Good news today.....I couldn't wait until tomorrow so I took a trip to work to see if my met my quota for the 2nd week in a row and indeed I did!
That means a few things, first off my base rate of pay is now increased by 2.50/hr in a matter of only 5 weeks, tomorrow I graduate training and am considered an "Incentive D2S Selector", I am eligible for night shift (far less pallet jack traffic than day shift) and I can start reaching incentive pay.
Basically say I average 110% for an entire week (paid weekly), ~18/hr. will be the rate on my check. I make my own future now, there's guys making over 30/hr. It's all on the person, they control their performance level. I've been hanging around 120% for the past two weeks but have been considered a "Trainee" only getting a flat base rate. Had I have been "Incentive" that would've been ~21/hr.
I am going to kick butt this week and with any luck will begin night shift at the beginning of next week. I'm really excited for that, day shift has ~250 selectors where night shift only has about ~45. Everyone there hates night shift, good news for me because I'm all about it. It's tight as stuff in the huge ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD warehouse with ~250, 16ft. long pallet jacks racing around.
This is what the jacks look like, only ours have a 4 ft. pallet rack mounted to the front. They are a little tricky to navigate sometimes. Ours aren't as clean either. Some have flat spots in the trailing wheels and that makes for a very annoying day. It's days like those where you go through shrink wrap like crazy. Most of the time you have 2, 7ft pallets behind you by the end of your assignment. Power steerings, suckers float up to like 10 mph. And it still takes about 6 minutes to drive from warehouse end to end.
The one day another trainee got a battery changed and forgot to put the battery guard back in........thankfully no one was standing in the battery's way when it flew out around a corner.
That being said the company's turn over rate is insane. I must have seen 10 guys get fired for dirty piss tests since I started. Anytime your jack makes contact with a stationary object you get a drug test and an accident report, possibly a one day suspension or termination on the spot depending upon circumstances. I can surely understand the company's reasoning though, the jacks are deadly pieces of machinery.