I have been on a slug of work days. It is really difficult to do anything other than work on those days. Today I got up a little early for some reason and so I have a few minutes to check in and see if everything is working.
A real quick topic I have been thinking about is enjoying the season. Truthfully, I have never put much stock into enjoying Winter. With our climate it is gray and damp. Well this year, I have been out in it. Here are some things I have noticed.
It is not actually as wet as I thought. Yes, it is not totally pleasant but in general, I would say that more than three quarters of my days have been dry. I know this well because I have to bag packages when it is raining and there is no cover. I just haven’t had to do that often.
I never noticed how late the sun rose in the Winter. I am acutely aware of sunset and the lack of daylight on the back end. In the shortest days of the year, we didn’t have a sunrise until almost eight o’clock. That is something I never noticed.
The difference in the relative humidity. We have wet and humid, that feels cold. We can have not wet and dry, that also feels cold. We also have some warm. One day it was 60 degrees in January (and of course raining like a monsoon).
Today I am expecting rain on my route. That will be the first time in probably three weeks that was the case. Not something I really expected.
Wednesday I am planning to start in on 1984. See you then.
Since I was a child, I always looked forward to that period between Christmas and New Years. The chaos died down tremendously and this was that brief period where rest seemed like the prescription before the new year cranked again.
When I was in my teens, it seemed popular to have the ‘best of’ countdowns on TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. It was the best 100 songs of the year or the top 10 news stories of the year. Since it was pre-internet, there wasn’t an instant access to video clips or music like there is today. There were those songs that you sort of forgot about as time moved on because they were on the charts eight months ago and no longer on the radio.
I was driving home from work last night and I was listening to the Sunday sermon on podcast. There was a statement that made a lot of sense and that was ‘You should live your life like you drive a car; mostly looking forward, but sometimes glancing back and side to side.’ And the point of that is that you can’t get to where you are going if you are only looking in the rearview mirror. But of course, this is the time to put an end to this year and everything that went along with it.
I have kind of batted around the idea what I wanted this to be. One thought I had was the top ten things of what happened in the world, but I think that would be too pedestrian. I thought about putting together some sort of song list or something that represented the year but that seemed boring. In the end, I settled on my year in review and the highlights of my year.
January- We rang in the New Year in Whittier, California. I picked five ripe oranges off a tree as we were heading back home January 4th. We had a tremendous week and a half family vacation which turned out to be tremendous luck that we took our trip when we did because travelling soon became impossible.
February- Right before our trip, we had a water leak that caused the ceiling to collapse in our pantry. Once the damage was repaired, I spent most of January and February building cabinets to replace the pantry and turn it into a more functional space. This was my most ambitious all wood woodworking project to date.
March- This was the month where our lives were impacted by the ‘Coronavirus’. School ended a full week before spring break, my wife’s office closed that same week. We cancelled our couple days of vacation that we were going to take and went into ‘lockdown’. Fortunately, we had some distinctly un-Oregon like spring weather and the weather turned mostly nice from here on out.
April- We said good-bye to our exchange student. Even though his Visa was good, he wanted to stay and both parents were OK with the decision the exchange program was not. After we signed a waiver for him to stay, they rescinded the support like insurance and such. All was quiet and melancholy at our house for a couple of weeks.
May- The weather changed for good toward summer this month. I went from working on the apartment four to five days a week to seven days a week. In the back of my mind, I already knew that I was behind and that there was so much to do that I really didn’t have time to waste, especially because we were still in quasi lockdown anyway.
June- This was the month that we started hosting small group at our house. It was really a rededication for me to get more serious about my commitment to God. I have gone through the waxing and waning of church attendance, devotional reading etc. Each time as I come back, it seems that my tuner gets a little clearer. It seems like I am hearing more.
July- This was all remodeling, all the time. I am trying to think of a highlight for this month but it is all kind of a blur. I guess if I were to pick one experience it would be roofing the new addition with my son. I don’t know if he learned anything but it was kind of fun teaching him. Side note: we got it right the first time, no leaks.
August- The apartment is complete. Tenants move in the first weekend. I wasn’t completely done until the second week. I still had, garbage to deal with, materials to donate, and a mess in the garage.
September- I don’t really remember this month. It was the month of wildfire, we had two weeks of smoke and maybe I was in a daze. I had to come to grips that I no longer employed a landscaper and started spending time in the yard mowing, pruning, etc. I now find myself watching the weather to find the dry days so I can attempt to keep up with all the things that need to get done.
