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Forklift Thread: also occasionally about [Workplace Screwups]
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The worst thing I've done (so far) was done after being super careful. I wrote down the relay rack and slot assignment on a piece of paper, checked then rechecked it against what I was looking at, then somehow managed to remove the card right next to it.
As my hand was reaching for it I knew I was wrong, but I couldn't stop. The card I pulled had the potential to have ~4k active calls on it, and it was the middle of the day.
Soooooo.
If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
Hey! Another ROTC kid. I remember lots of stupid shit at FT.
This was not my own, but still funny. We had our entire group in our 'formation area' (re: parking lot) next to our dorm/barracks thing. Well, it's just a two lane road in/out and of COURSE you can't use both lanes to march 2 flights out at once (we had 8 or so, each 20-24 people). One young cadet flight commander decides that the intersection ahead is too congested to get his flight through, so he brings them onto the grass and just waits.
"Flight Commander, what the hell are you doing?" Screams the Captain
Silence. Not just from him, but the entire camp. It was as if we all became marching ninjas.
"Waiting for the Charlie-Foxtrot to clear, Sir!" screams the cadet.
I have yet to hear so many people yelling at one person again since.
Damn straight!
By "Charlie-Foxtrot" did he mean "Clusterfuck"?
If not, I'm about as lost as the rest of you, other than that they shouldn't have been on the grass.
Customers turned up to deliver their prized pet into our caring hands while they went away on holiday. I was a tad slow closing one of the gates as I was taking the dog from them, meaning, as the dog was having a major, major panic at being separated from its owners, and managing to slip off the lead, this all-important gate was still open. Instead of running for its owners, however, it went tearing through the gate, up the driveway, and straight towards the busy road...
<gulp>
...OK, it had a happy ending 'cos the dog managed to put on the brakes inches from a splattery death, but maaan, my heart wasn't just in my mouth, it was crawling all over my face!
One of the defects we were supposed to look for were red particulate matter (PM) that was caused by the paint on the seal flaking off and getting into the solution. I passed my light test training fine, but afterwards when I was in the inspection station where the red PM was supposed to show up, I was finding very little of it. After a couple days my group leader noticed that I was finding much less than anybody else. So she tested me again.
Turns out I'm colorblind.
Apparently, the testing samples they used were particularly large flakes which were large enough for me to see the red color easily, and when doing hand retests the light in those stations was the right kind for me to see it, but on the actual inspection line, between the smaller flecks and the different kind of light used in that station, they all appeared grey to me.
Fortunately, grey PM gets pulled out too. The only reason we distinguished between them was essentially for auditing, since we made the insulin for another company to their specs, so we could show them how many thousands of vials their stupid red seals ruined. I didn't get fired, we didn't have to rework the batch (which is a nightmare), but I had to stay on station 1 and hand testing for the rest of my short stay there.
At my current job, I wear a lot of computer related hats at an equipment manufacturer. The head of assembly was having computer trouble so we backed up his stuff over the network and reinstalled Windows. Well, it didn't quite fix it, I check my computer, see I still have the backup on there, so I wipe it and reinstall again, copy all his stuff over and hey, things work now like they're supposed to. Awesome!
A couple days later I get a call from him that he can't find his documents. I think to myself, "that's weird, I know I moved those over. See I've even got that folder here..."
Turns out the first time I restored it, I actually moved the files out of the folder onto his computer. So when I looked through the second time, the folders I thought were his backed up documents were in fact, empty folders.
Well, fortunately, he's a nice guy, pretty forgiving. He says it's no big deal. He works on the manufacturing side, he didn't have too many documents. Just some tracking stuff, inventory things, and he's got paper backups of it all.
So I talk to him, he gets back to me a couple days later. "Well, I don't have anything like that. I've got stacks and stacks of paper with all the models and serial numbers and the date they were made if you want to hand enter them."
