Stuff it

I haven't blogged in quite sometime. Sure a picture here and there but to sit and blog. I miss it. I truely believe that it is where I do my story writing and I used to be pumped when I got a good one in my head and ran home to dump it into my blog. Nick always would laugh when I would say, oh that's a blog moment. And usually I could whip up a story to go with that point in time.

I have been working a temp job stuffing envelopes this week. It's politically correct to say, a mail sorter, so I will add that for those that prefer the correct terminology but stuffing is a better way to put it. Pick up one piece, and another, and another, place it strategically into the envelope, pull the strip and whallah - you have finished your product.  Now mind you, we must stuff 120 of them into 3 sets of 40 per hour to meet the quota.

The first day was amazing. Tiny sweat beads formed on everyone's brow as they knew they were working feverishly to meet that 40 mark - 3 times within the hour.  I have to admit, I was pretty surprised when the supervisor came out and announced that I was the top stuffer. Of course that didn't last cause my co-hort next to me soon learned what to do and not to do to meet the mark and he was soon keeping up with my speed or exceeding.

At the end of day one, the motto was, "thank you for all coming back after lunch".  Apparently the track record was, they drop like flies due to the pressure of 3 bins of 40 per hour and who needs this kinda pressure.  Me, I was thinkin, I can do this, I was an office manager for 3 years and stuffed report cards and summer packets for over 8 years, this could be a good thing.

People's personalitites are funny. Each one has to check out the other and "break the ice."  Our table of 5, soon learned we could cut up and still make our quota and learn that we like Star Wars and didn't like "Up in the Air" all in one fell swoop.  We even found out Brock wasn't really Brock, but Adam and Brock was his last name.  Interestingly enough, our music was a topic of discussion as the ipods were allowed and that would break up the tension for 3 bins of 40 per hour.

By Day 2 we were comparing the sizes of our paper cuts we had sustained on our hands and sharing bandaids (unused of course).  At one point today, the supervisor notified one of our 5 that "she wasn't keeping her quota up and that wasn't good. But all was rectified when she realized her mistake was in the count on the floor and the motto for today was "are you sealing those all at once? is that how you are doing that?" By the end of the day, the quota's were met and all was well.

Fortunately this time around, I am not the oldest one in the group of all 11 of us and there are those that are friendly and those that are noses to grindstone and there to do only the job and not meet anyone new.  Personally, I am a middle of the road kinda girl, I like to strike up relationships and be liked, but some people, just won't let you in. 

I am hoping the job lasts for as long as they promised (5 weeks) but there is rumor it might end sooner. I can go home for lunch and be back in two shakes of a lambs tail, wear jeans and listen to my itunes. I have also figured out, I can eat a mini butterfinger from home to there.  Stuffing is good!