Day: December 7, 2007

I did not post on Wednesday. This is because I was in a heavy avoidance mode. I’d done all the book shipping preparation that was possible, but I was still tense and nervous that things would not go well. I had to give my brain things to do other than fret. So I read and surfed the internet and generally avoided everyone and everything that could remind me about all the worries in the back of my brain. A head stuffed full of repressed worries does not make for a good night’s sleep. I spent the entire night packing books in my dreams.

Thursday was the first day of shipping. The file boxes full of invoices and postage were finally put to use. Those file boxes loom large in my brain the more stuffed they get. By the time I am done sorting invoices and printing labels, I’ve put in about 50 hours of focused effort. Then I start printing postage. The boxes I carried to the Keep yesterday contained 60 hours of my effort and over ten thousand dollars worth of postage. It is very cathartic and tension reducing for me to look at those same boxes now that they are empty. The invoices and postage are now packages. Most of those packages I will never see or hear from again.

The first shipping day always begins slowly. I start with the single book packages first to let the helpers get a feel for how the process works. It does not take long before the volunteers are rearranging their packing stations and optimizing everything for efficiency and accuracy. I love to see that. At first I work right alongside everyone else. There is usually a pile of “special handling” packages that require too much explanation. It is one thing to explain a process that will work for a whole pile of invoices. It is something else to explain that this package gets an extra book because the person sent a separate payment, but asked that the books get shipped together. All the packages in “special handling” have stories attached and it is much easier for me to do them because I already know the stories.

By noon the special handling pile was gone. This was good because we began accumulating volunteers. That’s when I step back and stop doing any of the packing. Instead I started walking around and supervising. I checked all the processes, but everyone was working well and working smart. There was only one time I had to ask someone to change the way they were packing, not because it had caused a problem, but because it could potentially cause a problem. Everyone was very thorough. They kept finding problems and bringing them to me. I collected labels with no matching invoices, addressed packages with no zip codes, a big pile of packages with no postage because I’d miscounted how much to print, and a second pile of packages needing postage because I’d mis-estimated how many books would fit into a flat rate mailer.

At first the supervising left me ample time to sit down or snack on a bagel. But then more volunteers arrived and we finished all the big lists. I found myself with twice as many workers and they were all finishing lists faster because the lists were shorter. For the last three hours of the shipping I did not have a spare minute to think. There was always someone in need of a new list, or with a question, or lacking supplies. Then suddenly my boxes were empty. People came asking for the next assignment and I had none left to give. This was good, because I had reached frazzlement. I could hardly think coherently anymore. Fortunately the pizza arrived about then. I’d hardly eaten all day and I was famished.

I went home relieved, but not completely relaxed. I had that pile of problem packages to sort out. They threatened to disturb a second night’s sleep, but I squelched them with pie and a good book. Three hours of work this morning and I’d found solutions for all of the problem packages. Three helpers came back to the keep today. I’m really glad that they did come despite my frazzled assurances the night before that there wasn’t much left to do. I would not have been able to get those problem packages done and ready before the man with the mail truck showed up. He arrived just as we had finished and were all wondering what else there was to do. So we loaded the mail truck and it was all done.

There will be shipping tasks next week. Some new orders have come in. Some of those packages will find their way back to me. Then I’ll have to sort them out. Some postal worker will find a way to mangle books and we’ll need to send out replacements. I’ll still have work to do. But there is so much less. I don’t quite feel done yet. The book release party is tomorrow, I still have to run that. But I’m hoping that next week and the week after will bring more time for family and holiday and doing-nothing-in-particular.