Happy New Year!

 A few years ago I found a survey (or maybe I created it, I don't remember) and I've been answering these questions each New Year's Eve. This year I thought I'd share my answers with all of you. Feel free to post your own responses in the comments. 



1. What was the funniest thing that happened to you this year?

Not sure if this is the funniest...but misreading the stats at Amazon and confusing my hours worked with my rate still makes me laugh.

 2. Of all the new people you met in 2014, who are you most glad you met and who do you wish had never crossed your path? Tom and Joni, workampers we met in New Mexico and Mike, Monica and their kids are all people we're glad we met. Also glad we met Greg, our manager at Amazon. He was a nice guy and fun to talk to. 

As for who I'd wish had never crossed my path...several of the Camperforce people at Amazon...what a whiney bunch of know-it-alls. 

3. What was the best book you read?

 I didn't do much reading this year. I'm looking for suggestions.

4. What was the best meal you had---either based on food, location, company or weird circumstances.

 Our first trip to the San Marco Cafe. Read about it here. What made this meal stand out was the element of surprise. Just driving by, saw the sign and went in to find a charming restaurant with really good food. 

      

5.. Name three things that made you proud this year. 
 1    . Taking the plunge to become a full-time RVer
     2. Surviving the job at Amazon
     3. Having the courage to leave a bad situation  

6. What was the best thing?

    Heading out on our big adventure.

 

     

7. Best trip/outing?

 Our trip to the Jemez. Read about it here.

Wishing you all a wonderful 2015 full of fun and adventures!

Our New Location

We've arrived at our new location....Statesville, NC. The sun has been shining since we arrived in NC a few days ago, so I hope that's a good omen.

Another good omen is the nice site that we were given. Since we're workampers, we are at the mercy of the KOA owner to decide which site to give us, so it wouldn't be surprising if we got one of the less desirable sites so the better sites can go to the paying customers, but we're very pleased with this one.

We have an end site, so that means neighbors only on one side, plus just beyond where my car is in the picture, we have a little bit of a "yard" and a picnic table. Mostly, I love the view. Even though the interstate is just below us, it's very quiet and there are woods all around.

I was surprised how busy the campground is for this time of year. The one we stayed at in Asheville, was nearly empty. But then Chris pointed out that we're on I-77 which is a major thoroughfare for folks in PA, NY and beyond who are heading to Florida.

We're glad to be here and settled.

Let the new adventure begin!

My Least Favorite Thing About Living in A Motor Home

Life in a motor home isn't for everyone. I think we have a very nice MH and at 39' it's one of the longer ones available. Overall, I don't have any major complaints.

The bathroom and shower are small, but functional. Cooking in the kitchen with limited counter space (especially for an untidy cook like me) can be annoying, but it's do-able. It would be nice to have a residential refrigerator with more space for storage and freezing.

But, none of those things are so bad that I'd trade them for a house.

So, what is the one thing that I like least (and in fact, would go so far as to say I dislike it immensely)?

This.

An under the sink trash can. I think it's 7 gallons, or about half the size of most kitchen garbage cans.

Since we haven't stayed at any campgrounds that recycle (and we aren't so environmentally conscious that we're willing to take our recycling somewhere off site), everything goes into that little trash can.

It doesn't take long for it to fill up. A couple soda bottles, a cereal box and a milk jug and it's full.

Of course, we have large bags in it so I can take it out and continue to put stuff in it, but then it's in the middle of the floor taking up (limited) space.

It's probably an issue that's easily resolved, it's just a matter of finding a place for a larger trash can. Or we could generate less trash.

P.S. Chris is very diligent about taking the trash to the dumpster, so this isn't one of those "he never takes out the trash" complaints. 

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a wonderful, peaceful and memorable Christmas.


And remember to take a few minutes to dance 

Amazon Camperforce By The Numbers

By the time this posts, we'll be almost done with our time working at Amazon. We finished our third week of 55+ hours and have only two shifts left. We finish at Amazon on the morning of the 23rd and we'll leave here on the 24th for our next adventure: First to Asheville, NC for a couple days and then on to Statesville.

I thought we'd do a little recap to describe our time here.

Please note, all numbers are approximations, but it's my blog and I'm tired so don't quibble.

450---the number of hours we've each worked over a span of about 8 weeks.

One pair each---shoes we've worn out.

$600---the amount of Am Ex gift cards we've earned by showing up and working all our overtime the last three weeks.

2---number of trips to the Donut Palace (so far).

