hopefully I am not breaking any rules with this entry.

They put out pastries and coffee in the morning. A light lunch of mini sandwiches and veggie – Most people brought there own lunch and cookies in the afternoon.

We were escorted to have our photo taken for our badges, as you couldn’t go anywhere without a badge.

Late in the day after our badges were made we were taken on a tour of the plant. This warehouse is 1.275 million square feet. With my directional skills I was lost before we left the HR department.

Our 1st day lasted 9 1/2 hours…. It was a long day.

Our schedule was Sun-Thurs 6:00-4:30off on Fri, Sat and Sun.

Our department was UNBOUND and we “stowed” products into bins.

Our 2nd day was training. We had to be punched in and ready to work at 6:00am in the “Stand-up” area. It was an area with numbers on the floor. You stood on a number so they could easily count the number of people present. Announcements were made and they told you the number of products expected in that day. You were also made to do stretching exercises. It all was a rah-rah prep talk.

We were trained by a wonderful young lady. She was very friendly, patient and informative. Most of the employees that I came in contact with were very nice and happy to have us there.

The training was long and standing in one place on your feet all day was really hard on me. There were four other people in my training class besides Jesse and I. Gary, Bob, and Loretta and Norm. They were really great people and we stayed friends during the whole 12 weeks. We would have lunch together and when possible breaks.

Our 1st break was at 9:15 am and you were to get 15 minutes, but by the time you walked to the break room-went through security you maybe got 7 to 10 minutes.

Lunch was at 12:30-1:00 and again you walked to the lunch room - went through security and needed to be back at stand-up punched in and ready to work at 1:00 pm so you only got about 23-25 minutes.

Last break in the day was wonderful. It was at 3:00 so but the time you got back to work there was only 1 1/4 hour left until the day ended.

Stowing sounds simple. You took the items off the cart or out of the tote and placed it in a bin.

But there are rules… Only 4 different items were allowed in a bin. You could put as many items of each of the 4 different items as would fit in a bin. That was fairly easy in the beginning, but as we got closer to Christmas the bins had become very full. You couldn’t put like items within 3 feet of each other in bins.

After the first week of this I knew this was not for me. The biggest problem was it was HOT in the warehouse. I do not like being HOT!

To be continued