johnny February 7th, 2010
So, it’s kind of last minute notice, but today is Jenn’s Birthday Anniversary. To celebrate, we’re throwing a burrito bash. At 2pm PST (yes, an hour from now!), anyone that wants to wander over for a couple of burritos is welcome. We recommend bringing your own chair.
Place: Slab City, USA. Corner of East Beal and County road.
johnny December 25th, 2009
Well, Frosty here isn’t really made from Christmas snow. I built him a couple of weeks ago when Jenn went in for extra overtime and I stayed home doing laundry and stuff. I don’t think any of the neighbors noticed me building a snow man at 2 AM, but if they did, they probably decided I was the kind of person it’s best to avoid.
Sadly, he is a bit worse for wear after two weeks. His face fell off as soon as the sun came out the following day and his back side gets most of the afternoon sun, so he’s acquired a definite lean. Meanwhile, someone’s dog decided to mark him, so he appears to have peed himself a bit. Anyway, Merry Christmas!
jenn December 24th, 2009
Tonight, I worked my final night at amazon.com. They are unaware of that fact. It would appear that they had planned on hiring me on full time, but neglected to tell me. Now they want two weeks notice if I am going to leave. They aren’t getting it. Apparently that means that I will not be welcome back. So be it. While its a nice compliment to be chosen out of the 1000s that wanted to stay, I had always planned on leaving after the holiday. I never asked to stay. I was just myself. I feel like they are the ones that broke our deal, not me.
Image from www.toothpastefordinner.com
Integrity treats their people like crap and the only way I would work for them again is if I was COMPLETELY desperate or they were the only means to a job I really, really wanted. One example of their total disregard for people: Last night they let 100s of people come in and then laid them off before they even got 5 minutes on the clock. Most of those people had just driven 30-40miles to come in. It sucks being laid off when you want the job. It really sucks when you waste hours and dollars only to be told you no longer needed.
Integrity played so many unnecessary head games. They would write people up for things that were completely out of their control. Almost everyone who started the night I did got wrote up for not making their week four numbers (270) during week one. In orientation, they handed out a piece of paper that said what our expected UPH (Units Per Hour) was. In your first week, you were supposed to make 120 (I don’t have the sheet with me so that’s from memory). Each week it would ramp up. I think it was 180 in week 2 and 230 in week three. At the end of week 4, you are required to be at the same as the full time employees 270.
By the time my week 4 rolled around, there were too many people on the floor for anyone to get the UPH. Still, they kept writing people up for not getting their numbers. They didn’t write everyone up either. Just the majority. It was painful watching friends who really needed/wanted the job get picked on.
I wouldn't call it the best way, but it sure is different
But, I will not miss the Integrity head games. Amazon seems like a decent company to work for. After what I experienced tonight, they do take good care of their employees and most of them are happy with their jobs. It was a completely different environment tonight after the temps had cleared out. Everyone was joking around and having a good time. And, even though there wasn’t any work, they found ways to keep us busy and paid. It didn’t seem like such a bad place after all.
This will probably be my last post about Amazon.com.
We discovered a pipe in our camper that had busted due to ice tonight. It is still frozen. I guess I know what we are going to be doing tomorrow 
.
We hope everyone is enjoying their holidays.
johnny April 28th, 2009
The attacking thug is barely worthy
of notice as he is much lower level
Oops. We missed Patrick’s 40th birthday by a few days here on the blog, but that’s because we were hanging out with the old man himself, along with many of his family and friends near Seattle, WA. Patrick is a friend I met playing City of Villains a couple of years ago. In a game that had amazing PVP and a strongly PVE oriented community, it was great to find a like-minded soul that was more interested in beating up on real live hero scum than fighting the AI. Patrick was the driving force behind organizing and training one of the few villain PVP groups and the only one I’m aware of that could challenge and beat the experienced hero groups. He also has a wicked sense of humor that kept us all going during the long leveling grind.
Since we were ‘in the neighborhood’, you know – west of the Mississippi and north of California, we had to drop in for the little shindig he was throwing. His family is just as great and it’s easy to see how Patrick has become such a gracious person, surrounded by so many warm and friendly people. They were kind enough to provide us a place to park for three nights in a wonderfully quiet clearing within sight of the Puget Sound. I don’t think it would be possible for a group of people to treat complete strangers any nicer than they treated us. By the end of the weekend, we felt as if we’d known everyone for ten years instead of three days.
Roman and Jaden attack!
In fact, the entire weekend became a mini City of Villains reunion. Morgan, another of Patrick’s friends and gaming buddies recently moved to Seattle from Juneau, making three of us. Morgan also helped set up the surprise guest, Jeremy’s arrival from Colorado. Jeremy was yet another of the guys we used to play City of Villains with. By mid-day Saturday, we could have been geeking out hardcore if we’d only had enough machines for everyone to play on. Fortunately, we didn’t and the rest of the party wasn’t forced to watch Patrick playing video games for the entire weekend. =)
The weekend was a non-stop riot of amazing Alaskan seafood, games of all sorts (except video games!), fun and interesting people, and for anyone that stood still too long – swarms of ninja kids looking for attention, caffeine, sugar, or preferably, all three! We’re going to be in the area for a few weeks waiting on passports and hope we can get together with Patrick, Caro, Tony, Siobhan and Roman again before we head across the border.
johnny February 7th, 2009
Today, Jenn is celebrating the *CENSORED* anniversary of her 24th birthday! Somebody help me light all these candles. Sorry for the late post hun, I’ll get in the kitchen and burn you a birthday dinner right away to make up for it.