2 each---free T-shirts from Amazon

3--boxes of band aids for blisters on our feet

15-20---pounds I've lost (I hope).

1---number of TV channels we get

2---bottles of Aleve

20+---number of raffle tickets we have in the drawing for the Beats headphones (drawing is the 20th, so stay tuned for results)

2---water bottles lost

10---loaves of bread for sandwiches

less than 5---times we've seen the sun

12---loaves of homemade banana bread, pumpkin bread and apple bread I've made. I bake during our nights off and it's good to take for our break time snacks. 

And a partridge in a pear tree. 

Last Minute Gift Ideas

Since I'm working at the Mecca of gift shopping, I thought I'd share a few of the things I've seen recently that might help you with your last minute shopping.

How about some Bear Repellent?



Or a rubber horsehead mask? Maybe a combo gift of this w/the Godfather Movies.





This prank gift box caught my attention:




I might actually need to send one of these to Naomi. I don't get the Elf on the Shelf (though it's popular). This is the Jewish response:

Get Your Sp00 On!

The next time you get a package from Amazon look for a small white sticker on the outside of the box with a bar code and a series of letters and numbers. That's your Sp00!

I'm not sure if it's Spoo or Sp00. On the computer it looks like 00 but it's pronounced just like you think: Spoo.

From what I have been able to figure out so far, the Sp00 is what connects your order to your shipping address, so that's important.

In fact, the Sp00 is so important that we are constantly reminded to "Scan your Sp00!" during our start of shift meetings.

We've also been instructed in proper Spoo placement.

Sp00 is important.

And fun to say.

Which has lead to some interesting converstations. The other night I was working at a station next to another workcamper. She came out of her station and said to me, "I'm out of Sp00." Pause. "Never really thought I'd say that."

Another night the same woman said to me, "I hear your husband can fix the Sp00, is that right?" I confirmed, proudly, that Chris can fix the Sp00.

The stations we work at are next to a conveyor belt and once we have put the stuff in the box and scanned the Sp00, we put the box on the conveyor belt to be taken a few yards to the gift wrappers.
Recently, while placing a box on the conveyor belt, the Sp00 came off.

Frantically I left my work area and trotted along trying to catch the box on the conveyor belt while lamenting "My Sp00 fell off."

I hate when that happes.

Donut Palace

On Friday morning we got out of work extra early--- 5 am and went in search of a place to have breakfast to celebrate the end of our 54 hour work week. The only place we found open was a Waffle House that had been a major disappointment a few weeks before so we kept looking.

Finaly we decided to just go home and have pancakes but on the way I remembered a bakery that I'd seen when we went a different way home. What a treat!

It was a real bakery with a nice man in white baker's clothes helping us buy too many fresh donuts.

We bought a variety of donuts and decided on the following ranking

6. A cake donut covered in chocolate. Rather disappointing and we didn't finish it. Shocking, I know.
5. The cronut (combo of Croissant and Donut). It was okay, but compared to the others, it fell short.
4. Cinnamon Sour Cream Donut----this would probably get a higher ranking if I'd gotten more than a few crumbs. But Chris enjoyed it.
3. Blueberry cake donut. Yum! Nice and dense and cakey.
2. Maple cake donut with frosthing and nuts. Heavenly.
1. Giant apple fritter. So fresh!


Honorable mention: Homemade crackers called Firecrackers. A little too spicey for me to have more than a couple, but like the Cinnamon Sour Cream Donut...I didn't really have much of a chance anyway.

Thoughts On Our Time With Camperforce

By the time this posts, we'll have finished our second week of 12 hour days (hopefully) with just one full week of work to go.

The time has gone quickly, though there were many times (usually around 3 am) when it felt like time stood still.

As our time is winding down Chris and I have been talking our thoughts on the whole experience. Here are some of them, in no particular order.

Would we do it again? 
Yes, I think we definitely will do Camperforce again.

What would we do differently?

1. We might opt not to work nights. We chose nights because neither of us are early morning people and with the night shift starting at 6 pm, that was good for us, especially compared to 7 am for the day shift. Plus, nights get paid a bit more per hour and we figured between the two of us, that added up to about $500 over the course of our time here.

But, sleeping during the day is rough. It's cold when we go to bed, but gets warmer as the day goes on, so I wake up several times too warm and that makes me cranky. Plus, people call during the day or we need to have things like repairs done etc. We rarely see the sun, especially after the time change at the end of October.

2. Next time I'll take some time either before we get here or maybe arrive a few days early to cook and stock the freezer w/casseroles and other similar food. Also make sure to have 2 weeks worth of clothes so we don't have to do laundry if we just don't have the time.

