Digital Picking and Putting in the Garden

I finally got trained on digital picking. Now I can use a computer system to navigate the warehouse and fill multiple orders at a time. I had really resigned myself to being permanently a manual picker, since I was the only person in my last batch of temps not to get trained on anything else last year.

Today we put in the garden. We put sunflowers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, peas, and beans. We have zucchini and summer squash growing indoors that are not ready to transplant, too. The sunflowers I grew indoors sprouted in like, two days instead of one to two weeks like they were supposed to, so they got quite a bit taller than my flower last year before I transplanted it. They also seemed overgrown to be indoors because they were so ahead of schedule and therefore kind of sickly. But my flower last year had some close calls and recovered from each so hopefully these will be similarly hardy.

Speaking of which, of all the sunflowers to have grown last year, my flower, the one that returned from the dead twice, was the only one to still be standing after this winter's end. What a testament of its strength of will. It will not soon be forgotten.

I'm Unmemorable

At work, they changed the method of how we scan in orders. Last year, each of us had our own barcode, but now, we're assigned a barcode at the beginning of each day and record which number we got. So before, it used to say "Gryphon has scanned in order # whatever" but now it will say "Worker 17 has scanned in order # whatever". Feels a bit less personal.Thing is, I still have my barcode from last year. I wonder if I used it, if it would still remember me. And then on the sign out sheet, under the "Worker #" section, I could write "Gryphon".

I must be the most unmemorable person in the world. Only three people from work last year remember who I am. And then I ran into an old friend from Ways2Work and she barely remembered me. And then when I called the agency to see about work the next day, and the person I speak with daily had suddenly forgotten who I was. I'm dying.

Starting up the garden this year. I just want to grow sunflowers, zucchini, and tomatoes, since I know that's what works, but Mom wants to grow peppers and onions and all those things that didn't work last year. She says that just because it didn't work last year doesn't mean it won't this year. But for me, last year was for experimenting... This time I want one that actually flourishes.

And she wants to put my sunflowers in the flower section. A sunflower isn't a flower, it's a crop. It produces a food substance and it only has it's flower out for like five days, anyway. And I don't see the point in segregating flowers and vegetables in the first place.

And her gardening friend tells her to wait until after the Victoria Day weekend, but my gardener friends all started early and told us our garden was weak because we waited too long last year.

I started growing my sunflowers at least, and I started them indoors. Last year's sunflower was a transplant and it did real well, after all. I planted ten, and all ten have sprouted. It's beautiful. I've also prepped our plot of land a bit, dug it up and removed weeds.

I lost my Segu book. I'm mad. I'm really, really mad. Where did it go?

Extend-a-Family Interview

I went to Kitchener today to do my interview with Extend-a-Family. I got to spend some time at WALES too, since it was right across the street. When I showed up, some of the participants saw me ahead of time and ran out to see me. Everyone was so happy to see me, it was very welcoming.

The interview went great. I already knew the person who was interviewing me, she went through job carving with me at the Butterfly Conservatory, and she co-hosted the Inclusion Workshop. Before going in, I found out there was someone else in the office with  her name and I thought I might have lost my advantage, but it turned out to be the person I knew. It was very conversational and didn't feel too much like an interview.

Some people are criticizing me for making the potential decision to stay in Kitchener to do contract work, which would pay less than staying in Guelph and doing industrial work, but I really think that paid employment in my field before I even graduate is valuable. Not to mention the networking aspect. And they would also like me to continue working part-time through the school year, so it's kind of an investment. Although since I'm a Respect Leader, I'm really piling my plate high.

My roommates all moved out. I came back and saw a big moving van. I asked who was moving out and they were like "All of us". I knew two of them had moved out, and I thought a third was leaving, but I was told the other three were staying because they have work in the area. The landlord came by and took their keys and everything. They are really gone, and I have the whole house to myself all summer long.

The Well is Dry

Last Monday, Well.cabroke a company record for most orders sent within a day. They break a record on my first day back. Coincidence?

They were so happy they bought everyone pizza. They bought so much pizza that we collectively couldn't finish it all.

When he was announcing it, he sort of played us. He started off by talking about how on Monday, the whole system went down for half an hour and how it might not sound like a lot, but hundreds of orders are sent in the span of half an hour... He made it sound like we were behind schedule and would need to hustle. But then he capped it off by saying how impressed he was with how we managed to break record even with the technical difficulties.

There's a negative side to this, though. Because I'm called in based on whether or not there are orders... If we run through the orders too fast, then I don't get called in for work. And that's why I don't have any work today and probably not for the rest of the week.

Oh well... I've got that interview tomorrow, and I've got a social event on Friday.... Start off the summer with two days of work, a job interview, and a party... Better than last summer, that's for sure.

