Sunday, October 20, 2013

Getting Paid to Work Out

October 19, 2013


The second week is OVER – only 9 weeks to go!!!  This was our first full 40 hour week over a 4 day period.  That standing, squatting, scanning, bending, lifting, carrying, pushing for 10 hours a day gets pretty wearing long about 4 pm in the afternoon.  But we survived it.  Treated ourselves to pints out and some jalapeno cheese fries at the Frontier Fun Center which happens to be right next door to our RV park.

We muse about the differences in this type of work – private industry where every minute that an employee works is counted and measured – versus government industry which we both used to work in. 

Back then, nobody ever counted the minutes of your break or how many times you went to the bathroom.  Oh yeah, they expected production but it wasn’t fedback to you every day in terms of a percentage.  You could actually “relax” at times, have a conversation with your co-workers.  Shoot the shit.

At the Big A, its run-run-run from the time you punch the clock.  First its morning “stand up” – a meeting of your department where they remind you of safety factors, show you yesterday’s (or the current days) production percentages, how many products are coming in that day,and generally give you the “rah, rah, go get ‘em” speech.  Then we stretch.  Yes, someone up on a catwalk leads the stretching – we move our heads to the left, to the right, bend our hands and fingers in unnatural ways, circle our hips, squat, etc.  This is to limber us up for what’s to come.  Believe me, by the end of the day, you are wanting to stretch you’re so sore and bound up!

What kind of people work at A?  Apparently all kinds.  Big, small, tall, short, fat, thin, young, old, middle aged, women, men, probably transsexuals too, blondes, redheads, bluehairs, purple hairs, shocking pink hairs, blacks, Hispanics, Asians,   One of our supervisors is from Argentina!  There are a lot of work campers right now – mostly older folks who want to supplement their incomes – but there’s also a lot of younger people, some who have been with the company up to 10 years.  We wonder WHY do people work here when they could work…..hmmm, at a casino, fast food, gas station???  OK, I get it – this is one of the best employment ops around this area and it actually pays about 1/3 more than minimum wage.

If you think of it as someone paying you to get in shape….well, it’s a good deal.


9 more weeks to go.  This next week we are going to do a day of OVERTIME!

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