October- This was a month of disappointment. I chose to do handyman work and job search over going hunting. I was really disappointed but my dad said that they saw zero deer during the whole week. You know, I always want a chance but the comradery is really fun too. I don’t know how many more chances I will have like that. I hope that wasn’t the last one.
November- I guess that this was a leap of faith. This was the month that I was looking to make a move for a more menial, labor type job since we were moving toward the holidays. The interview was easy, I think the test was just having the perseverance to try. I was hired without being asked a single question other than “can you do the job?”
December- I settled in for regularly driving for Amazon. I have really enjoyed my time. Part of it is that I know I am not going to do this forever. Truthfully, I haven’t worked as much as I hoped I would from a financial perspective. I have been averaging about thirty hour weeks and it takes the best part of the day: from about 9am to about 7pm on the days that I work. Now that peak season has ended, the number of drivers on the road has decreased by about a fifty percent and consequently it seems like that routes are getting longer. Yesterday I was ‘on-duty’ for nearly eleven hours, the max allowed for a day.
Conclusions for all of this… I guess if you routinely document your life, it is easy to remember. But seriously, the big one is that we are not leaving the year in the same fashion as we did last year. The pandemic stopped monthly trap shoots, it cancelled my kid’s summer camp and other extra-curricular activities. My daily EDC now includes a mask and unfortunately I have to wear it all day when I work. I fear that we have severely damaged our economy as well as raised false flags of hope that we are all doing our part to ‘flatten the curve’.
One more quick tangent. I had a nice Christmas. It was the first one ever that we did not leave the house after we got home from Christmas Eve service, including when we lived in South Carolina. It is strange when fourty plus years of tradition suddenly don’t exist. But on the plus side, it allowed us to take some time in the day and just relax rather than just feel rushed. We did spend significant time cooking, so we go a little taste of the rush.
I hope that you enjoyed my year in review. This will be the last post for 2020. My next post will be talking about goalsetting and plans for 2021 so I will save all of that for probably next Tuesday. With that, Happy New Year.
I have referenced our hosting a Spanish exchange student multiple times this year. He was with us last year and told us the most amazing, funny Christmas tradition that you would not believe. My mouth was wide open as he was describing all the steps in the tradition. It is called Caga Tio.
The basic way it works is that you ‘feed’ the log for several days before Christmas. Then, on Christmas, you put all of the presents down and cover them with a blanket. Then, you give a stick to the kids (or people) getting presents and you all sing a song while beating the Caga Tio with a stick until it poops out presents (That would be the end of the song). You lift the blanket to see what the the Caga Tio pooped out for you. A more thorough history can be read on Wikipedia.
Our exchange student was from the Barcelona area. The people there identify with a sub-region called Catalan. While Spanish, their independent identity remains strong. There is a subcurrent of Catalan first, Spanish second.
I suppose that they would consider this kind of a stocking type activity. I had totally forgotten about this tradition that he told us about until we receive a Christmas gift from Sergio about a week ago. Some day, I am angling to get this into our Christmas traditions, probably because it seems a little irreverent.
Previously, I wanted to embed a video without uploading to a platform, like YouTube. I don’t always want everything that I post here directly associated with my other accounts. I couldn’t do it on the free WordPress hosting, I needed to upgrade. Well, now that I have my own site. I was curious if I could do it.
This is Raya who has figured out that if she bounces the toy filled with a treat, she can get pieces to fall out. Consequently, she does a lot of bouncing of all kinds of toys in hopes more treats fall out. I filmed it because I thought it was pretty smart of the dog and it is entertaining.
As a slight different note, I have found that my new job takes more time than I anticipated. I have to leave the house by 9:45 and often I am returning between 8-10pm. As a result, I am hoping to try and stage some posts on my non-working days to fill out the docket a little better through the course of the week.
It is probably an understatement that I have been busy lately. I just came off of three days off and I barely had a minute to do anything other than the the things I have committed to. We are working on my wife’s office, selling trees at the Boy Scout tree lot, yard work and other seasonal activities.
For those that know me, they wouldn’t be surprised if I admit that I am kind of a Grinch. That being said, I am also a traditionalist. I am not happy to put up outside decorations or inside for that matter. But, I will never give into the artificial tree movement for the reasons that it is not right.
We have had the tree in a bucket of water for over a week now. Because getting the tree up requires my muscle, the only time I had to do it was before work, so I started working on the tree at 6:30AM.
Because I live in Oregon, natural Christmas trees are normal. I didn’t see an artificial tree until I was a teenager at least. I know that a lot of people live in places where you can only buy a tree from a lot, because it was shipped in from somewhere else. However, I thought that I would provide some tips about Christmas trees just in case.
