Where Are We Now?

By the time you read this, we ought to be at or very near our next stop---Murfreesboro, TN.

We'll be working for Amazon's Camperforce in the Amazon Distribution Center in Murfreesboro. Actually, we'll be staying a few miles away from Murfreesboro, but that's where we will be working.

We heard about these Amazon jobs before we even bought the motor home. Fortunately I'd read several blogs about it and knew we'd need proof we'd graduated from high school so when I was packing and found my diplomas, I tossed them in.

Amazon actively recruits full time RVers to work seasonal jobs in their distributions centers. There are four Camperforce locations this year, with Murfreesboro being new.

From what we understand we'll be working 10 hours shifts 4 days per week filling orders and packing boxes. The work is physically taxing, but I need the exercise. We were given the choice of three different jobs, but no promise that we'd get our first choice. Two of the jobs involve walking several miles per day while one job is mostly standing in one place. I really hope I don't get the standing in one place job.

We are looking forward to spending the rest of 2014 in Tennessee. We'll be closer to friends and family and I'm excited to explore Nashville during our (limited) time off.

I don't think working in a warehouse is a job that I want to have permanently, but I'm willing to give it a try for a couple months. Plus, there won't be any phones for me to answer or customers to deal with (see previous post).

Our biggest concern is Dooley the dog. Between the commute and our jobs, we'll be gone for about 11 or 12 hours and we know he'll be lonely. We are hoping to get to our campground and settled in for a few days before we have to leave him for long periods.

The one fly in the ointment so far has been the campground. Amazon sent out a list of five campgrounds where they had made deals for Camperforce workers to stay. We were working the day the list came out so by the time we called the next day, they were all full. All except the one campground that didn't have a webpage or any information on line except a 5 out of 10 star review from 2010. Sigh.

We made a reservation at a campground that wasn't on the approved list and asked Amazon to pay at least a portion of our site rent. We were willing to pay out of pocket if need be to have a nice space. We were informed that if we were going to have a Camperforce job we had to stay in one of the approved campgrounds. Ugh. So we bit the bullet and made a reservation. I am trying to be optimistic and since we'll be working or sleeping most of the time, maybe it won't matter that much anyway.

Stay tuned for more from The Volunteer State.