"Eh, no thanks, I was really looking for like, an excel spreadsheet or something I could import so it could do it automatically. Don't wanna do 312000 serial numbers by hand. Are you sure you don't have anything like that?"
"Well, I used too..."
"What happened to it?"
"You."
"Me? what did I... oh...ohh. ohhhhhh. Sorry 'bout that again."
D:
This was a very big warehouse. A warehouse with a very tall roof. And the roof needed support. Turns out the mast on the fork lift that makes the forks go up and down are just big enough to obscure big ass steel I beams. Much like the ones that hold up the roof. I leaned over the side as i sped off to make sure i didnt run over anyone in front of me, but ill be damned if i didnt see that beam. As soon as i hit max speed on the little sucker... BAM! Blacked out for a bit from the impact. knocked all the dirt and grime off the forks too. Even had nice bruises on my legs from the control levers.
I wasnt allowed to drive the lift for a good long while. I did get very proficient changing refrigerator doors around and installing ice makers... since that was my new task after taking out 25% of the fork lift fleet.
Why do you think Shenmue is so popular around these parts?
I work for one of those hedge funds that everyone hates right now. I screwed up and made the stock exchange mad by doing a bad denial of service attack on their system.
Our traders weren't paying attention and we could have lost a few million dollars overnight.
Maybe I shoudn't say too much. Everyone gets twitchy when I start talking about how poorly written all this software is that's funneling a few hundred million dollars around the markets every day.
Wasn't my fault, but it was a pretty big screw up.
Basically some (more than likely full of himself) ROTC student decided not to do what everyone else was doing, told his formation to hold back, the instructors got pissed and asked him what the hell he was thinking ordering 20someodd men to not do what they're supposed to, and he decided to respond with a smartassed comment
This happens frequently when you're going through Basic Training/Boot Camp/ROTC in the military. I can attest to that
I asked the guy in the back area where to put it, and he said just put it in the lift.
So I wheeled it into the lift and put it in the back corner, completely out of harms way.
I went back to my register and after a while a friend of mine came out and said, "Hey, you know how you put the trolley back there? you broke the cargo lift, you parked it infront of the sensor."
"wut"
"meet you in the car park"
"wut"
One of my coworkers drove his forklift right through the bosses office and almost killed him. He claimed the braking system wasn't working on the machine but my friend was driving it just fine earlier that morning. Thank god noone got hurt. Actually a few days later he ends up ramming his forks into a pole and getting stuck haha.
As for me I was picking pallets of perfume from the high rack locations and I didnt check to see if the products were wrapped tight(Some of them can be very shakey) and I pulled out of the location way too fast and I ended up dropping perfume all over the asile. The warehouse smelled like old lady for a week.
Yes exactly. Sorry sometimes I forget when I post from work that I'm not actually AT work.
D:
D:D:D:
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
No.
Sucks that the film company took down the subtitled version, though.
Example A) I decided to make my own "Chemical X" (Powerpuff Girls) and put it in the fridge as a practical joke that no one would probably get. And sure enough, someone who's anal about protocol saw it and frantically called Chemical Waste Disposal and had to have the lab shut down. I was hoping a friend of mine would see it and just laugh (because you can see "Chemical X" as a science joke) but nope.
Oops
Example B) I decided to use a left-over culture of tumorgenic lymphocytes from rat spleen extracts and culture them in a petri dish and took a sample of my own saliva and put it in there. I labeled the top "Unstoppable Force vs Immoveable Object"
I put them in an incubator that was empty and dated the petri dish and even put my initials on it. Next morning there's a mass email to the entire department about an unknown petri dish sample that was infected/contaminated and wanting to shut down and sent hte incubator to be decontaminated thoroughly.
Note about B - you can have contaminated/bacteria grown in a dish and it will not contaminate the incubator. The guy just isn't the brightest person in the world.
Oh yeah, the bacteria won
Done.
