Unusual Day

It was 7 am when someone came to get me while I was stowing my second cart for the day to go work in the Prep area. That was not so unusual, but moving me to do prep work without Josie was unusual. She looks forward to being called to work that duty as she prefers that to stowing as a nice break from the normal routine. That was the way it was all day - I worked in Prep, and Josie stowed product all day.

Occasionally, the work force catches up on all the work to be performed for that day, and management will ask people if they would like to leave work early. That happened yesterday, and by 2 PM yesterday the place looked like it closed down entirely. It appeared that the only people still working were the workampers who work as many hours as they can. We've never seen the warehouse with so few workers. We probably would have considered leaving early except that it would have been costly for us to leave. With the overtime day we worked on Tuesday, any hours that we didn't work yesterday would take away from the time we worked overtime on Tuesday. There was no way we would allow that to happen. See, the work week is from Sunday to Saturday, so the overtime day really isn't credited until the end of work on Saturday when the total hours for the week are calculated. We really have to work all day Saturday, a normal work day, in order to get credit for the extra hours worked on the overtime day. In other words, our 40 hours for the week were completed yesterday, and today is actually the extra 10 hours for overtime.

We saw the couple we worked with in Grey's Point yesterday - Theresa and Larry - and they really lucked out with their job assignments. They will be performing jobs that are probably the most sedentary jobs you can get at the company. It is in the Quality Control area where they will spend each day performing bin counts to verify content. There are no heavy carts to deal with, walking long distances during the day, or pressure to perform against established goals. They also were assigned to the day shift on Wed - Sat, which is another great shift to work. It's all in the timing I guess. We do enjoy working the weekend days though, as there are fewer people working the weekends, and they are more enjoyable and less stressful days.

Yesterday also saw us get neighbors in the campground. A couple arrived in a fifth wheel and proceeded to set up their rig - 3 feet over the line and into our space. We had to point that out to them so they had to disconnect everything, hook up the fifth wheel and move it another 3 feet away in order to be within the boundary. Their slide out was almost up against our awning before they moved to the proper location. They seem like nice people though, and they indicated that they had the exact same spot last year and it wasn't nearly as level as it is this year. The work that the owners have done to this park during the year has had a major impact on the quality of the campground.

The report on Austin's football game last night, from what I can read on the Naperville link, has his team beating their nemesis, Neuqua Valley (Michael's old team), 27-21 in overtime. Austin was instrumental in the win with a clutch, 16 yard 4th and 11 catch to keep the tying touchdown drive alive late in the 4th quarter. He also had an 80 yard touchdown run in the first half. Way to go Austin!

It's nice to know that we only have the normal 3 days remaining this week. Working 5 ten hour days each of the last 2 weeks has taken its toll on us and we are ready for an extra day off...