I was hoping to make it out to the Austin TX area to visit my brother before the Peak Season at work hit, but I still didn't feel like I had enough money for the trip, even after my sizable backpay check. But that's okay, because my brother decided to come up to Kentucky on the second-to-last weekend of July, his first trip up here since 2019. I was originally planning on just trying to get that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off, which Monday was absolutely necessary because I had to drive my brother to the airport. But then I decided to request that Tuesday off as well, since I had hoped to take a whole week off before the Peak season, and figured I might as well make it that week. In reality, it was more like a week and a half off. It was really nice getting to spend time with my brother, and really nice not having to deal with work for a week and a half.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were supposed to be rainy days, so I decided to work on some stuff in my apartment. I've got plenty of boxes lying around, and I refer to the decor of my apartment as, "I stopped unpacking when I went back to work." I really didn't do a lot toward cleaning up the place, but what little I did do was quite a bit of work. One of my biggest jobs was setting up my turntable and cassette deck, which I have hooked up to a DJ mixer that's hooked up to the Line In jack on my computer. When it was set up, I could tell that there was sound going to the mixer, but no sound was coming out of the speakers. After some searching, I discovered that I need to set up my Line In jack to be outputted through the speakers, instead of whatever the hell they were set to go out to. I played some records and tapes to test with. At one point, I put in my Judas Priest "Unleashed In The East" tape in, and the deck fucking ate it! Thankfully, it's a dual cassette deck, so I still have the other side to play tapes with. But after all that, I was like, "Fuck it, I'm done for the day." I have a story as to why I was wanting to listen to that particular tape, but I'll save that for last.
I went out on Friday night to an event where Goth and Industrial music was being played. I had so much fun! I ended that week in a good mood, but I knew going back to work would ruin that.
Sunday: It was raining pretty hard on my drive to work, and I absolutely hate driving in the rain, so the rain made going back to work even more horrible than if it had been dry out. And there were only two of us QAs there that Sunday. I ended up having to cover two distinct areas. Just working in either one of those areas will wear you out after a while, but going back and forth between them both will wear you out real quick! The entire Outbound department got to leave three and a half hours early. I think Inbound was staying until 6:30. I had plenty of work to do on the dock, so I could've stayed the whole day to work on it, but I was so exhausted by 3:00 that I just left then. I was in bed by 7:00 that night.
Monday: A girl who started the previous Tuesday and didn't show up on Sunday actually showed up on Monday. We also had a new girl show up at the beginning of the day, which shocked the hell out of us because our brand new people usually don't come in until 8:00 or so. We decided that I'd train the newest girl in one of the other areas until 8:00 when our boss came in, who would then tell us where to go. He decided to keep me training her, and he was going to have the Monday-Friday woman work on the dock until she left at 4:30, to which I would take over on the dock then. But sometime before lunch, he asked me if I felt like she'd be comfortable working on her own after lunch. God damn, there is a hell of a lot to learn in any given area, it took me at least a week to get comfortable with it when I started! I started off by showing her what we do and how to do it, and had barely gotten her to get some practice in by the time he asked me that. So I was pretty much like, "Hell no!" I trained her until 4:30, showing her one of the other main areas when things were slow in the area I was training her in. Taking over the dock at 4:30 was a fucking nightmare, and I got a massive headache. The headache was made worse when some dumbass new woman who thought we were scheduled to leave at 6:00 asked me what we do at 6:00. I told her that we work until 6:30, and we only leave at 6:00 if one of the higher ups tells us we can leave at 6:00. She said her husband and kids were waiting outside, and I'm like, "That's not my problem." She said she'd have to check her paperwork again because she swore that it only said she'd be there until 6:00. Needless to say, she didn't return the next day.
Tuesday: Tuesdays are almost always the worst day of the work week, like I'm being fucked with no lube, thus I call them Lubeless Tuesdays. I also got a massive headache on this day. One thing I absolutely hate is being sent to multiple areas in a day, and I ended up working in four different areas this Tuesday. Getting into the dock groove is especially hard, I do my best work there when I start and end my day there. My boss's original plan for me on Tuesday was to have me get the trainee squared away in the first half hour, then have me go to the area of another account to take pictures of some pallets that were getting ready to ship out, and the Monday-Friday woman would work on the dock. I actually started helping out in the area that I always go to first, then tried to get my trainee squared away before heading to the other account. I could barely get anything done there because my trainee had a lot of questions that I tried to answer via e-mail. At one point, I just gave up with the e-mail and went there to show her what to do. At our meeting after our first break, it was determined that the Monday-Friday guy who usually does audits in the other account would be going to another building that's supposedly even more understaffed than we are, and I'd be doing the audits in the other account after I was done taking pictures. About an hour later, we got an e-mail from our boss saying that I'd be going to the dock after lunch, and the Monday-Friday woman would be going to do audits in another section. Fuck me running! I was really hoping she'd be on the dock all day, especially since we had so many "hubs" shipping out that day. These hubs are the bane of my existence, since I'm supposed to take pictures of every single fucking one before they go on the trucks, and then take one picture when they're in the trucks. To add insult to injury, I think it was about 10:30-ish when the Monday-Friday woman e-mailed me asking if I could go to the dock and finish one of the hub trucks for her, because she still hadn't taken her 10:00 break. Things were so hectic there that I never made it back to the other account. And they started loading a hub truck right around my lunch time (12:00). I didn't even go to lunch until almost 1:30. Just as I was getting ready to go to lunch, I got an e-mail from my trainee saying that she knew I was busy, but if I could come help her out at some point. I wasn't just busy, I was overwhelmed! I apologized, and told her that I was just now going to lunch. I sent her an e-mail much later asking about the problem, but I didn't get a reply, and I never made it out to her. I usually pick up Taco Bell on my way home on Tuesdays (Taco Bell Tuesdays!), but I was so tired by the end of that day that I didn't bother, and went to bed by 8:00.
It occurred to me that I probably should've looked for another job while I was out, but I was too busy doing shit with the apartment. Besides, I need to go to the dentist before I look for another job. I realized that I'm paying about $30 per paycheck for dental insurance, so I better fucking use it!
Whew! So, back to the Judas Priest tape. I bought it in 1997 at a gas station that some friends worked at. I bought the remastered CD in 2005, only for the bonus tracks. The Judas Priest remasters are notoriously bad, the only one that's supposedly come out good was the 30th Anniversary Edition of "Turbo". Every time I listened to the "Unleashed In The East" CD, I thought to myself, "I do seem to remember the tape sounding better." So the reason why I was wanting to listen to it last week was to hear if it sounded anywhere near as good as I remembered, but it didn't get far before the player ate it.
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