You see if a modem's mac address isn't listed on an account.. and the customer can't read it on his modem.. and I accidentally copy an account # when the mac address was on my clipboard... it's gone. lol.
They did? This worked for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVssz2VMJVM
I think it's that a forklift is an incredibly simple piece of equipment to use, which is prevalent in a lot of entry-level positions like warehouses and grocery stores, and yet it is capable of doing a lot of damage due to basically being a powerful engine on wheels with some motorized metal spikes on the front. Kind of like an extremely low-grade mech or combat exoskeleton.
I only listed my most expensive accident, but there were a few others where I punched holes in objects with the forks, or saw other people drive in to things. Whenever customers in the parking lot cut me off in their cars while I was loading/unloading, I was filled with violent fantasies of puncturing the side of their car with the forks and ramming them into another parked car - well within the capabilities of my unit. I think your average Joe is unaware of exactly how dangerous a forklift is.
A guy at work had an 2003ish Excursion (read: big ass SUV) on a car lift (if you have seen a car shop the big yellow deal that holds your car in the air).
He is doing some rear end work when all of the sudden the car comes crashing to the ground. I'm in the stall next to him doing brake work and about shit myself.
It fell but the back half stayed up so it destroyed the front end and creased the door jams from the floor boards to the roof rack where the back lift arms where still holding the back end up. Worst part was it was 4:30 and the customer was on his way in 30 minutes to pick it up.
My potentially worst mistake that never actually mattered:
The way you clean the bottom of in-ground pools is usually a built-in vacuum system. You go into the pump house and open the vacuum valve, and shut or partially shut the main drain and skimmer valves off. You plug a hose into the vacuum port, and go to town. The vacuum port like a hole in the side of the pool wall and is normally 2-3 feet under water. The vacuum systems at the pools I cleaned didn't pull too hard; they really don't need too. But if you happened to be a small child with long hair, there was some potential for a real problem.
Which means it is bad that at least twice I left the vacuum system activated after leaving a pool. Luckily, no one ever got hurt.
My actually worst mistake:
Inside the pump house of a pool, there are a pile of valves, pump(s), and filters. Normally the layout is, after a fashion,
entry valves -> combination joint -> strainer -> pumps -> filters -> return valve -> pool
In order to clean the strainer filter, you have to close the entry valves and return valves. This way, the water doesn't drain out of the pumps. After closing the valves, you open the strainer, pull the filter out, clean, replace, open the valves.
Now, if you were to forget to open the return valve, something Bad will happen. Pressure builds up in pump, filters, and associated piping in-between. The pressure will build until a) the top pops off of the filters b) the motor in the pump burns out c) one of the connecting pipe bursts.
I was lucky, and option (c) happened. It only cost my boss $400 and the pool was closed for 5 days (because the pump had pumped out 2/3s of the pool water into the pump house).
And I still didn't get fired.
They also offer free popcorn and coffee every day; it makes a terrible mess but the customers loved it. One fine winter night, I was up front doing manager things (actually, I was just talking to the cashiers) when the lady who had been making popcorn came up to me and said "Joe, the popcorn machine is on fire." then walked away to her register like it was no thing.
I gave her and incredulous look and glanced back at the machine, seeing no fire. I went over to it, its running, no fire.
I open the kettle, placing it on the hook to hold kettle open.
The entire kettle bursts into flames as a large quantity of oxygen is sucked into the kettle from the lid being open.
People start yelling as I quickly put on my work gloves and close the lid. No luck, the damn thing is still on fire. I throw up my hands and look for the fire extinguisher, which, of course, is nowhere to be found. In a moment of panic and not thinking clearly, I grab the first thing I see. A half full gallon of water.
Now some of you might be intelligent. You may know that popcorn is made by heating oil and putting the kernels in until they pop. You also know that water and oil/grease don't mix. I'm sure that, somewhere in my brain, this knowledge was hanging out, waiting to be used.
