Since I have nothing better to post Friday...

(That being a reference to my accidentally posted Time Machine on Thursday.)  I thought I would take you through some of the head-scratching antics of the place I work for.

Friday as we were coming home from an afternoon walk, the temp company sends an automated message.  Basically, "Due to a lack of work for the pickers, those of you who work the Sun-Thurs schedule will work Mon-Fri next week."  Cool, three day weekend!

Sunday afternoon, my phone rings.  I say to myself, "Watch it be work telling me to come in anyway.  It WAS work- another automated message saying the system (either the computer system that runs the conveyors or the conveyor itself, they didn't say which) was down, and NO ONE would be working second shift Sunday.  I wasn't anyway, so I didn't care.

Monday, I go to check where I was working, and the chart has a handful of us at the bottom under "comments".  WTH?  Soon, we learned that:
 -Sunday they had been finishing the final adjustments to the new conveyor "multi-line" they'd been constructing apparently all summer.  Now it was operational, and they'd be staffing it with 20-30 people they'd choose and pull over after the shift started.

-With this new line and the upcoming holiday rush, they'd brought in another 13 temps who'd be training in the order picking areas (the "pick-mods") that night.  As a result, those of us in the "comments section" would be assisting the pick-modders, opening and breaking down boxes, sweeping, and the like.

-There weren't going to be a lot of orders, and with getting the new lines open, things were going to be "slow".

So we set to work, roaming the mods openning up boxes all night.  And with few boxes being picked from, we had to use our imaginations to stay busy.  Then, I found out that some people HAD been told to work Sunday. Oh, and one other thing:  We have company-issued clips that we get at the beginning of each shift that we use to clip the box we're picking for to distinguish it from the others on our line.  Somehow, these had all disappeared over the weekend.  Thus, those who were picking orders were forced to manufacture "clips" out of scrap cardboard.  Nothing like the marching backwards of technology.

Tuesday, I was back as a picker, and it was even slower.  Especially given that we had so many boxes openned the night before and didn't have that to fall back on while waiting.  Virtually the entire first half of the night was nothing; then in the second half it varied between dead, steady, and a couple little seiges of really busy.  It was like an inverse hurricane, with large swaths of nothing with chaotic "eyes" of total catastrophe. Plus, I discovered that something had been messed up in the setting up of the new system.  Where before, to scan in a given area, you had to scan your badge to log in, now, you had to scan your badge AND THEN scan a bar code on the area you were in.  Just lovely.

Wednesday was even worse.  The supervisor made it sound like it was our option whether we wanted to "make up missing Sunday" on Friday.  A lady told him, "(the temp agency) told us we WERE working Mon-Fri", to which he said, "Well, let's go with that."  So now we're wondering if we have to work Friday or not.  In addition, the one real buddy I'd made out there announced that he was moving back to Texas and this was his last night.

Slow doesn't cover the night; between start and last break, we had by my estimate a 15-minute period and a 10-minute period which might be considered legitamate working.  I would hide in one of the walk in bays, then look across to the other mod and see someone hiding in their bay, too.  Finally after last break we got fairly busy.  At 15 minutes to quitting time, I said to myself, "it looks like we have enough work to keep us busy to the end of the shift."

Exactly then, the computer system went down.  Stand around for ten minutes, hide in the restroom for four, get in line at the clock and leave.

Thursday, I heard someone say on my way to clock in that "the new line only had three boxes all day."  Geez.  Then I get up to where we have the shift meeting, and saw a sign up sheet.  "Hmmm, " I say, "Perhaps that is to sign up if you actually want to work Friday."

It was a sign up to leave voluntarily, IMMEDIATELY.

The supervisor explained that first off, there was extremely little work, and that was truly a sign up sheet to leave right now.  And there would likely be more opportunities to leave as the night wore on.  Then, he told us no temp employees were required to report Friday, but those that wanted to could sign up on another sheet. 

A lady asked, "Is there a chance that we could get sent home if we worked Friday?"  The supervisor said, "Well, we aren't anticipating a rush of orders, and at 8:30 we'll be shutting down the line to work on the new conveyor's spiral, so my answer would be 'very likely'."

I told myself, "stay till lunch, at least pay for your gas out here."

