September 19, 2013

  • Always Exhausted

    Lately, I've been trying to adjust to my new job. I've been learning a lot about my job and I'm getting better and better at it, but I've had blisters on my right foot ever since I started working there and they really hurt. If I didn't have blisters and my steel toe boots were comfortable, I probably wouldn't have such a bad time. I don't know why I decided to shop at Wal-Mart because I really hate that place, but I really didn't have much of a choice considering I was doing last minute shopping. I would've gotten decent steel toe boots at Payless, but they were out and the only ones they had on display were actually different size shoes.

    But that was my mistake, and I really don't want to buy another 50 dollar pair of boots until I save up some money.

    One of the worst things I dislike about the job is the unreliable people who tell you where to put things. Probably about 70% of the time, the people I'm looking for are not around to tell me where to put things so I'm pretty much standing in the middle of the area looking around and wasting time. I probably spend more time waiting than actually working, and I'm sure everything is documented. They'll look up my score at the corporate office and ask why I'm averaging X amount of product per hour or whatever, and I'll have to explain myself. The company claims that it's about doing the right thing and I haven't found any shady things yet; in fact, just yesterday they cooked hamburgers and hotdogs for us. I went home tired and a hamburger in my lap while I drove back home, so I thought that was really nice. However, doing the right thing decreases your productivity significantly because I could easily just throw stuff in there and use my own judgement, but I'd piss off people.

    Also, when product comes in...they're never really organized. Sometimes they'll be sets of product with a certain code all over the trailer and you have to squeeze through pallets of product to find anything (if you have room). Since you have to scan everything, you can't just throw stuff in trailers and hope it's correct because there's a lot of product that we deal with and we don't want to get in trouble for stuff that we didn't do. If we're short on product, we gotta indicate that we didn't really get it. As you can imagine, you can't really be disorganized and cut around corners. I'm learning tricks here and there but a lot of time is spent waiting and finding product rather than actually transferring product from one trailer to the next. To make matters worse, the people who drive fork lifts may or may not help you. A lot of the time, I'm assigned to a trailer by myself and eventually people are assigned to help me. I just feel really slow sometimes and don't know if I'm doing a good job.

    Sometimes I'll sweat a lot while other times I won't sweat that much. I try to stay hydrated. Having a big bottle of Gatorade really does help but buying Gatorade at the gas station is a costly habit so I try to refrain from it. I supposedly get my first paycheck on Friday so I'll be able to calculate how much money I spend on gas a week and all that stuff. I actually have to pay 500 dollars of car insurance next week so I'll be feeling pretty poor for a little while even though I'm working.

    But at least I have some sort of income coming in because I only had 200 dollars left in my bank account before I'd have absolutely no money. Thankfully, my job hired me so it's giving me an opportunity to build up my resume with actual valuable job experience, and it's more than what I was making at Kroger.

    Recently my dad got into a motorcycle accident. From what he told me, he was driving around the neighborhood and was trying to avoid a car after it pulled out in front of him or something like that and ended up tumbling over a curb. The bike wasn't damaged at all and at the time, he felt he wasn't either until the adrenaline stopped. Apparently he fractured a rib cage and one of his lungs got punctured in the process, so he had difficulty breathing. I woke up a couple days ago around 7 to the sound of keys and a walkie-talkie and I thought my dad had died in his sleep. He's okay though, but he's still in the hospital and probably won't be able to do anything for a couple months which leaves me with a lot of responsibility around the house. I don't have much time to do them besides Tuesday and Thursday morning, so I won't be able to get good amount of sleep. Unless, of course, I decide to go to bed right when I get home from work which is unrealistic. I'm tired but I want to enjoy a can of Coke and some entertainment for a little while. Otherwise, I'm gonna blow up like a balloon with mixed emotions and it's going to cause the weekend to suck because I'd be pissed off. I only get to see my girlfriend for about 58 hours a week. We sleep for about 9 hours, so we only really see each other for 31 hours and spend the rest sleeping next to each other. I'm just glad to be able to relax and enjoy a day off, but the physical exhaustion takes its toll because last weekend...I didn't want to do a damn thing. I just wanted to lay in bed and relax but a relationship doesn't really thrive when you don't do things together. We played some video games, sure, but my girlfriend and I want to go out and view the world but when my muscles ache and my feet hurt...it demotivates me. So that's something that I'll have to learn to deal with.

    Today I'll be visiting my dad in the hospital for a little while and I plan on cleaning my room a little bit since I have a little bit of time afterwards. Due to the time of day that I go to work, I actually have to leave a long time before in order to be on time. When everyone is coming home from work, I'm going to work so there's a lot of traffic. Normally the drive takes about 30 minutes, but it takes me double the time and sometimes more. If I leave at 4:50 PM, I arrive 2-5 minutes early. If I leave at 4:45 PM, I'll be 30 minutes early. 2-5 minutes isn't much to work with because a street light could easily make me late. So I leave around 4:30 PM to 4:40, and that's where my gas mileage suffers; that and I travel to different cities to go to my two Communications classes.

    Both my communications teachers are vastly different and it's very apparent. My 10 AM class Communication teacher doesn't really care a whole lot about her job. Last class, she spent 30 minutes looking over the top 250 movies on IMDB. I've had to wait 2-3 weeks to present my webpage which is great and everything but I really want to get that shit over with. My 2:30 PM class is very fun. I like my teacher because she's very personal with you. The whole class drinks alcohol, even the teacher, and I feel completely out of place.

    That's all for now.