But I was in a small panic and not thinking. I tear off the cap and throw a splash of water on the kettle. Suddenly the flames from this 1 gallon kettle burst into a 15 foot tall pillar of fire that reaches the ceiling barely a second before dropping to a more reasonable height. At this point I give up as another manager comes over and grabs the fire extinguisher (THAT WAS SITTING BEHIND THE TRASHCAN COMPLETELY OUT OF VIEW) and douses the fire. I was lucky that I didn't get burned, and that I didn't set off the sprinklers in the ceiling.
The next day I made a copy of the video from the DVR and put it on Youtube. Alas, I deleted it one day due to fear of corporate seeing it; I also lost the disc it was on.
The second story is also pretty stupid but it wasn't me this time.
Same place, about a year later. I'm still a manager and I had recently hired some 18 year old kid (who was cousins with another 18 year old that worked there) to work outside in the loadout lane, which typically involves putting bags of dirt and rocks into customers car's for them. He was pretty bad at this job and basically only hired because the kid we had said he was good and the store manager believed him.
I come in one day and overhear a story that one of our forklifts got overturned. I query the other managers and learn that this kid told this story; a couple of punk teengers hopped in the forklift and went for a joyride, flipping it onto its side then fleeing the scene.
I of course immediately think this is complete hogwash and set out to investigate.
By which I mean that I checked our surveillance cameras. I log him as leaving the front door at a certain time, arriving in the bullpen where the forklift was immediately after, climbing in the forklift (which he most DEFINITELY is not certified to drive and barely intelligent enough to even look at) and driving out of the pen. He then immediately goes left, around the bullpen towards the back, and promptly drops the thing on its side. All this while the guy who lives across the street and does maintenance for us is watching.
I tried to convince him to come into work that night so I could ask him to his face why he would so blatantly lie but he refused; I had to fire him over the phone which took some of the joy out of it since I couldn't see his face when he realized he was caught.
Ayliana Moonwhisper Ecksus Cerazal
The ONE time the truck driver hooked it on himself, instead of me or my buddy, he of course fucks it up (how?! he was the truck driver! it makes no sense). He puts the trailer on the hitch, forgets to secure the latch, I think he did put the chains on though.
Anyways, we're all leaving this place on our way home. Driving on some country highway. The fucked dump truck is in front, then there is a second dump truck with a massive trailer, then me in my buick. All of a sudden I hear WHAM, and the truck in front of me pulls over into the oncoming lane. I figure, fuck it if he plows into traffic he'll take it out before I get in any danger so i follow him.
Sure enough the fucking trailer from the first truck fell off the damn hitch, the chains if they were attached snapped. The thing had a frigging steam roller on it, there was no muscling this thing back on the hitch.
I probably shoulda pulled over and helped out, but I booked it outta there.
Or, well, I never did find out how much that one pallet of laminate I lost cost--turn a little too fast and all of it becomes aerodynamic, flies away in a giant cloud of "wow, I didn't think it would do that" and shatters. At the time I thought that would get me fired but everybody shrugged it off and acted like there wasn't ever a person with a forklift who hadn't done it once.
Another time I got one stuck by dropping a wheel off of one of our paths which had a few inches' drop off the side. That lift had to be rescued by another one, but it still wasn't a big deal.
I'm told to go hop in one of the trucks that happens to be in the middle of a block, and drive it somewhere else on the property. I get in, fire her up, start to pull out, initiate my turn..... and catch the bumper of a neighboring truck on the fender of mine. I didn't know what to do, and in the process of trying to get out of the situation, the bumper was bent to a 90 degree angle from the rest of the bumper. Everyone comes to watch. I am eventually (thankfully) kicked out of the truck, and someone that knows what the hell they're doing unhooks the bumper and fender and pulls the vehicle out.
Someone had to go get one of the mechanics, who came over with a sledgehammer and hammered the bumper back into place.
