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Al and I are thrilled that you have found your way to our blog. We hope you enjoy reading our journal and viewing our photographs of the natural wonder of our United States of America. Let's hit the road together!
Homer, Alaska

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Just Elf'ing Along

Another fun-filled week at Amazon is on the books. Speaking of elves, has anyone seen this Elf on the Shelf? I've been packing many boxes with these in them, and I had to look it up...I guess if I had kids I would know about it! Anyway, supposedly this elf sits in your house and keeps an eye on you to see if you've been naughty or nice, and reports back to Santa. Personally, I think the idea is just a tad creepy, but hey, what do I know? Kind of like a tattle-tale thing to me!

So, we had an exciting start to our work week on Friday (Friday is my Monday!). I break the night into quarters...first quarter goes to first break, second quarter goes to meal break, third quarter goes to second break, and last quarter goes to quitting time...little games I make with myself to get through the night :-). Anyway, I'm packing away on my cart halfway through first quarter, and actually Al had just stopped by my cart to let me know he arrived and would see me at meal break. I heard the manager speaking on the PA system, but truthfully, all I hear is what I call the "Charlie Brown schoolteacher voice"...waa-wa-waa-wa-waa...know what I mean? I can never understand a word they say, just figure if they want me, they know where to find me :-). So I glance up the row, and see folks leaving their carts, and one of the assistants "walking swiftly" (you never never ever run in the warehouse!) down the aisle. As he got closer we heard him say, "there's a fire in the building, leave immediately through the front break room". Well, you don't have to tell me twice...unfortunately, I did leave my sweatshirt hanging on the cart as it was warm and I didn't think about grabbing it. What was odd, though, was the fire alarms in the building hadn't gone off...I later found out they had been pulled, and did work in the fact that the fire department was notified, but the alarms didn't go off. All in all the evacuation was quite orderly and no panic, thank goodness. Once out in the parking area, you have to report to your specified area and check in with the managers. Once the plant has been evacuated, the order to return cannot be given until every single person that was in the building has been accounted for. We'd been outside for quite awhile and everyone was getting pretty chilly...it wasn't a really cold night thank goodness, but I would say it was in the upper thirties, maybe low forties, dark, and it was getting cold just having a t-shirt on! Soon they were cracking out the emergency blankets and handing them out to everyone. Al was one of those handing them out, and he came over to make sure that I and the others I have become friendly with had gotten blankets. That's when we found out it wasn't a fire, but there had been a bomb threat and that is why they had to evacuate the building, and they couldn't clear everyone to return until the building had been searched. Why do people do stupid things like that? We heard that couple hours cost Amazon a half a million dollars in lost time, wages, orders, etc. If the person who made the threat is ever caught, its a federal offense, not to mention terrorism!

The rest of my work week was fairly uneventful. It is getting busier packing, although we were given voluntary time off the last quarter Sunday night. Yay, home at 2:30AM instead of 4:30AM :-)! There's no overtime this week for my shift on Wednesday night either. Plenty of time for my feet and shoulders to recover before starting again Friday!

Not too much else is going on. Dinners have become more simple as we don't have as much time to prepare..although I may prepare a couple things ahead of time that we just need to reheat over the weekend.  So there is no exciting recipes for me to share at this time. I did buy a new cookbook, "America's Test Kitchen Slow Cooker Revolution". I like these cookbooks as they do a lot of testing of recipes before publishing, give you reasons why they do what they do in the recipe, and also tell you what brands of ingredients they find to work and taste the best. I'm trying their loaded baked potato soup recipe tonight.

Its been pretty warm the past week...its nice when its in the fifties at night...not as much propane usage! We do have two electric heaters, a larger infrared heater that we use in the living area, and a small ceramic heater that we put in the hallway. They work very well together ( Al did have to do a little rewiring and put a new outlet in so we didn't pop breakers), but I'm too nervous to leave them on while we're sleeping...do many of you leave them on all the time when its cold out?

Well, as we figure it, we have about 18 days left, about 12 working days...but who's counting? So keep those orders coming in...the time passes much quicker when I'm busy! We'll see what I have to report next week....thanks for hanging in there with us while we have no interesting travel stories to tell!

20 comments:

  1. Does this mean my 'Elf on the Shelf' will be late? seriously, I'm glad it was a false alarm.

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  2. We have a fake fireplace heater and two ceramic heaters. We do leave them on at night when it is really cold. We just make sure they are not close to anything that could combust.