Will we come back to this location? 

Quite possibly. We would probably even come back to this campground. I'd never want to stay here for anything resembling a vacation, but for work purposes, it's got a lot of benefits: about the shortest commute of the campgrounds available, laundry, groceries and other services within one mile.

I thought being in Tennessee in the Fall would be nice, but as I said above, I've hardly been outside or seen the sun, so I suppose we could be anywhere. In part, the location will depend on where we plan to go when we finish.

That being said, we have been very impressed with the people at this Amazon fulfillment center (BNA3). Professional and friendly and very approachable. We've chatted with the man who is in charge of the entire building at night (can't remember his tittle) and he's often around on the floor and recognizes us and asks how we are doing. I saw him out scanning and packing boxes on Cyber Monday.

All the managers and area managers that we've dealt with have been equally nice and helpful.

I assume that Amazon will continue to expand this program, so whether we come back here will also depend on what other options become available.

What advice do we have for other who might want to give Camperforce a try? 

1. Get some good shoes. Get two pairs.

2. This is a physical job, but it's doable and it doesn't take long to build up your tolerance. Stock up on Aleve. 

3.  Have a good attitude. Nothing makes a long work day seem even longer than listening to a bunch of complainers.

4. Don't get all worked up about the rates. Where you work it might be different and I don't mean to imply that the folks at BNA 3 were slack about our productivity, but no one ever said anything to  me or any Campers that I know of, about our productivity. Honestly, they are just glad we are there because we show up, don't spend too much time flirting w/our co-workers and stay until the end of our shifts.

5. Don't be afraid to talk to the managers or other leadership. They are happy to talk to you and want to know about your concerns.

6. Remember that compared to campground work, this is a real full time job. It also pays about the best of anything out there for full time RVers and it includes your campground fees.  This is an opportunity to work hard for a few weeks and stockpile some money, so keep that in mind when your feet are aching.

7. Work as much overtime as you can while also being mindful of how you are feeling and if you are wearing yourself out. We crashed and burned at Thanksgiving but seem to have recovered. If we'd kept going and worked the overtime available on Black Friday we might not have had the energy to finish the following week, especially after they changed our schedule.

8. We're big fans of Spark by Advocare. Energy and a better attitude. I call it "Mommy's Little Helper." 

9. It can be as fun (or awful) as you choose to make it. 

Stuck Like Chuck

Here's a little RV 101 (and one of the many things I've learned over the last few months). Most larger RVs (trailers, fifth wheels and MHs) have a hydraulic system that powers the jacks and slides.

The jacks come down from the underside of the MH and provide stability and balance. If you're on an uneven site, they will automatically level you out.

Over the last couple weeks in NM we were having some trouble with our slides and jacks, but didn't give it a whole lot of thought.

When we arrived here the jacks wouldn't go down. We did get the slides out (would have been disastrous if we hadn't).

Without the jacks to stabilize the MH, we were pretty wobbly. Think about when you've been in a van or bus and someone moves around and rocks things. That's what it was like for us every time one of us moved, including rolling over in bed. It was like living on a waterbed.

It did not deter us from our frequent dancing (more like wrestling to music) but I'm sure the neighbors wondered why our MH was rocking (and rolling. Har-har).

In addition, because the slides wouldn't go in, we couldn't leave if we wanted/needed to. You can't travel down the highway with the slides out. I guess there is a way to manually retract them. Fortunately it didn't come to that.

I had images of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel with us stuck here at this campground forever.

 


We finally got someone out to do the repairs (after ordering parts and waiting for them). What a relief. Now we are level and not wobbly.

The repairman was a gregarious fellow in coveralls. When he finished and I asked about the slides working he said, in his booming Tennessee voice "Yep, you were stuck like Chuck, but you're all set now."

No Mo' Stow

The Sunday after Thanksgiving all the Camperforce folks were told we'd be leaving stowing and heading for gift wrap for the balance of our time at Amazon.

Yikes!

We'd heard horror stories about gift wrap---standing in one place for hours on end.

But, Amazon was prepared. The official night shift for the rest of the peak season is 57.5 hours per week (6:30 pm to 6:30 am with 1/2 hour unpaid for lunch) five days per week. Camperforce is only required to do 50 hours per week and anything over that is voluntary. But, if we do the 57.5, in addition to OT pay, we'll each get a $100 Visa gift card per week that we work the full shift. That got people pretty excited.

