Can't WAIT to switch jobs
The story
Just finished an interview yesterday for a Seasonal Team Associate position in a Bloomingdales outlet. You might be asking why am I telling you this?
The reason: Just realized I (M24) don't want to be in my current job any longer. That one certain day (a week ago - November 3rd) was a wake-up call for me to find full-time work!
Those who know or don't know, I've been working as a package handler for over a year now. It wasn't an ideal job for a college graduate but it does pay well. Just head to the warehouse and sort out packages (boxes/mailbags) - simple easy stuff. I couldn't find any "writer" positions that would hire me, based on my BA English degree (only volunteer work at a rare news organization online and a six-month internship from a publishing company.) How I got hired to the warehouse job was from a call from a recruiter, who had saw my profile on LinkedIn. After a week of orientation in late May, I was accepted around early June. My mood was ecstatic, since my days stuck in front of the computer sending applications had me depressed and anxious at the same.
The pros: The tasks were simple enough. Collect the boxes and mail off the conveyor belt(s) and place them neatly in their designated spots, based on their sort code. Another part is scanning them to put the sort labels on, as to help the people on "the slide" to put which ones on which belt.
The cons: Unloading is such a pain in the ass. Going inside the trailer to get the boxes should be a duo team since it can be stuffy in there, depending on the weather outside. But for some dumb reason, the lead can also just have a single person to handle the entire heap (having flashbacks of hardly breathing one time, I choose to leave early.) Oh, and don't get me started with handling irregs. They're seem easy at first, but the weight makes it more difficult - no matter what type of pallet jack you use. Some people stack them quick but poorly, so it's easy to have some stuff fall off despite being you being careful with it.
That's enough about my likes and dislikes. Let me tell you the important stuff: We're in the middle of peak season since the holidays are coming in. Last year, we usually start at 4:30 or 5 in the morning to handle large volumes (only on Sundays, we start at 7 or 7:30 to deal with small stuff.) On normal months, 6 or 6:30/6:45 have medium volumes. The only thing they have in common is that the sorters' shift ends at 10 or 10:30 (depending on how much we get done, so that the delivery drivers can get their stuff and leave. But this month, one week ago: that Tuesday (November 3rd) changed everything.
It was a normal day with a medium volume. For somewhat reason, the belt is pretty slow and things weren't hectic when I expected it. At first, I thought the people from the slide were going easy on us since things are going to get more busy as the holidays are going get us more busy than ever. As soon as 10 am hits the clock, the delivery vans were already here picking up their loads from our stacks. I looked up to see if the "slide" people have left. Surprisingly they're still here, which I found odd. There shouldn't be anymore stuff to stack, until I heard saw what had me concern the most:
A heap of small boxes and mailbags popped onto the belt!
I could've sworn this is some last minute stuff from a single dock, my mind playing tricks on me straight out of a psychological horror movie. Turns out -- it's all real. By the time we started to continue collect the remaining things, my feet were already aching and my head is beyond exhausted - trying to figure things out. Things finally came to an end until the clock hits 12 pm -- THE START OF THE AFTERNOON, way past the scheduled end! I had a talk with one of the supervising lead and he said that the reason why everyone stayed is that we don't have enough people in unload to pick up the pace. That was my breaking point. I would let it slide, EXCEPT we just had NEW HIRES weeks ago!! We couldn't be shorthanded because AGAIN, we just had more fresh faces coming in to help and that was near the end of August.
We had similar incidents that had us working almost near 12 BUT only because of two late trailers on August 9th and 11th. Because of that, part-timers decided to quit on the spot - especially people who I know. When I talked to my mother about it, she was confused and annoyed saying that I just worked "overtime" -- adding on that I need to adapt to changes. EXCEPT, OVERTIME is only people volunteer to cleanup PAST working hours, not DURING working hours. Money isn't worth shit if it's costing me the expense of my body and mental health.
Honestly, I hope the store lead from Bloomingdale email me and say I'm hired. Manual labor just became my worst mistake. Once my saving grace, yet gave me more stress than ever before. Current economy is such a joke...