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  3. We do leave our electric heaters on while sleeping but I make sure there is nothing Emmi has access to which she could drag over too close to the heaters. I enjoy hearing about your work adventures. On another blog I was reading yesterday, a lady said, "it must be really busy at the Amazon packing places." Then she showed a photo of a box she received--all her stuff was in the box but the ceramic plate she ordered wasn't even wrapped or boxed--just tucked in with everything else--it survived. :)

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    1. Janna,all depends on how the packer receives the item for packing. We have no "prep" materials. It drives me crazy to have identical items packaged differently. Like I had 4 coffee cups the other night. Three were nicely prepped, wrapped in bubble wrap and quite protected. The fourth was just the cup, no prep! If I have breakable items, I put a layer of "cello bags" on the bottom of the box before putting the items in, and try to wrap them more securely in the "cello". I'm not sure that all packers take the same care, though :-).

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  4. Laughed when you talked about announcements. I could never understand anything they said. Weather here in Florida is great! Keep those boxes coming!

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  5. We use two small electric heaters as the main heat source in our motorhome. We have the propane furnace set at a low temperature as backup. So far, this method has worked well with temps as low as the mid-20's. We leave our ceiling vents cracked to help with moisture control (dealer's suggestion), and we do use all of our heating sources while we sleep. Thanks for sharing your adventures....really enjoy your posts.

    Selene, NC

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  6. Time will fly now! You're almost done.

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  7. We would never leave an electric heater on. I'm glad the alarm was a false alarm.

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  8. We have an electric heater which we connect to a seperate extension cord that is plugged into the additional plug at the electric post. Rigth now we only have 30amp so that additional electric connection allows us to leave it on and still run other appliance!

    We leave it on all the time when the temps are below 55. It has a temp contoller and shuts itself off when the coach is warm:o)

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  9. Good thing it was a false alarm, or a lot of shipments would have been up in smoke! We have a thermostat controlled space heater that we use in the bedroom. Keeps it toasty if needed. We also leave our fireplace going in the living room. Haven't needed too many other ones on our travels yet. George has a small one that he plugs into the basement compartment if needed, again thermostat controlled.

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  10. We leave our ele heaters on all night and so far so good.

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  11. A lady from our church had an Elf on the Shelf for her son. I thought it was weird too. I hope they catch the thugs that did this to Amazon. What is this world coming to is really scary!

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  12. Grateful it was a false alarm. What a horrid thing to put everyone through!
    Elf on the shelf must be very popular. It's plastered all over my Amazon home page trying to tempt me :)
    I got a package from Amazon by UPS today and it was shipped from KY. I visualized you packing it :) Gotta keep you busy :)

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  13. Are you guys going to stop in Homosasssa for a while? Leaving East Hampton in early January.

    Stuyvie

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    1. Yes, we'll be in Sugarmill Woods from Christmas to early April. Definitely send me an email and we'll get together this winter.

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  14. Wow that is terrible to pull such a prank. Very costly two hours. We use our heater when we are awake but use an electric blanket when we sleep. The heater cycling on and off wakes me up (I'm a ridiculously light sleeper) and it makes it too warm if I don't set it at a specific temperature. Of course I'm not above the Mason/Dixon line either. :-) But we've had some cool temperatures.

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  15. I remember well those "quarters". That's exactly the same thing Judy and I did last year. We've talked about doing another "Amazon stint" in the future, however, it would only be for Nov/Dec and we would have to get ourselves in shape first. We found the inventory control "job" to be very physical with all the ups and downs. Most likely we'd get ourselves up to walking 15 to 20 miles a day and ask for picking. Anyway, hope you guys have a good Christmas season at Amazon and a Merry Christmas.

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    1. I think one of the better places to work would be Single Toys, although I've never been assigned there. Why? No excessive mileage put on, packing is all single items, there's a fatigue mat for you to stand on (it makes a big difference!)and they bring the orders to you (no fighting for chutes in packing!). I agree, ICQA was very rough on the knees, back and shoulders. That being said, you know as well as I do, once you are assigned a department, it takes an act of God to get you changed to somewhere else :-)!

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  16. What an ordeal... You know, forget the bombs, a group of terrorists could literally bring this country to a standstill with a few hundred phone calls a day.
    Box Canyon Mark

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