Music: Armin van Buuren ft. Ana Criado- "Suddenly Summer"
1:50a
Guess I am more recovered from the weekend than I thought; 2am on my second night off, and I'm wide awake. Of course, it could be contributed to the fact that I fell asleep for about 30 minutes while watching a movie (guess I just had a 'power-nap', and why does that irk me so much...). Or it could be Mother Nature screwing with me. Guess that explains all the yelling and cursing I did over the weekend.
This weekend was another of those 'straight-out-of-the-twilight-zone' weekends. I don't remember Friday to save my life, except that us haulers had to stay until 7, so naturally I was pissed of, of course. I'll get back to Friday. I was in charge of two docks by myself Friday and Saturday (A and B), and they had nearly every door open. No problem, really. I made sure to keep clearing out space for each door as the unloaders went along, kind of like a race to keep up. Saturday, they made excuses on why there wasn't as much overtime this year, compared to last year, and all I heard was 'blah,blah,blah'. There are other people getting overtime, from different areas, while the rest of us are just plain getting screwed. Now I learned that they may not send us to the stores this year to help out. It just keeps getting worse! Alright so I'm getting off the main point here. I don't remember what I did on Saturday, or how early I got to leave. Sunday started off great! I was only put in charge of A dock, and had only one unloader under my care. I nailed production by hauling the leftovers off A dock, and hitting B dock, in the first three hours, even while stopping to chat with a few lift drivers! I took my first break, and was ready to get back out and keep the momentum going....
Now this is when the universe got somehow thrown off-balance. I started right off the bat by going down to C dock to see what it had to offer. There sat two double-stacked pallets. Yes! Quadruple hauls! Right off the bat I'm getting four hauls. I picked them up, and went on my way. I turned down the assigned isle, slowly, 1) because I am still not experienced yet and 2) you just have to take your time with double-stacked pallets, and it's hard to trust their integrity. I passed a palled sitting off to the side, and was certain I had passed safely, when I heard the tell-tale sound of tearing shrink wrap and falling boxes. Thinking they were about to fall over in my direction, I jumped off the machine and booked it. I heard a crash behind me, and I didn't stop running until I was sure I'd be in the clear. When the noise stopped, and I wasn't dead yet, I turned around. Thank God the pallets fell the opposite direction! It looked like a demolished tower, and oddly I had a flashback of 9/11, the way the pallets looked. I was shaken up, thinking a pallet was about to come down on my head (my toe was bad enough), the cases themselves were light, so I wasn't worried as much about that.
The shock set in, and I shakily went to investigate; as I was passing the stray pallet, the second set of pallets on my forks clipped it, causing the tower to come crashing down. I managed to flag down a lift driver, Casey (so I can now put another face with a name, thanks to J.R.), and he helped me clean up the massive spill. He was even nice enough to take the pallets to the specified slots. I thanked him, and vowed to never haul double-stacked pallets ever again.
So, with production shot for that hour, I somehow still managed to bring it back up to 'okay' status, hopefully enough to save my ass. I'd spent 30 minutes taking care of the mess, and had to log myself back on to the machine, as I'd been locked out. Alright, no one was hurt and there was the mishap of the day, but as always, you've got that positive outlook to get you through, now focus and get back down to A dock! I was driving back down to the end of A to grab some pallets, and was coming in at an angle so I could pull in and grab the next pair, and went to crank the handle to slow down. Nothing. I cranked it good another time, still nothing. I was heading straight for the wall! I hit the emergency stop, still nothing! By this time, I was cursing the machine to hell and back, and had no time to think, just hold on and pray. I ran right into the slot and hit the wall. All I was missing was a trip label. Before the shock once again set in, I looked around at the machine. God damn bastard had somehow locked me out! I had just scanned my badge 20 minutes beforehand! And when you are not logged in on the machine, you ain't goin' nowhere.
I took in my surroundings; I had run into a box of junk, and taken out an old ice machine. Poor ice machine had a worse day than I did. Well, hope they weren't planning on using it anytime soon. I ran to the phone and called my manager, and asked him to come down to where I was at. I was shaking so bad I couldn't stand, and this time I really was upset. Holy crap I just crashed into a wall! Physically, I didn't have a scratch on me, how, I don't know. Jonathan came down with a guy from maintenance to inspect the machine, and I explained what happened. So I forgot about the whole 'just-let-go-of-the-machine-and-hold-on-and-pray-because-it-will-stop-immediately' thing. The maintenance guy took the machine for a spin and brought it back, saying he found nothing wrong, and the way they talked, they didn't believe me, even though they saw the damage. So, this guy that had worked for the company who manufactured the machines had no explanation for why the hell I just got locked out, and could have been hurt, or worse? That pissed me off, but I told them I would keep the machine, just because of the fact that it is easy for me to steer, and I'd keep a VERY CLOSE eye on it.
I didn't get a lick of trouble out of it after that.
So after I calmed down, and talked to the two guys, I got back on and started up again. I kept focused and hit production the rest of the day, in spite of the day I'd had. And it was a pretty good day! Even though I had those two events happen, it was still a good day. Later on, I passed up Jonathan and he motioned for me to pull over. He walked up to me and informed me that on Friday, I had out-hauled all of the receiving haulers in our building. My mouth dropped. I kept saying 'no I didn't!' in a shocked 'i-want-proof' voice. He just shook his head slowly, 'yes, ma'am'. He walked away after that, and I swear I stood there for five minutes saying 'no I didn't!' to his back. Talk about a motivator! Now I'm anxious to see my production report. They finally let me go around 5, and I was never happy to get out of there, mostly because of my arm hurting from working it so much, and never so happy to put that weekend behind me.
Whew, I've been at this for an hour now, and I believe it's time for bed. What a weekend, and I'll be interested to see what this next one will bring. Hopefully everyone will be back together over in my 'home' building, some of my closer friends/buddies have been slaving over in the other building. I miss them.
More as it happens...show's over, folks. Goodnight.
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