Learning To Stow

There are a wide range of jobs at Amazon. We have been assigned to be stowers. That means (as far as I can tell at this point) that we will be "stowing" merchandise in the zillions of bins in the warehouse. When an item is ordered, the "pickers" rush from bin to bin collecting the items for the order.

We did a five hour shift of stowing today and I think we are both getting the hang of it. We were glad we had our water bottles with us today because it was stuffy up on the third (top) floor.

Here's what a stower does: you pick up a U boat, which is a cart with a dozen storage totes on it. Think of all the items sold on Amazon, and that's what's in the totes. Everything from slippers to wrenches to Legos. Then, within the labyrinth of the huge warehouse, you stow the items in bins. Scan the item, scan the bin. Repeat.

The trick seems to be finding space in the bins since the idea is to get as many items into each bin as possible and to empty the items from your totes as fast as possible. Not everyone has my eye for organizing a bin to max effect, so I spent some time rearranging to make room for my stuff.

It's sort of like a game. I hope I still feel that way in a few weeks. Mostly you work alone. Even though Chris and I are on the same team working the same shift, once we get our U Boats and go to different areas of the floor to work, we might not see each other until break time or lunch.

There are quotas to be met for how many items you store over the course of your shift, but those don't go into affect for us for a couple weeks. I have no idea if I am close to going at the right speed, but I assume if it's a problem, someone will let me know.

I got totally turned around in the aisles of bins today. If I hadn't seen Chris at break time, I would have spent the whole 15 mins of time off trying to find the break room. From where we were working today, it was probably close to 1/4 mile each way to the break room (plus up and down two flights of stairs), so even though we might not be walking a whole lot while we are storing, the to and from for breaks and then the back and forth to get more boats will quickly add up.

Not sure if I've lost any weight yet, but it's only been a couple days. :)