Busy Being A Zebra

Ah, My poor blog....  How I have missed you.   I can't seem to remember the last time I wrote a post...  Well, I guess I could simply re-read the last post to jog my memory.   But that would be less dramatic!  

Yes!  I'm back to write about the day to day things that happen to the Great Ethan Allen here in Kenosha!  ( Drum roll.....)  Pretty much nothing!

Well.  Work, mostly.  Being a zebra seems to consume a lot of time.  About 8 hours each day, to be exact!  With only two days off each week.   Crazy!  Right?  But... I think I can hang with the herd for a little while.   At least until I learn to blend in better. 

And that is hard to do when you are as unique as I happen to be.   I'm not braggin' here, but....  I have been told by almost everyone I work with that I am "Special!"   Yes, yes...   It is hard to blend in when everyone recognizes your amazing talents. But I have to try. 

So... today I spent  one of my valued days off creating a way to blend in with the herd even better than before.   A Way that will help me fit in instead of stick out in a world of black and white.   Today I personalized my uniform.   With Embroidery!  ( Because,  Nothing says "Normal" and "Standard" better than embroidering your name on your Zebra hoodie!) 

Now.... Instead of "Hey You!"  Or "That Guy over there..."   People will glance over in my direction, and, after the alarms  end and the dust settles, they will know beyond a shadow of a doubt... That it was I... The Great Ethan Allen.

It's an old title,  that people from previous jobs used to call me.   It's almost a little embarrassing, actually.  But,  Nicknames are what they are.    And no one really knows where or how they stick to people. (Unless it is on your back.... with tape.)  Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches and hope that the people who give you the nickname are creative and clever with their selection. 

While I had the embroidery Machine out,  I figured I might as well make another t-shirt while I was at it.   You see,  the Hoodie can get rather warm in the middle of the warehouse.  And being such a "hard Worker" as  I am.... I often overheat from all of my labor and activity.   I'm not braggin' here.   Just stating the obvious. A T-shirt is more my style.  ( as long as it has pockets and buttons up... but, I will take what I can get for free.)  

After re-reading this,  It almost sounds like I have joined a cult.   Well,  Cults can be good.... sometimes.  There is a lot of context that has to be known before passing judgement.   In my humble opinion.  But at the end of the day,  I did manage to talk a couple former GXO employees into joining the Zebra team.   So this months recruitment quota has been met by me.   And I did it all with the blog.... Hurray for me and my unique writing skills.
All joking aside,  I have been rather busy at the Zebra.  In addition to recruiting new initiates, We have been re-labeling the racks.  And what I thought would take only a few days has taken a little bit longer.   Mostly because we are down to only one team now.   4 people!  Everyone else has been pulled away to help learn their actual job or do other duties that help the actual function of the warehouse. Every now and then they throw a dozen or so people to "Help" with the easy labeling. But only after they are done training or are out of work.    This means that the 4 "full timers" get to babysit the transients and fix all of their mistakes after they leave for the day.   But that rarely happens.    Mostly it is just Oscar, Cory, Lorenza and myself.  Since we finished the Main racks,  the rest has slipped in priority.  But not for me!  Because Material Handler ones were MADE for  jobs like this!  ( I'm not braggin' or anything.)

Monday we got the next wave of people from the old GXO.   Apparently, there is a third wave starting this  coming Monday, but that is only supposed to be 5 people.   We shall see how accurate that prediction will be.  In the mean time,  A lot of Familiar faces could be seen and we all got to catch up on how they have all been doing over the last three weeks.  I'm happy to say that Phil, Marian, John, Jeff, Hose' Fransisco, Joan, Tom, Jane, and a bunch of others are all back and ready to become herd members.  

In the mean time, I have been working with many of the outbound and inventory folks who I never really got to know when we were GXO.  Basically, I think we are getting a lot closer now that we have had the great change over. We shall see how long it lasts after Enoch's Basketball Challenge is engaged.  ( A possible sub-story for a future blog post)  

Other than that,   I have been doing Origami.  People seemed to enjoy my dragons so much, that I have been folding them over the last several seeks.  Unfortunately, they take about that long to complete. I just finished the green western Dragon several days ago.   And recently started another Eastern Dragon. Folding the scales takes almost an entire day to finish one small section.   Add in that I am pretty much wiped out after working all day, so I have very little energy to dedicate to folding after work.  But...  I still chip away when I can.   And hopefully get a large portion finished on Weekends. 

This post is getting long!   And here I thought I would have nothing to say...  Ah well, that is always the case.  I will mention that Cheryl came up two weekends ago and we hung out in Milwaukee. It was fun and way to short.  I didn't even have time to take many pictures. But we did managed to score and IKEA trip and some Honey Brown beer.  We looked at an apartment, but things did not pan out yet again.   Ah well....  Sometimes these things have to happen naturally.  And there will be other apartments in the future.... I'm sure.

And finally,   Dave,  the Roommate/Pastor guy.   Broke his wing flexing at Crossfit.  ( Funny I have not mentioned this before.) Well... The Friday before last was his surgery to reattach the tendon to the bone.  ( Yes,  he ripped his pectoral muscle!)   The doctor videoed the procedure and emailed it to Dave.   Who WATCHED IT!  In front of us! Giving me nightmare fuel for the remainder of the week.  ( The Human body is creepy and kinda gross. And muscle and tendons look like feathers and nylon fibers....  Ewww!  Shudder.)  Let me assure you,  it is not for the faint of heart!  ( Yes!  That means me!  I'm secure enough in my masculinity to admit I do not like the sight of human blood nor torn Muscle fibers being reattached..   To BONE!   On video!)  What kind of creepy doctor E-mails the video of the surgery to the patient?  Medicine has become a whole new level of weird.

Is that enough?   Well I hope so.   These posts tend to take a long time to write to begin with.  And then, if I let too much time slip by,  they get way to long!   So... That is all.  I'm alive,  I work for Zebra,  I had a good day running, writing, folding, washing, and embroidery-ing. It was a good day.   Then again, Every day is a good day.   It's GREAT to be alive.   Hope everyone is having a great weekend as well.  And thanks for stopping in and reading  this ridiculously long post. Have a good one.