Music: Family Feud
12:34p
So where I last left off, I was on such a high; I felt more motivated than ever, ready to tackle whatever was to come next. Be careful what you wish for...
I went back to work on Friday, ready to get the day started. They told us first thing that our goal would be 60 trucks. 60 trucks? Holy shiznits that's a lot of containers! Everyone started looking at each other with shock on their faces. Our usual is around 40-50 a day. They had brought in overtime people from 1st and 2nd shift to help us out. So I figured 'okay, this will be good in that there will be PLENTY of production, and I can end my week on a good note.' WRONG. The morning started off okay, once the freight started to get going. I came back from my first break ready for another round. I scanned the pallets I'd picked up before going to break...and nothing happened. The screen kept telling me I had a 'priority' move, and therefore, could not start another one. The fuck? So I ran by the desk. My manager couldn't figure it out, so we had the desk clerk look. I still could not scan my pallets. They checked to be sure I was open to haul from all of the docks, and I was. So why the hell could I not scan these poor pallets? Jaime, the hauling pro (she's really good), even came by and looked. Still nothing. I was down an hour of production already by this point, getting more worried and frustrated by the minute. So while all that was going on, they asked me if I could go slot for our third party people. I ran up front and got a cart, and walked all the way down to D dock, and got started. They gave me three doors, all relatively close to each other.
I went to the first one and it was a nightmare. Some idiot had pushed the pallets right up against one another, leaving no space for anyone whatsoever, and the pallets weren't even lined up in neat rows. I asked the unloader the first time to be sure to start leaving some space, so as the QA and us haulers could scan the tags. Ugh. Excuse me, have you ever unloaded before? This guy...apparently not! So for the next few hours, I went up and down to each door, putting tags on the pallets as soon as an unloader would pull one out. Was nice to not have to be on production, but here sat all this freight, on my assigned dock, and NO ONE was hauling from there. I kept paging out, and I felt useless. I even had unloaders ask me to bring them pallets, and I calmly explained why I couldn't do so.
After second break, I finished slotting, as the unloaders finished their trucks. I went up to the desk, but they didn't have anymore trucks for me to slot. My manager suggested I try to start hauling again, so he gave me a ride over to the RSR area. There sat a lonely PE. Great, hope this thing at least runs. I'll handle the steering the best I can...as crappy as some of them are.
So I logged in and gave it a test run. Seemed to run fine, the steering was much easier on my hand than the one I'd been using the past several weeks, maybe even better. I ran by the desk and picked up my scanner, and gave it a test run. And I'll be damned if that same message didn't pop up! So I buzzed my manager, frustrated at this point that no one could figure out what was going on. He suggested I give the manager from flow a ring, as he knew that system inside and out, but he'd already left for the day. Damn! I gave up my PE (sigh), and proceeded to sweep C dock for about 45 minutes. I was about to get sent home, but the desk clerk asked me if I'd go slot one last door on B dock. I walked myself and the cart down there. I forgot how much walking (with a big blue cart) across the building, SUCKS. But I will say, it's great exercise. :)
I finished up with the labels, and they went ahead and sent me home, as I was kinda useless at that point. This was only the beginning....
Saturday, I felt fine going into work. The overtime folks were back, and our goal was 55 trucks. My manager jokingly asked if I was going to haul today. I told him I was about to find out. I jumped on my machine, got my scanner, hoping that whatever glitch was in my system had knocked itself out overnight. I hit C dock and scanned my first pallet. Why. Can't. I. HAUL! We got a hold of the flow manager, and he came down to the office. He got into the system, and he finally gave me an answer: for some reason, I had been assigned to move old pallets from the flow area (which isn't even my department/area to begin with), and could not perform any other moves because of it. So he took those moves off of the screen, and made sure I was open to haul from my usual docks. He came out with me as I scanned a pallet. Success!! I thanked him, and got serious on making production. I did okay, but could have done much better if QA had been keeping up with the freight flow. (which they weren't)
About halfway through the day, my throat started to feel scratchy. Uh-oh. It was weird, because it came up so fast, it was like BAM here I am. It got worse as the day went on, and I had nothing to take for it, no medicine, and I would have killed for a cough drop. All I had was my cold water, so I would sip that, letting the cold soothe my throat for a moment. Swallowing started to become very painful, and I was starting to lose my voice, so I kept quiet and tried not to shout at people over all the noise. Strange thing was, I had no other aches/symptoms at that point. I felt fine except for my throat. Around 5:30, it was all I could handle, so I asked my manager how bad he needed me to stay. He told me not to worry, as he had plenty of help, and to go on home and get better. I figured it could be one of two things: either I'd been exposed to something in that dust as I swept the docks the night before, or it could have been from me being in a hurry earlier that morning to make production, and had no time to stop and blow my nose, as the chill in the air always makes it run, so I did the worst thing you could ever do: I tilted my head back, and let it drain down my throat. Stupid, stupid STUPID. I'm not doing THAT ever again!
I went home, getting worse each minute it felt like. I ate dinner, and decided I'd take some Benadryl and go to sleep, and take a Claritin in the morning, hoping that would take care of it. The drugs helped; I was able to go to sleep, but I kept waking up. I had this weird pain/burning in my chest, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Alright, this is getting strange. I got out of bed. It was 11 already. Ugh. My parents were still up, and I explained what was going on. I put some vapor rub on my chest, and warmed up a towel to help get the medicine going. That helped immensely, and I was able to sleep. My parents were at a loss at what was wrong, and my mom wanted to take me to the emergency room right then. I told her I already knew I wasn't going to make it to work the next day, and that it wasn't really life-threatening at that point. We decided I'd go to the new emergency care place the next town over. I managed to sleep until 3, my usual wake-up time. After trying for 30 minutes, I was able to get hold of my manager and let him know I wasn't coming in. I finally passed out around 5:30.
When I woke up, I had no voice, my throat was still a little sore, but the chest pain had gone away. My mom drove me to the emergency clinic, and I was able to get right in and see a doctor. They were all very nice at the clinic, made me feel very comfortable. I got checked out, and the doctor said it was the possible beginning of strep throat. I'd never had strep before. I managed to catch it early...this is why you go to the doctor when you are sick, you never know what it could be, or what it could become if left untreated. I was given two shots (in the hip, ouch), one of steroids, and the other of antibiotics. The nurse explained everything she was doing before she did it (the second shot was painful, it was funny because she kept apologizing). I made sure to get a doctor's excuse for work, got my prescriptions, and on home we went. I started the medication right away, and started to feel better immediately, although I still couldn't talk.
I spent the rest of the night, banished to the upstairs, as I was still contagious. I started to feel better, even got on facebook and talked to some friends. Not having a voice sucks, I get miserable when I can't use it, as quiet as I am. So I lived vicariously through instant messenger. :P
I went to bed early, exhausted from not sleeping, and from the day. When I woke up this morning, I felt tons better; my energy is back, although not 100%, and I even can talk a little better. :) My throat doesn't hurt any longer. So I'm going to be spending this week resting and taking the medicine, not to mention try to toil in some projects that have long been neglected. Thanks to those who left me get well wishes, seeing those made me feel a lot better.
I'm off to go see what kind of trouble I can get into from the comfort of my bed......peace.
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