This year's Peak season was...interesting. I can't say if it was better or worse than last year's, because they all suck.
One thing that was done differently this year was that instead of having a full night shift crew running the Pick Rings and master carton conveyors, they just had some people picking various kinds of master carton pallets, and they needed some QAs to audit the PTPs (pick to pallet). The night shift started on the week of October 10th. I worked night shift that week to train the two QAs who were going to be on that shift. I have the knowledge, but I do not have the people skills to train people properly. These two people were dumb as rocks, and not good listeners. They were also husband and wife. I was so underwhelmed by their progress at the end of the week that I did not feel comfortable leaving them alone, but I had to go back to A-Shift the following week. I kept track of their work while I was on A-Shift, and was appalled at how much stuff they fucked up.
On one of my days off during the first week of November, my boss texted me saying that they needed an experienced QA on night shift, and asked if I could do it. I said, "Sure!" I knew that they needed someone there to keep an eye on the two knuckleheads, as well as deal with stuff that's beyond their area of expertise. I had been looking forward to having my birthday off that week, but I was now going to have to work it, but figured it would be alright as long as I got to celebrate that weekend. Anyway, these people forgot just about everything I taught them, including stuff that I wrote down for them. I'm not even sure what they did with the notes. I found out sometime that Wednesday that we were supposed to work overtime that Friday night. I ultimately decided that, hey, they've got these two people, I'll just call in Friday night. On the morning of my birthday, my boss texted me to tell me that the knuckleheads' assignment ended, so I was going to be alone on night shift. I didn't have a problem not working with the knuckleheads, but I wasn't thrilled about having to rearrange plans for that weekend. We had jack shit to do on the night of my birthday. I asked one of the supervisors if OT was still on for Friday, and he said it was canceled. I was more than happy to have Friday off, but pissed because I had rearranged plans to accommodate for it.
There were three people left on A-Shift, two guys that I liked, and one guy that I can't stand, I'll just refer to him as Dingleberry. We ended up losing the two guys that I liked on the week of my birthday. One guy quit before the week started, the other guy...died at the end of the week. I was really heartbroken about that guy dying, I had worked with him for a good chunk of the past three years, and he was one of my favorite people there. We were both grumpy old men (he was around 60), and I enjoyed talking to him about all the morons that worked there. I tend to get to work about 45 minutes to an hour early, and this guy was almost always there before me! It's weird not seeing his truck or SUV there when I come in.
I feel compelled to tell the whole story of the Saturday and Sunday of my birthday weekend. That Saturday afternoon, I went to meet up with a friend at a coffee shop, and was looking forward to having that entire Saturday and Sunday morning ahead of me. When I got to the coffee shop, I saw a text from my boss saying they needed me back on A-Shift because our guy had a heart attack while at work, and that it wasn't looking too good, and said I could start on either Sunday or Monday morning due to the short notice. I chose Monday morning. Two hours later, boss texted me to let me know that he died. I ended up sleeping Saturday night, and got up on Sunday morning looking forward to having all of Sunday ahead of me. Just after 10:00 a.m., the A-Shift Outbound manager texts me asking if I can call him, so I called him. He said that he still needed someone to do PTP audits on nights and that he was going to talk to my boss about it, and asked if I could come in that night. I was like, "Sure." So much for having all of Sunday ahead of me. I was actually about ready for a nap around the time that he called, and I had no problem going to bed at noon. The problem was that I could only sleep about two or three hours at best, so I was kind of tired and cranky when I came in.
I got to have the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving off. I would've rather worked Wednesday night and had Thanksgiving night off, but I understand that Thanksgiving night leads into Black Friday, and I guess they have to start getting their Black Friday shit out as early as possible.
During that first week that I was on night shift in November, I managed to miss out on a meeting they had which was about their plans for the weeks of Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The knuckleheads told me that they would be running the entire conveyors, meaning the master cartons and Pick Rings, which I knew was going to be a nightmare. I asked the guy who was managing night shift about it, and he said they were just going to run this one particular area that doesn't affect me a whole lot, so I was relieved. But that turned out to be a lie, they did run master cartons and the Pick Rings for most of those two weeks, and it was a nightmare. But by the end of the Cyber Monday week, they let most of the people go.
The next week was supposed to be my last week on night shift, it would technically end at the end of the shift on the morning of Friday the 10th. The 11th was A-Shift's Saturday to work, and my boss wanted me to come in that morning. That would barely leave me with 24 hours between the end of one shift and the start of another. I called in that Thursday night so I could have 48 hours to transition back to day shift. We ended up having historically bad weather on the night of the 10th and morning of the 11th. I slept like shit due to my phone waking me up to tornado warnings, but due to having to work, I was like, fuck it, I'm staying in bed, if the building collapses on me, it collapses on me. We lost power for about two hours, and that really didn't help me sleep, either. I was supposed to be at work at 6:00 a.m., but while the worst of the storms might have been over by that time, it was still supposed to rain pretty hard, and things in general just sounded like a mess, so I called in saying I'd come in at 10:00. When I came in, fucking nothing was working right. There wasn't even any internet for the first twenty minutes that I was there. Things were working slightly better on Sunday, but it was a nightmare. Hell, that whole week was a nightmare, I guess it was like the last big push to get stuff into stores before Christmas, especially to Latin America. For those few weeks that I was on night shift, they had B-Shift come in on their weekends to fill the void left by the two guys they lost, and they hired a new girl for A-Shift before I came back. Even though we were still short one person this week, the boss decided not to have anyone from B-Shift come in since I was back. I trained a new girl on Monday. She said she would be back on Tuesday, but she wasn't. And our woman who works Monday through Friday called in on Tuesday, that really sucked. I was really glad for that week to be over.
As expected, we get Christmas Day off, which I'm doubly glad for since it lands on a Saturday that A-Shift would have to work. I haven't heard anything about New Year's weekend yet.
