“Work is a necessary evil to be
avoided.”
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
My father was a working man. He drove taxis, owned one of
the first White Castles (where he worked 20 hours a day), was a printer and a
stripper. Pause – A stripper is a printing job where negatives are stripped
together to make a plate. It’s pretty much no more with the advent of
computerized publishing.
Anyhow, he urged me to avoid, at all costs, “honest work”
– backbreaking labor jobs. And so,
like Mark Twain, I became a writer; not nearly as good, but good enough to earn
a living for most of my life.
These days, I write what I damn well feel like. And having
avoided “honest work” for decades, I was completely unprepared to endure it in
my 66th year.
For the past few years, I have grown a beard and dressed
in red sweatshirts and a Santa hat. This year was different. I became on of
Santa’s helpers, so to speak, working for Amazon, the giant on-line retailer. I
spent most of November and December at one of the company’s distribution
centers in Campbellsville, Kentucky doing very, very “honest work.”
Top: Outside of huge Amazon warehouse in Campbellsville, KY.
Bottom: Camperforce Logo, which is on Tee shirts and other items Amazon gives it campers.
Amazon, like most retailers, hires extra help for the
holidays. They have a special operation in Kentucky, Kansas and Nevada called
“Camperforce.” They discovered that full-time RVers are excellent employees who
have excellent attendance and are more concerned with the quality of their work
than many temps. And so they not only pay you to work for them, but also pay
for your campsite at a local RV park.
Going in, I knew it was going to be tough. They said I
could be walking ten miles or more during a ten hour shift, never being off
your feet except during breaks. There was also a lot of lifting involved. I had
been walking three miles daily all summer and I thought I was ready for it.
But Amazon knows its business and they spend a couple of
weeks “hardening” you. You spend your first week in a combination of training
and then working at your assignment for five hours a day. That is followed by
seven hours the next week before hitting the ten-hour/five-day work schedule.
And while I was not happy with not earning the money I expected the first two
weeks, if they hadn’t done it that way, I probably wouldn’t have made it.
I wound up packing single-item purchases, usually toys and
electronics, and it is incredible how Amazon has perfected its work stations.
All orders are on computer and as you input the item, it tells you the
(usually) correct box size. An automatic packing tape dispenser is at your
station and it will provide you with the right amount of tape for the box size
the computer calls for. There is also a small printer for packing slips and you
place a bar-code sticker on the box and scan it to have it addressed at the
next station along the way before being shipped.
This is no small operation. The Campbellsville plant has
miles of walkways and several tiers and it will put out more than 200,000
packages in one ten-hour shift. And it’s not even close to being Amazon’s
largest distribution center.
Anyhow, we are encouraged to keep moving faster. In my
first week, I was doing around 35 to 40 packages per hour. I was up to around
63 on a good day; though as fatigue set in over the course of the prime-time
packing activities, I usually did around 55. Many of the people who work here
year round can easily do 90 packages per hour. The other day, we had some
people from another department help us. The person who worked opposite me was
doing 78 packages. I guess the main reason is because they are simply younger
and have better endurance than we workampers, most of who are retired. Almost every day, there are contests for packers, with the top ones getting everything from coins for the vending machines to gift certificates. I won some coins and was pleased to get a $5 Kroger gift card.
By the time we hit mid-December, three weeks after “Black
Friday” and “Cyber Monday,” shipping was non-stop. Earlier, we had periods of
light activity. But mid-December is when the shipping is at its highest. People
are ensuring delivery in time for Christmas and the work just doesn’t end. You
end the shift with, seemingly, as much work as you had when you started it. The
plant stops running for an hour while the day shift (6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
leaves and the night shift arrives.
The Camperforce team’s social dynamics also changed. As we
began working, breaks and lunches were lively and chatty. But towards the end,
everyone was dead tired and we often just stared at one another. There were
some days when I just wanted to quit. I was exhausted. But I also wanted to
keep my word and kept it up. I did go home a couple of hours early one day
because I simply couldn’t stand up any longer. But most of us picked up after
we got word when our last day would be. While we were obligated to be available
until the 23rd, the last day for most of us was the 19th. Just after we left, there were major problems with FedEx and UPS and many packages did not arrive in time for Christmas but Amazon had nothing to do with it.
I had expected to lose weight during this experience. I
actually gained a few pounds! It was a result of all the lifting I was doing. I
was building back muscles I hadn’t used in years. But it was a very good thing.
My left knee has no ACL, the result of a high school sports injury about 50
years before. It is stronger than I can remember. In 2004, I suffered a number
of neck, shoulder and arm injuries in an accident that left me quite weak. I am
very optimistic about this. I was unable to throw a ball overhead or swim crawl
or butterfly strokes without pain. Now I am hopeful I can do so.
But I still agree with ole Sam and I’m going to avoid this
type of work for a while, until next holiday season anyhow. I wonder if the
same thing happens to Santa?