Back at Well

Today, when I went into work, my boss was all "Well, you guys know what to do" and I was like, "Actually, I've been hired as a packer this time, and I was never trained on packing" and she was all "But that's perfect, we need pickers right now".

I'm never going to pack, am I? There was even a few times today when everyone who knew how to pack was put on packing, and I was one of the few schlubs who was exclusively a picker, even though I'm a veteran.

The agency that sends me there sends me an email every day that I work. Last year, my job title was order picker, and this time my title is packager. But all I do is pick.

Order picking is like riding a bike. I had no trouble getting back into the swing of things.

Pickers don't make boxes anymore, and we don't estimate the size of the box, either. Makes sense, I guess. A friend of mine from last year who was on packing told me that over half the time, the box size the picker chose was wrong and they'd have to repack it.

There's a bunch of new lines. There's the HV Line, the Bulk Line, the Meth Line (short for "Method")... Pretty easy to figure out if you know how to navigate the warehouse, though.

Not as many old faces as I thought. There were a couple friends from eight months ago, but a lot of employees have left. A lot of the senior employees don't remember me... I remember them...

I got an interview with Extend-a-Family this Thursday.

The oven here is broken so I can't bake bread.

Order Packer

There are two positions at Well.ca. Order picking, and order packing. Last year, I was an order picker, and over the course of the summer the pickers were slowly taught to pack as needed. A number of times, I was asked if I had been taught to pack, and when I said no, there just wasn't any time to train me on it. Well, according to the job description I just received, I have been hired on as an order packer this year. Gonna have to break it to them that they never trained me on it. On the other hand, since this is the "training season" and people train on their first session, if I'm going in a group, I'll probably get trained. I would be really excited to be a packer, actually.

I'm such a fool. I thought I'd have to update my file at Liberty Staffing, since it had been slightly over a year since I'd worked at Well, so I was surprised when they just called me in. Somebody else said "But it hasn't been over a year, it's been a school year. Eight months." Doh! I am really not intelligent in some ways.

I got to go back to the Butterfly Conservatory again. I went with the participants this time. I don't know what the rules are about publishing images with participants so I'm not going to.

Last Day at WALES and School and Back to Work

Well, yesterday was my last day of placement and today was my last day of class. Yesterday, I had both my final presentation at WALES and my culminating review with my teacher. We are required to write a reflective paper for our placement supervisor, but at WALES, they encourage us to be creative. Previously, someone had written a paper, someone else had done a powerpoint presentation, the year previous, someone had drawn a picture and sung a song. I knew that last year's had gone over very well, so I felt I needed to do something a bit more artistic. I'm not much of a singer and I didn't want to copy her anyway, so what I did was I wrote out a speech with poetry.

I was really wigged out when they slotted the entire afternoon to my going-away presentartion. My poem wasn't that long. I had forgotten that the final presentation includes going through all the participants and letting them tell you how they feel about you leaving, sharing their memories and asking questions. And then there's celebratory cake. So it filled the afternoon, and my poetry was a huge success.

This year is the first when people are offered the choice to remain in their year one placements as they continue to second year. My supervisor asked me if I would be interested. I said I was strongly interested and she told me that she wouldn't confirm anything, but she would message my teacher that I was strongly interested. She also mentioned that they encourage students to explore new experiences.

On the last day, I asked if they had considered keeping me, and she said it was something worth bringing up with my teacher. I figured these dodgy remarks meant "no", and they just didn't really want to confront me about it. I went through the final celebration, everyone was crying, they gave me my goodbye gift, I went in for the final review, and basically the first thing they said was "We want him back."

The review was totally glowing on both ends. When I came out, all the staff were congratulating me. They knew. They just strung me along and made me go through the goodbye proceedings.

Other people have to do five interviews over the summer. I don't have to do anything.

This is the first year where we receive a grade for Field Seminar. Previously it was just a pass/fail. So now the teacher requires us to give them a copy of our reflective papers. Since I wrote a poem, I told him he was going to have to be an art teacher. He was impressed by the poem, but he told me to write a one-page summary of it, so that it could be more introspective. He offered me an extension, since I'd already done the work, but I told him I'd be fine. And then I wound up writing an entire paper and including the poem.

My placement is taking one other student, so I should have a coworker next year.

I got an "SSW" hoody today, and an "I Choose Dignity" Extend-a-Family T-shirt.

Also, same day, my Order Picking job gave me a call, asked me if I could come in Monday. That's right, they kept track of when my last school day would be, and they called me at that time. I didn't have to job search, the job searched me. Unfortunately, that will put me back in Guelph. I have so many celebratory events to attend, but ahhh.... It's hard to say no to the money.

All my roommates are moving out next year. Full new roster of people.