Getting a wild tree
I have done this a number of times. I would have to say that far and away, this is my favorite tree activity. Permits can be purchased for $5 from the US forest service. You go up to the national forest and you find a tree (that is in the national forest boundaries) and you cut it down and take it home. They will provide you with a map and some suggested locations to get started.
Check the weather. Early snow can make access difficult to impossible. Nobles tend to be at high elevation, above 4000′ are are the first to lose access.
Plan for adventure. Bring supplies like lunch and drinks and tire chains as well as saws and straps to get that tree. But also think about sleds and possibly campfires. This is an outing more than a to do.
Don’t push it if you start to see snow. This can turn deadly if you don’t respect mother nature.
Wild trees are spindly and sparse. If you are into that, then your in luck. Some varieties like Douglas fir can have pretty wimpy branch strength.
There are some limitations. Trees have a slot window (bigger than, smaller than Y) for harvest. They must be a certain distance from the road and stumps need to be cut to the ground. It is surprising how big trees really are when you get up to them versus at a distance. This can make the hunt challenging, but rewarding.
Going to a tree farm
This is typically our go to. You go to a place that grows a lot of trees and you cut it or someone else does. Often times they are geared toward the younger family set with Santas or tractor rides and such. Think of it as the Christmas version of the pumpkin patch.
Dress for the weather, the fields are often muddy and wet.
Help is usually available to bale the tree so that it is compact for travel. They can help load it or secure it to the vehicle as well.
I find this a little monotonous. You can most likely find the tree that you want, size, variety and look. But, they all sort of blend in together after a while.
This will likely be the cheapest tree to buy. You are not paying the fuel to go into the mountains and you are not paying the lot mark-ups.
Tree lots
Press the easy button on getting a Christmas tree. Pull in, look around, pay and go. My boy’s Boy Scout troop operates a lot every year. We spend a fair amount of time working the stand and plenty of people buy trees that way. We did this year too.
For best selection, go early in the season. If you are looking for something larger or a particular variety, it pays to buy early. The business aspect of this leads inventory to shoot for the biggest sellers and to sell out if possible.
Price shop for the best value. There are very few options in our small town as most of the competitors have gone away over the years. But I have seen a range of prices that vary from “I can’t believe someone would pay that” to “we don’t even buy them at that cost”.
Most tree lots are fundraisers for programs (in our area). It doesn’t feel so bad to pay more when I know the profits are supporting good causes.
Tree lot trees can be cut over a month ago. If you live somewhere outside of the pacific northwest, tree cutting for Christmas trees begins November 1 for destinations like California and Panama (really? Yep). I can say for our tree lot, I saw the trees cut and then I hauled them to the yard that day.
I was going to go into tree care, but this is already getting long. So, I will save it for another day. I hope that if you haven’t gotten your tree and you don’t have an artificial one that you will get it this weekend. I think our stand will be out of trees by the end of Sunday.
I had a few more things to say about being an Amazon delivery driver yesterday. I was running up against my deadline to get ready to go for work and I thought about putting the whole article on hold, but instead will continue today.
One of the things my employer asked me to do in my first interview is google ‘What I learned from driving for Amazon’. So I did. And I got what I expected. There were former drivers complaining about the pay, the pace or volume, the use of the phone and software and how it was wonky or clunky.
I guess that it is just me, but it is pretty much everything I expected on all of those fronts. Put it the other way, imagine only being on the job a week and delivering 180 packages in foreign neighborhoods. From my personal experience, nearly impossible. Half my deliveries are in the dark and I cant even read the addresses on the house. Without the device pointing me in the right direction (almost always correctly) I could probably only do it in the daylight. This time of year there is at most nine hours and we don’t get loaded until almost noon.
I have also been big on honoring the original terms of the agreement. So as for pay or work, those were stated up front. I find it disingenuous to complain about those things when they are constants set when the employment is started. I am under no illusions that this will turn into a salary replacing career, this is just something new to learn about and make some money.
7. Having a bathroom close by is underrated– This is one thing that takes some getting used to and strategy. Being on the clock, I cannot just leave to go to the bathroom. Sometimes, I am literally more than fifteen minutes away.
Why is that significant? Because lunch break is only thirty minutes long. So that is fifteen minutes there and fifteen minutes back. See the problem? In theory, if you are right next to one then no big deal, but if you have to drive somewhere then you have to clock out to do so. You are then impacting your route and finish time to use the restroom.