Why anyone thought a teenager that drove a family sedan was at all capable of navigating a behemoth of a vehicle in such tight quarters is beyond me.
I was once cutting through some aisles that weren't mine 5 minutes before opening. A forklift driver was lifting a pallet of large paper bags high up onto a shelf. They're just paper bags, so individually they're harmless, but when 500 of them are bundled together, they're heavy and hard.
It's extremely dangerous to walk underneath a raised fork lift, but once in a while we'll do it because we are in a mad dash to get everything done. I stopped for one second, the driver gave me the ok to run under, so I did. And I heard a huge rip as around 4 bundles of paper bags fell from 3 stories up. But, magically, they came loose of their packaging and fluttered around me. I felt like a princess. The most luckiest princess.
It turns out that the person who was working the aisles was pretty close to being fired because he was a slow and sloppy worker. He cut the plastic wrap keeping the paper bags and the pallet together to take only a few out and stock them, and then just tucked the plastic in to make it look like it was done all proper. (We're supposed to re-wrap it with fresh plastic) Not only that, when he was first cutting the plastic wrap, he also cut the paper bag bundles, which then tore open while they were falling and saved me from an injury. Of course, we shouldn't have been running underneath fork lifts anyways, but dammit, our Costco always opened up on time.
So that job out at the rafting company, same one we got to take joy rides on the quads at ... well, occasionally we'd be so short handed that around 5, when the last raft rentals are due to the pull-out (about 2 hours downriver by boat, 20 min. by car), they'd need me to get in the van and trailer and pick up the stragglers. Well, me and another dishwashing buddy take off to go get whoever's down there. Turns out it's a fairly large crew, and they weren't even at the ramp by 5, but we get paid by the hour so we waited. We get them and their 3 rafts, 5 tahitis (inflatable canoe) onto the trailer. As I'm checking off their people, I tell my co-pilot to tie down the boats. I didn't mention how, as there is a kind of technique with them being inflatable and all, but he comes back in, says were good to go so we do. Now, the road back is a good 100 - 200 feet above the river, along a canyon. Halfway through he looks back to ask the people how their trip was, and goes 'oh shit!' as it was just enough time to watch 4 tahitis go airborne. 1 stayed in the raft.
This is bad for several reasons; One, there's no room to pull over. It's barely a one lane road and half of that at times it seems. Two, even though this was the last van we were running, there's other people in other cars still using this road. Three ... well shit it's inflatable canoes gone airborne. I manage to squeeze between boulders on the side of the road and pick up the 3 that landed in the road, before anyone collided with one and went over the cliff. The fourth ... well it landed in a tree only about 30 feet off the road and 20 feet up, but the tree was also a few hundred feet tall. It just perched there, like some freed beast discovering it's natural habitat and now surveying it's surroundings, looking for a mate.
We threw a few rocks at it to no avail. I suggested shooting it down, but told him 'make it a clean shot, he shouldn't have to suffer'. We just left it, work wrote it off as a rookie mistake (we weren't technically in the 'boat boy' position) and eventually the thing blew down. Migrated to warmer waters or some shit.
I had to show a guy how to mop once. I guess its better that he said he didn't know how first instead of screwing it up.
Ayliana Moonwhisper Ecksus Cerazal
Come in one morning, to find out my fellow floor-jockey / courtesy clerk / whathaveyou mopped the entire grocery store last night with dirty water. Did not change it once, didn't even dump out the bucket that resembled solid mud. The whole floor, streaked from milk to ... the other side, I can't remember.
Best part? Or worst, actually? She didn't even get fired, written up, much less even talked to about. I on the other hand spent 2 1/2 hours on what should've been 30 minutes mopping that night. And my assistant manager, also a bitch with a lazy trail longer than her love life was short, bitched the entire time about missing the party she wanted to go to. 'I could be getting DRUNK NOW!'. Fuck her, I got overtime that night.
Oh and quit a month later. Everything ends well.