Work is AWESOME!!!

Oh man, I am so indebted to Rob right now for getting me this job, it's AWESOME!!! The way I see it, it's basically like my old dishwashing job, except with much better pay...

I'm working at Ocean's packing plant, where I pack herring roe into buckets of brine...it's actually quite labourous and mind-numbing, but I actually quite enjoy that...(it's why I liked my dishwashing job, 'cause it was a place where I could turn my brain off and just do menial labour).

I kinda feel like explaining my job, if only for posterity's sake...i.e., it's quite boring, so skip over it unless you really want a semi-indepth report on my job...

Anyways, there's a few main jobs at my work for me...there's:
1) Pale-up (or pile-up, I don't know...) - It's putting baskets of roe onto the side where the ladies pick it up to sort them, while placing the empty buckets onto the palette (flat wooden thingy the forklifts pick up). Sounds not too bad, but since I'm so short it's hard to pick up the baskets from the big metal bin thing, so I'm not doing this so much...the way I see it, it's the hardest job in the plant for me...
2) Brine - This pretty much consists of 3-4 separate jobs, w/ 3-4 people doing it...there's:
a) the bucket guy at the end, which catches the roe from the conveyor belt into the bucket, then you shake the bucket to pack the roe, then you place it on a scale to make sure it's 38.05 lbs, then pass it on to the next guy.
b) the salter, which takes the bucket of roe and puts water and a scoop of salt to fill it.
c) the lid snapper, who snaps a corner of the lid onto the bucket, then squishes the lid on using the lid squisher machine (i.e. the machine I don't really know the name of)
d) the stacker, which lifts the 50-60 lbs buckets onto the pallet, 3x4x3...Rob says that this is the hardest job in the whole plant, but I thinks it's alright once you know how to get the rhythm...

A bunch of guys rotate jobs etc, and there's pretty much my entire day...honestly, I don't know what Rob's saying about how it's so draining, it's not THAT exhausting, lol...although, yesterday I was crazy exhausted...aha, I'll get into what happened on the first days of my job...

Day 1: First Day on the Job
--> I started off with just rinsing the stacks of empty baskets for a few hours in the morning, washing the bins after it was empty (i.e. rediculously easy), so that was good...then after morning coffee I was doing the lid snapping & squishing, which was also quite easy...then after lunch, I believe I was doing the salting, then after afternoon coffee I was doing the stacking for the last hour or so...all in all, it was quite a long day, but it was GREAT! I made a few mistakes, but that's to be expected, but all in all it was quite awesome...oh, and the people there, i.e. my co-workers, are great too, lol...

Day 2: "Sweating like a 40-yr old wolverine"
--> Holy crap this day was LONG! I started off with stacking the 60 lbs buckets in the morning, and since I'd yet to master that technique, it was HARRRD. As in, after an hour of heavy lifting, I was "sweating like a 40-yr old wolverine", according to Colin, hahaha...(at least I think that's what he said, it being so loud at my work)...then after coffee, I started doing pale-up (with the smaller purple baskets that I'm able to easily reach down to pick up), and HOLY CRAP that was tiring...I mean, if I'm able to lift 3 baskets at a time then it would be okay, but since I could only carry two at a time comfortably I'm always so behind...after lunch, I switched over to salting (so I can rest, according to Victor), but the stacker wanted to switch halfway through so I did, and for the rest of the day I kept switching around the jobs in Brine...since I've never had so much physical activity of this magnitude, I was quite drenched and sweaty and gross...I even switched my overalls at lunch, and by the end of the day those were drenched as well...also because of such labourousness, my muscles ached with ferocity, my back killing and what not...plus, my hands were all stiffened and slightly swelly (as they still are...oh well, hopefully it'll be better by the end of the week)...anyways...day 3...