Being both winter and COVID, parks and other public areas like parks are often closed as well. I know, in the country… well getting caught is a termination offense so tread very lightly there.
8. Thirty minutes is really short- Back in my software days, I used to eat while I worked. I am not a break taker by nature. I was thinking that I would have to invent things to do during my forced lunch break. In reality, I don’t have time to eat while I am delivering other than snacking and I don’t really snack.
I typically drive somewhere to use the bathroom, take ten minutes to eat and then it is time to drive back toward my route again. Ten, ten, ten and lunch is over. I should say that we can take more than thirty minutes since it is a non-paid break. But, I don’t like delivering in the dark very much so I would like to get as much done during the daylight as possible.
9. I spent more time writing than I realized- Going into this, I thought that I would layer this job into what I was currently doing. It has proven more difficult than I thought. At night when I get home, I am tired and mentally drained. Then there are family responsibilities and dinner and getting ready for tomorrow.
By the time I leave the house at 9:45 AM and return at 9:30 PM, it doesn’t leave time for a lot of extras unless I am going to subtract sleep. So, I am working to try and get a couple hours in the morning to write and look for jobs and such where I was working in this vein until almost noon before I was delivering packages. On the plus side, I am only scheduled for four days a week, I have always wanted to have an extra day off.
10. A list is always better with a good end point- The sun is out today. It looks like the fog has lifted and this is the end of my week. I signed up for call-in work, if they need it but I am kind of hoping to enjoy my next three days off. I have yard work, painting and putting up the Christmas tree to do.
I plan on enjoying my day delivering packages and hopefully seeing new neighborhoods today. I hope that you enjoy your day too.
Greetings, back from an extended holiday weekend (plus). I had a great holiday with just my family. Friday, I worked and Saturday was spent doing things around the house. Sunday and Monday I worked which is why I am only writing on Tuesday.
So I took a leap of faith a couple of weeks ago. Part of my normal weekday routine was looking for and applying for jobs. In the back of my mind, I have been thinking about getting something steadier than just my attempt at building my own business and saw that Amazon was hiring drivers. I have always thought that I would like to try truck driving or delivery driving, so I gave it a shot.
Amazon does not deliver packages– I know it seems strange, but packages are delivered by contractors. In my training, they talked over and over about how we are the face of Amazon, but we don’t even work (directly) for them. At my facility, there are six different independent delivery companies that have territories.
I had a hard time interviewing because Amazon advertised the postings and setup the technology to do the interviews, but it is up to each delivery company to determine if they need or want to hire drivers. My first scheduled interview, no one even showed up to an online conference.
My second attempt, I went to the physical location. The building is run by Amazon. They have no idea what the independent driving companies are doing or that anyone is expected. There is security protocol to jump through. When I got there, there was no one waiting to receive me so I got passed through multiple people until my now boss happened to walk by and was asked ‘Do you want to interview someone?’. She said sure.
2. Interviews are overrated- I was asked to bring my driver’s license, resume and wear casual clothes. So I handed my employer my resume and she looked at it for thirty seconds and handed it back to me. She said ‘I don’t want to take your paper’ and ‘you know this is a seven day a week job’. I said that I did, she proceeded to explain that this was a very physical job, some people cant do the work and that there are are four holidays. My employer took me to meet her son, the operations manager and schedule for a follow-up.
The next day I came back for a second interview. It consisted of watching the drivers load the van and a bit of an explanation of how the process worked. Then they sent me for a drug test and I had to load the Amazon Flex application on my phone to do a background check. Barring any complications of those things, it seemed like I was hired.
3. The most job training I have ever had- One of the things that I have always been passionate about is onboarding and getting people on to the right foot as quickly as possible. It is also one of the things that I have never had. I had two full days of driver training before I even started. I have to say, there is no substitutions for doing, but companies can remove anxiety and eliminate many easy mistakes by doing some initial training.
They also start you out on some half day routes to get the hang of what you are doing. The training didn’t address every issue I have had so far, but it did a good job of getting started with them. All in all, I was happy with what I got.
4. This job is physical- It isn’t a huge deal but it is something. I have load my own truck with containers up to 50 pounds each. I have to load them in an organized and methodical fashion so that I am minimizing the handling as I deliver and I only have 20 minutes to load the van at the station. The routing software is OK, but it often prompts you to drive to the next house when it is easier to stop once and carry packages to three or four house in the vicinity, at least that is what I prefer.
City routes are roughly organized by neighborhood. I have seen my home delivery driver parked next to my house for fifteen minutes or so and wondered what they were doing. It turns out that they were in the back organizing packages for the upcoming neighborhood since there is so little time in the station to get organized. Once you get into delivery, you are in and out of the van a lot.
