Tweet
As I've mentioned before, I work the graveyard freight shift in a very large, very busy grocery store, the name of which you probably wouldn't recognize unless you live in this part of the country and shop there. Because of the high sales volume we do, we have to do things a little differently than most grocery stores in order to get our shelves restocked at night. As the freight crew clocks in, we begin by hauling several dozen (or more) large pallets of grocery stock, numbering in the thousands of cases, onto the center aisle that runs from the front of the store to the back (using both manual and electric pallet jacks), downstacking those pallets, and moving them with hand-trucks onto their aisles so that we can then throw them to the shelf later on. We also drive multiple forklifts on the grocery floor at night, as we store a significant amount of back-stock in steel rafters on the grocery floor which has to be lowered to be downstacked and worked.
As you can imagine, this produces an environment which is (at least for the hour or so that the downstacking-and-wheeling process takes) extremely crowded and fast-paced. And since we're a 24 hour store it means we've got to work around customers doing their shopping, especially at this time of year when it doesn't get dark until after 10 PM and a lot of families wait until after it's dark to do their shopping.
We get a lot of training in regards to being aware of our surroundings, whether we're downstacking, pulling a pallet jack, or driving the forklift, so that we don't accidentally injure a customer or a co-worker, and AFAIK we've only had one freight-related customer injury in the 5+ years since this location opened.
The close calls, though... we get several a night, and it's almost always because a customer isn't looking in the direction they're walking. I've had customers abruptly turn directly towards the pallet I'm pulling while they stare at their phone. I've been wheeling a stack of product while a customer is facing away from me, standing still and talking to another customer, who then turns around and walks directly towards me while still making eye contact with their friend. I've had to hit the emergency brake on the forklift more than once because a young child darted right in front of the thing (which is ten feet tall, weighs as much as three full-size sedans, and makes a "truck-backing-up" noise you'd have to be clinically deaf not to notice) while staring in a different direction. On one occasion, I watched a customer run his cart directly into a stationary pallet because he was staring down at his shopping list.
I don't wish ill will to any of our customers. They're the reason I have a job. All I ask is that they exhibit at least some sense of self-preservation. It's not as if you can show up at this store at this time of night and not notice the dozens of uniformed people hurriedly moving hundreds of tons of stuff around. Open your eyes and pay attention, please. Do not step blindly into traffic as if throwing yourself before the wheels of the juggernaut. Would you act this reckless while driving down the freeway? (Sadly, some of them probably do, which is why we have so many traffic fatalities every year.)
Our forklifts can go from full speed (just shy of 3 MPH) to a complete stop within less than a meter when the driver applies the brake. But I just know that someday, at one of our locations somewhere, someone's foot is gonna get crushed because they were trying to catch 'em all and stepped right in front of the wheel so fast that the driver didn't have time to see them, react, and hit the brake.
I just hope our security cameras are good enough to defend us when that person goes to court and tries to claim their crushed tootsies are our fault.
As you can imagine, this produces an environment which is (at least for the hour or so that the downstacking-and-wheeling process takes) extremely crowded and fast-paced. And since we're a 24 hour store it means we've got to work around customers doing their shopping, especially at this time of year when it doesn't get dark until after 10 PM and a lot of families wait until after it's dark to do their shopping.
We get a lot of training in regards to being aware of our surroundings, whether we're downstacking, pulling a pallet jack, or driving the forklift, so that we don't accidentally injure a customer or a co-worker, and AFAIK we've only had one freight-related customer injury in the 5+ years since this location opened.
The close calls, though... we get several a night, and it's almost always because a customer isn't looking in the direction they're walking. I've had customers abruptly turn directly towards the pallet I'm pulling while they stare at their phone. I've been wheeling a stack of product while a customer is facing away from me, standing still and talking to another customer, who then turns around and walks directly towards me while still making eye contact with their friend. I've had to hit the emergency brake on the forklift more than once because a young child darted right in front of the thing (which is ten feet tall, weighs as much as three full-size sedans, and makes a "truck-backing-up" noise you'd have to be clinically deaf not to notice) while staring in a different direction. On one occasion, I watched a customer run his cart directly into a stationary pallet because he was staring down at his shopping list.
I don't wish ill will to any of our customers. They're the reason I have a job. All I ask is that they exhibit at least some sense of self-preservation. It's not as if you can show up at this store at this time of night and not notice the dozens of uniformed people hurriedly moving hundreds of tons of stuff around. Open your eyes and pay attention, please. Do not step blindly into traffic as if throwing yourself before the wheels of the juggernaut. Would you act this reckless while driving down the freeway? (Sadly, some of them probably do, which is why we have so many traffic fatalities every year.)
Our forklifts can go from full speed (just shy of 3 MPH) to a complete stop within less than a meter when the driver applies the brake. But I just know that someday, at one of our locations somewhere, someone's foot is gonna get crushed because they were trying to catch 'em all and stepped right in front of the wheel so fast that the driver didn't have time to see them, react, and hit the brake.
I just hope our security cameras are good enough to defend us when that person goes to court and tries to claim their crushed tootsies are our fault.
Comment