I wake at 7am to notice its a cold, chilly winter morning and realise I must put away the shorts and t-shirt I laid out for today and pack my long pants, jumper and gloves. That’s the thing about our warehouse picker jobs. The temperature inside the warehouse changes drastically depending on the weather. When it is cold outside, the warehouse feels like it is based at the north pole but when it is hot outside it feels like an oven. I sign in at 8am and see that there are no orders ready to be picked yet so I get my favourite trolley and go chat to some of my fellow warehouse colleagues. This is my favourite part of my day, chatting and having a bit of banter with the lads, and of course Sarah. Sarah is the only female working in the warehouse out of 37 employees but she is treated like one of the guys and fits in just as good, if not better than most of the guys. The first set of orders are printed and put in to the collection tray.
I grab about 10 orders and head to the back of the warehouse. Each order starts with a bin location, this gives me the general location of where product should be located in the warehouse. It then gives me a specific code for the product that must be picked and a written description of that product to ensure no error. I read the quantity number and pick the appropriate amount and move on to the next order. After 20 minutes, I complete picking my orders and head to the packing area.
Be Complete
This area is full of different sized boxes, each order must be packed into a separate box, labelled and signed off. I then pass each order to another colleague who checks to make sure it is correct, puts in bubble-wrap and sends it off to be shipped. By the time I complete packing my orders, I notice that the order tray is pretty full again and I start to move a little quicker. I gather another 10 orders and my trolley and head back through the warehouse. We do not have supervisors or managers telling us to speed up or standing over us to see if we are working but we all know that we must complete every order for that day.
All About Team Work
Because of that, it is very much a team effort, we all know that the faster we go, the earlier we will get to leave. The work usually flies by up until first break at 11. After that, the repetition and the tedious work starts to mess with your mind. Walking past the same people over and over again, not knowing whether to say hi as you pass because you have already said hi to this person 18 times that morning. Picking the same products or slight variations of that product and constantly going through the same routine of pick, pack, label and pass. I actually find myself talking and singing to myself sometimes just to keep my mind occupied.
As the day drags on, the orders seem to keep being printed and it begins to feel like you are fighting a never-ending battle with the orders. People start to tire and a few mistakes start to be made but as I said earlier, we are a team. We always pull together, work hard and win that battle against the ‘orders’. Our manager comes in with some beers every day when we are just finishing and usually we all gather around and drink one before we go. I leave knowing that I will be back for pretty much the same day tomorrow but at least we will all be there together.
