Tomorrow I'm bringing Ibuprofen to work.

They're offering VTO (voluntary time off) for employees employed by Amazon more than one week (that'd be me and others in my new hire group).

So I was asked earlier if I wanted to take VTO, plus if I wanted to take off tomorrow, too. >.>; I, of course, said no to both options. I want to work.

But sadly, by their asking, seven people went home all of a sudden on what was supposed to be an otherwise slow night.

It wasn't. >.>;

It rarely is until after 2:00am, I'm beginning to learn.

And of course we have daily goals and quotas to meet in production.

I say 'we', but I mean the building collectively; shipping (my department) kind of runs on what everyone else produces.

I've caught myself wondering if the offering of VTO is somehow a test, too.

I know it doesn't count against you in your point system (to show or not show for work - you have 6 points in a given 90 day period), but surely upper level management looks at this and says something like:

"So and so took off when they really didn't have to. They're not working as hard as they should. It's practically free money, why didn't they stay?"

Considering how "group" oriented everything is there, it's really interesting to see these kinds of things come to fruition.

I'm sincerely working my ass off; trying to work towards a promotion. It feels like I'm making inroads.. hopefully I'm doing just that.

Weirdly though?

I'm already seeing the cutthroats.

There are one or two people, one in particular, I've had my eye on for awhile; I won't accuse him of lying or not taking credit given a wrong, but I suspect if push comes to shove, I couldn't put it past him.

There are some rather cruel, unnaturally evil people in the world. Call me wary of my whereabouts with good intentions; this is my livelihood at stake.

I'll keep fighting, as usual. This is a fantastic company to work for and I honestly can't vouch for them enough thus far. I've been impressed every step of the way.