Turns out that gift wrap isn't as bad as we expected. Even though the shift is longer, it's not as physically demanding. Standing in one place for long periods gets painful but no one has complained when I've stopped to walk around a bit. Plus, we get two full days off. The last few weeks we've been working 5 10 hour shifts and then a half shift on Friday, but now we work a couple more hours and have a longer break.

Plus, it's only for two more weeks.

Chris and I spend most of our time processing rather than wrapping. Let's say you ordered three gifts to be wrapped and a couple things for yourself all in one order to be sent to your house. All those items are put on a cart, I scan everything and then decide if the gift wrapped items ought to go in a gift box (things that would be difficult to wrap like clothing or stuff in those hard plastic packages like a razor or remote control), then put it all in a box for shipping and send it down the line to be wrapped.

Now...here's the funny part. We have to build the shipping boxes (after figuring out which size to use, which can be tricky). The tape that seals the boxes comes out of a machine pre-measured and it's wet like wallpaper. So, imagine holding a wobbly unsecured box in one hand, hitting the button on the machine for the tape and it comes spitting out.

It's like a toaster that shoots wet wallpaper.

You have to catch it mid-flight because if it lands on the counter, it's a big mess.

If you are wrestling with a box and happen to hit the button, it will also shoot out a warm gooey strip of tape.

So the next time you get a package from Amazon, appreciate the tape!

Jim 'N Nick's

A couple weeks ago Amazon provided a holiday meal for the workers (served by management). I went into it thinking "well, this is a nice idea, but I bet the food tastes like it came from the hospital cafeteria."

Well...I was wrong.

Amazon did it up right with catering by Jim 'N Nick's, a local BBQ place. We had wonderful smoked turkey breast, real mashed potatoes and fabulous mac and cheese.

When we heard that we'd get the same meal again later in the week if we worked overtime, we were psyched. Just as good the second time and we got paid time and a half. Life is good!

So...what did we do during our time off? We went to the local Jim 'N Nick's for dinner. It did not disappoint. Chris had a combo platter with ham and brisket. I had soup, salad and a side of mac and cheese.

I'm not sure how much time we'll have for eating out during the rest of our stay, but if we do, Jim 'N Nick's will be at the top of the list.

Oh...how could I forget....Chris got a to go order of Banana Pudding. Yum!

Where To Next?

We have our next stop all arranged. We'll be working at the KOA in Statesville, NC. Click here to go to their website.

It might have been nice to go to Florida or someplace further south, but this year we are going to NC. Jobs in Florida are hard to come by, especially since we are not available until about January 1.

Another consideration is the cost. Remember, we aren't retirees or vacationers, we're working and trying to pay bills. Even with lower gas prices (I saw $2.50/gal the other day) it still costs us about 50 cents per mile to travel. Since we plan to be in DC in April, the cost of traveling from here to Florida and back to DC would have been nearly the same as the benefit of having a free site for three months.

Anyway, we are excited about the job in NC. The job is for our site only, but we only have to work 6 to 8:30 am every day. And only one of us has to be on duty then. This seems like a good deal for us, though we won't be earning any additional cash. It's possible there will be more work available, but right now that's our deal.

Plus, we're much closer to our friends in Ohio and on the East Coast...in case anyone wants to visit. hint...hint

Thankful for Some Rest

We were scheduled to work the Wednesday night/Thanksgiving morning shift. Voluntary overtime was available for Black Friday.

After we got to work in Wednesday night, Chris started not feeling well. At lunch time he decided he needed to leave. I didn't argue or try to figure out a way to finish my shift. We weren't really sure what the procedure was since neither of us had ever left a job mid-shift due to illness (at Amazon or anywhere). We found someone higher up the food chain and explained the situation. She said, "No problem. Just clock out."

No need to exaggerate his symptoms. No one questioning why he was sick the day before a holiday.

It was great. I guess this is one of the perks of not having a job with any responsibility...if you're not there, it doesn't really matter.

We got home around 11:30 pm. I thought I'd stay up the rest of the night like we usually do on our days/nights off. Instead, we both went to sleep around 2 am and slept through until 5 pm the next day. I did get up to take Dooley out at some point. We are especially thankful for his iron-clad bladder.

Basically we slept through Thanksgiving. Then we woke up and stayed up most of the night and had another long day of sleep.

Apparently two overweight middle-aged people cannot work 50+hours per week at a physically demanding job for 4 weeks without taking a tiny bit of time to catch up on their sleep.

We are both feeling much better and plan to be well rested for the last three full weeks of work at Amazon.