Day 3: Rediculous Easiness...
--> Well, Victor told me this morning that I wasn't gonna do pile-up because it's the blue baskets and therefore I'm not tall enough to do it comfortably, lol...therefore, I spent the entire day on Brine! Easy as pie! Salting, easy! Lid pressing (pressing! that's the word I was looking for!), easy! Stacking, after finding my rhythm, easy! Well, some guy left early or something, and my partners were leaving often as well, so I had to do most of the brine myself (usually a job for 2-3 people), but it was quite slow so I managed it, haha...oh, and I learned how to do the roe-catching bucket thing today, that's also quite easy too...all in all, it was the longest day ever (stayed 'til 4), but since it was so easy, it was AWESOME! Although, I feel kinda bad, 'cause it's not particularly fair to the other guys that I didn't do the pale-up, but I guess I'm just not able to do it, so whatever...haha!

Other things of note:
- Colin & Victor are practically my supervisors, and they drive around in forklifts all day...they're pretty cool...
- There's Wayne, Hamin (or Hameen, I dunno...), Ryan, Bryant, and Troy, all my co-workers, and they're all pretty cool as well...
- I start at 7:30am and end around 3:30-4pm, from Monday to Friday.
- My breaks are from 9:30-9:45 (morning coffee), 11:30-12:00 (lunch, not paid for...), and 2:00-2:15 (afternoon coffee). Basically, I work 4 intervals of 2 hours (or whatever it actually is...)
- My breaks are actually quite short, considering it takes like 5 mins to take off/put on my raingear/gloves, so it's like 5 mins removal, 5 mins sitting down, then 5 mins getting everything on again...
- My "uniform" is basically my overalls (provided), my steel-toed rubber boots (I bought myself), raingear (i.e. suspendered pants/coverall thingy), and my gloves (i.e., inner white gloves or lining, then rubber gloves, then "sleeves" which are plastic things that cover my arms from elbow to wrist).
- On tuesday they gave me huge work gloves which didn't fit at all and I ended up getting a blister on my left index before I switched to gloves that fit...no more guitar playing for me for a while!
- As for the cute girls that work there, there's not really much to choose from (unless your thing is older chinese ladies...) but there are a few quite nice ones...there's this white girl (I think Dawn, that's the name written on her apron) that's quite cute, and she actually talked to me! Unfortunately, it was because I was soaking wet from my own sweat, so not a good thing, heh...and then there this cute japanese girl that I always see at the counter place where we get our gloves etc, but that's only at the time we're leaving, so it's not like I talk to her or whatever...but anyways, it's not like I wanna date or anything, I just find these two women attractive...man that was a long point...
- This was my first time in forever that I actually had the chance / felt like blogging all week...hence the longness about nothing...
- I guess this is it...

Well, that was a long and arduous posting...promise my next post'll be more exhuberant (heheh, hope I'm spelling that right...). So until next time, I guess...

[Edit - thought I might as well put this up too...]

Your Birthdate: May 9

Your birth on the 9th day of the month adds a tone of idealism and humanitarianism to your nature. You become one who can work easily with people because you are broadminded, tolerant and generous. You are ever sensitive to others' needs and feelings, and you are very sympathetic and compassionate. Your feeling run deep and you often find yourself in dramatically charged situations. This 9 energy always tends to give more that it gets.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

[Haha, am I really??]

Your Taste in Music:

90's Hip Hop: Highest Influence

90's Rock: Highest Influence

Ska: Highest Influence

80's Alternative: High Influence

90's Alternative: High Influence

90's R&B: High Influence

Adult Alternative: High Influence

90's Pop: Medium Influence

Alternative Rock: Medium Influence

Punk: Medium Influence

80's Pop: Low Influence

80's R&B: Low Influence

80's Rock: Low Influence

Classic Rock: Low Influence

Country: Low Influence

Dance: Low Influence

Gangsta Rap: Low Influence

Old School Hip Hop: Low Influence

R&B: Low Influence

How's Your Taste in Music?

[Just about right on the money with that one!]