5. Mobile phones rule delivery- The entire process for a driver is on a phone. The time clock is on the app. There is an app that monitors my driving. And the deliveries are managed on an app.
The packages are scanned with the camera. The route is displayed on the phone. The app keeps track of how long you have been signed in and forces you to take a lunch break after four and a half hours. I literally cannot do anything when it is break time because without the phone, it won’t scan packages or let you look at your route.
I have heard that we have some rural areas where we need to use ‘airplane’ mode because there is no service. Also, because the routing software is wonky at times, it often has me coming back to make deliveries in front of places that I was literally stopped fifteen minutes earlier. What I have learned so far is sometimes, I need to trust my gut over the phone navigation. It is mostly right, but not always. Nor is it usually the most efficient from a stops standpoint.
6. Being a driver probably isn’t a career- Plenty of people work shifts and punch a time clock so I am not begrudging. Right now, I start at $16/hour and after three months I would get $16.25 but that is it. Making less than a forth of what I was making, I know that I can do a lot better so I will keep looking, but I want to a least go through the holidays.
Despite the future downsides, I like my company owners. They gave us a $25 gift card to a local grocery store for Thanksgiving, I thought that was really nice. They seem like good people and they are working harder than us drivers. They are there when I get there and they are there when I leave. This is a seven day a week enterprise for them where I only work four.
All in all, this is kind of fun. I am thinking that it is good physically and I enjoy seeing the world. It is an excuse to drive up streets that I have always wondered what was down there. I was hoping that by being on the inside, I might see more places that I could go, the jury is out on that right now.
I finished my mantel project on Sunday. I kind of fell off of keeping track of my hours and I definitely didn’t hit my target date. I suppose if you are keeping up with the theme, I didn’t really want to.
I had other things that I would rather do. I had bids that I needed to get out. I had interviews to attend, I had blogging I wanted to do. I had other things that I had to do like hanging light fixtures, moving furniture for new carpet and assembling new furniture.
As with all projects, I ran into some things that didn’t go exactly as I expected. I was going to use a special router bit to make the 45 degree miter stronger, but I found the setup to be way too fussy without a proper router table. I also found that the air dried fir was too brittle to precision route an touchy joint. Those kind of derailments made me pause for a new strategy and that kind of pause put the brakes on momentum of the project.
To be truthful, I am looking more forward to the table that I am going to build next. I built this one first to get it done because the next project is going to be significantly bigger. I will need to do some more planning to get a more accurate estimate of how long things are going to take. One thing for sure is that I am not going to have the kind of time that I had previously.
With the holidays approaching, there is always significantly less free time. I also took a seasonal job delivering for Amazon. I may be working four to six days a week doing that for now. I think it will allow time to keep looking for a replacement job and writing but there is only so much time in a day and week for doing projects.
This is a job that I wanted. Don’t get me wrong, it is my lowest, post college degree paying job by a long shot. But, it is a four ten hour shift a week, turn it off when you clock out kind of gig. It is going to bring in some money consistently and there are worse jobs for less money out there. Believe me, I have been looking.
I have always thought that I would be interested in a job driving. I can download my playlist, listen to my podcasts and get paid to do so. I will talk more about my experience later, but I am thinking that this could be fun for a while.
If you were to ask me what my favorite job was, I would tell you that it was when I was a student janitor my senior year in college. Many people could find the downside in being a janitor, but I actually liked it, a lot. Beside the obvious benefit of getting some spending money, it forced me to budget my time effectively because I worked every week night. The best part was getting away from my complicated cerebral calculus and high level science projects and spend three hours a day sweeping, mopping and doing event setup. I lost twenty pounds, stayed focused and got paid.
I am hoping that this job will be a motivator with some of the same side benefits. In the mean time, I still have some days to do my own business if I get any or work on projects.
I spent probably an hour with support today. They can duplicate my problem, but not resolve it. My support case has been escalated to level 2 (which is a good thing). So, I am definitely slow playing anything further until I can resolve images.
I have to say that I have been very happy with the support that I have used so far. The level one is not just reading from a script but is actually trying to fix the problem. So far, level one has been two out of three in resolving issues. I know that this is a tough one because I have been working on it several days myself.
I have some good stuff in the queue. Hopefully, it won’t take too long so I can really get started.
I am still struggling with images today. It does appear that when I try this at night, it works but not during the day. It also appears that android pictures are loading but iphone’s are not. I will look at it some more tonight.
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