Then a forklift driver said, "Be sure to tell the pickers don't open any more boxes that you don't need, since we'll be moving a lot of them to new locations."

I said, "I am NOT sweeping for four hours."  So three day weekend again!

Won't be surprised if I get another call this weekend.

And yet, in about a week and a half, the holiday rush will start, and we'll be on mandatory six-day weeks until the first week of January.  Whaddaway ta make a living, eh?

________________________________________

Here's some more of the photographer's best efforts.

Mr. Pain in the butt by Laurie.

She also got a pic of Mrs. Cardinal!  They NEVER sit still for me...

Tag team munching.

Our little $#!thead.

The... Three... Amigos! Slap, slap slap, COUGH!

So pretty out today with Sandy finally dead.

With the river so low, many of the little coves and inlets are now mudflats.

Scrappy decided we should take advantage of the one that leads to the jungle above the "Ends of the earth" (see here)

This is a true jungle, with no established trails, and a lot of weird growth.  The bad thing is, you are spending so much time working your way through, that Scrappy is ahead of you playing "Scrappy's choice"...

..and that means he goes one way, sees you struggling, comes back, and gets tangled.  And when you catch up and attempt to untangle him, he's moving on to the next tangle.

When we finally fought our way out, this is what we faced...

And here, on the way home, we see more of those robins that have left the area.



 

In the spring and summer, this is a lovely little duck-filled inlet along the IPFW tree-walk.  Now, not so much.

The birds and the bucks

A few days ago, Mynx asked me about the feeding of our cast of birds during the wintertime.  Well, that's a topic I will be learning along with you.  A story to tell you where we are at right now.

Wednesday night/Thursday morning, we got to bed just before three, only to watch the big ol' buck wander into the woods behind us.  Which kept Scrappy awake a while, and meant an additional few minutes got added on to the next day's self imposed sleep deprivation.  After all, I had to finish research and type Time Machine when I got up, because Friday morning I had an early appointment for a wheel alignment.  And when you add on working 3:30-midnight ( and a night that was like an inverse hurricane- long intense waves of boredom interspersed with three periods of absolutely nuts activity), it was going to catch up with me.

It did so about 11:30 AM Friday.  Me and my faithful Booogle companion went up to take a nap, but mind was not as willing as body to collapse.  Somewhere around one when I started to doze off (and Scrappy was already out)  I heard that telltale TAP-TAP-TAP that told me that a bossy woodpecker was letting me know that we were about out of bird food.  They have only EVER done this the couple of times we ran out!  So groggily I looked out the bedroom window for the offending avian spokesperson.

What I saw astounded me.  In the eight minutes that followed, I observed:

3 sparrows and two ruby-breasted nuthatches taking turns at Laurie's feeder, with additional sparrows on the fence waiting a spot.

At leats a dozen more sparrows on the ground underneath, picking up whatever dropped.

The nuthatches get into an argument and chase each other off repeatedly, usually scattering the various sparrows.

The woodpecker- who turned out to be the big "red bellied" one- flew to a tree, then to the ground- and then, just as Scrappy woke up and sat at the window to watch, lighted RIGHT IN FRONT OF SCRAPPY on the window edge (no ledge, just edge) just long enough to make him come lean against me for comfort.

With woody on the fence, sparrows everywhere, nuthatches arguing at the feeder, and Scrappy whining,"Daddy, he scared me!", a dove lands on the top of the shed, blue jays began to fly back and forth between the two trees on either side of our porch, and Mr. Squirrel came ambling up from the woods.   All at the same time.

So, while I cannot yet answer what will happen this winter, I can tell you that the dinner bell is still ringing- in fact as I type (and eat McDonalds), both woodies and the nuthatch have made appearances this morning.


And here's what life in the woods and fields look like nowadays.

As you can see, most of the leaves are now down.

Mr. Nuthatch in the woods.

Leaf raft in Stony Run.

Woody in the woods, too.

Weird, caught him taling off here.

River is way down for the year.

Thought it odd to see shelves that high up a tree- in the swamp.

Scrappy's favorite spot turns into Scrappy's favorite beach when the water's down.

Of course there were 10,000 screaming socceristas out and about, so no deer or anything bigger than a squirrel today.