Day 3 at Amazon – Process Training

Location: Campbellsville, KY (High 91, Low 70)

Today was our first day of going to work at 6 am. We are working to retrain our bodies for this new schedule so we went to bed at 8 o’clock last night. We slept pretty good, except we woke up around 3 am. After laying in bed for about 15 minutes, we decided to just get up and have a little more time to enjoy our coffee.

We are still in the hardening part of the training. From what I have heard, I am pretty sure that the three facilities do the timing part of this a little differently, but at Campbellsville, we start out with a whole week of 5 hour days. Today we were doing process training, which basically meant we were learning the steps to doing our job.

We are in Receiving, which is the first step in the inbound process. For the most part, to boil it down to the bottom line, what we do is “receive” the merchandise. It comes from wherever it comes, the boxes are brought into the warehouse…someone slices open the boxes and they are transferred to conveyor belts. The conveyors bring it along and eventually by our stations, where we take it out of the boxes and scan it in a specific order that is part of the process, and then put the stuff on carts. After we enter it into the system, at some point it will go to the stowers and they will put the different items on the shelves where they go, so that it can then be picked up by the pickers who are filling orders that have been placed. The process was pretty straightforward, and it was really just a matter of doing the same order of steps over and over.

I was a little disappointed to have it confirmed for me today that my job doesn’t entail any walking. I have a station, which is probably a 4’ x 5’ section or so. In front of me there is a table which has a working area and a computer with a handheld scanner. To my left is the conveyor belt. To my right is the cart where I place the merchandise. Behind me is the station of the next receiver. That is my little corner of the world. The positive side to this is that I have one of those thick rubber mats to stand on, so I’m not walking around on concrete floors like I thought I would be. Although I’m not walking so much I am doing a lot of reaching and squatting and lifting, so I am definitely getting some movement and exercise. And I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and uploaded my steps from the Up bracelet to find that I had walked about 3.5 miles in my five hour shift today. That is amazing considering all I did was pace back and forth in my little corner.

All in all, it was a good day. I really felt like I was getting the hang of things by the time our shortened shift had come to the end. At 11 o’clock, we clocked out and headed for home. Now we feel like taking a nap but we have to persevere and stay awake until 8 tonight, so we can get a good night’s sleep!! And then we get to do it all again tomorrow.