MINDLESS MUSINGS

Yes, this is the same place where two thirds of the place got wasted every other lunch break. But wait, there’s more!!!

We have come a long way regarding workplace health and safety in the 25 years since I left this place – thank God! Believe it or not I left after 2 years without a scratch. I had developed a substantial drinking problem, and I almost died in a car accident one morning on my way in, but as far as the House of Hazards, I don’t remember so much as a splinter. I don’t even recall feeling particularly unsafe. Bizarre!

Okay, so where do I start? Maybe a kind of safety audit is in order:

Walkways

If I’m walking there, it’s a walkway. “Watch where you’re going dickhead!”

The main area of operation was a large U-shaped conveyor belt. The stock would be sorted and strapped on one side, then sent around the bend to where the packers were spread out among a matrix of pallets on either side of the belt.

Inside (beside the long tables where the sorting and strapping people’s section began) was a single file of pallets (around a dozen). As the pallets filled up, a forkie would manoeuvre in and take it away. There were usually a few empties stacked, so you didn’t need to do a replacement (small mercies). This was a very tight fit for the forklift and people were walking all over the place.

Injuries – 0                       Near Misses – God only knows.

On the other side was the same dozen long line of pallets, but this one was three pallets across. These ones rarely needed replenishing during a run, so the main danger on that side was moving swiftly between a matrix of pallets with only a little extra room for a foot in between.

Injuries – 0                       Near Misses – Plenty of slips and trips, but I never saw anyone require first aid. Never heard anyone complain either. The likely reaction from your workmates after a fall would usually be laughter or a round of applause.

Forklift Operation

I learned to drive a forklift here. Talk about trial by fire! Imagine those insane driver obstacle courses you see in cartoons or other comedies. Things popping out from all angles. This wasn’t much different. You usually had a tiny margin of error when it came to running over a pallet or getting between the pallet racking. Now add the people wandering around like they are in a closed off shopping mall. Yeah…

The thing I find most odd was that I can’t recall worrying about killing or maiming anyone. I just remember the anxiety of fucking up; more in the sense of dropping a pallet and causing a mess (which I did do a few times). This would be acknowledged with the obligatory round of applause, cheers and jeers.

So many different men and women jumped on and drove around. Nobody had a clue who was legit or not. That’s another thing. In this place legit meant that you had a logbook, somewhere at some time. Nobody bothered to fill it out. The company had no intention of sponsoring anyone’s test to get a ticket.

Everyone I asked was ‘on a logbook’. Some had been that way for years. Rumour was that the manager and Alfie had a licence. Apparently, that made it okay. ‘A learner needs to be supervised by a licensed operator’ transformed into ‘it’s all good to just have your logbook as long as someone in the building has a license’. Oh, and if those people happen to be absent just carry on regardless.

Most of the warehouse was taken up with pallet racking. ‘Please don’t inspect this too closely’ pallet racking that is. It is my understanding that if the racking has four legs and four holes on each leg for the dyna-bolt to go into the concrete, then that is the specified way to attach the legs to the ground.

A casual stroll through the place would lead you to question that logic. It’s not that a few were missing here and there. Hell! It would be a surprise to find any at all that had all 16 bolts present. On average they would have half, and some would actually have 1 foot fastened with just 1 bolt!

These were pallets of magazines. Very heavy and not very stable. The racking was usually four shelves high. Some of the frames had dings or even slight bends in them! We would just shake our heads and laugh.

The whole set up was hodge podge. There was one high reach forklift that could go down the narrow aisles and shift the old stock and the general unloved stuff. Everything was covered in a centimetre thick layer of black dust, a lot of that came from the forklift fumes and tire wear. If you wanted to remove or place a pallet in these higher racks you had to make a perfect turn or you would hit one of the racks. My blood chills every time I see one of those videos of a forkie causing a massive domino effect collapse in a warehouse, but we never had one.

Injuries or collapse – 0                             Dings and dents – fucken plenty!

The other section of the warehouse where there were several potential statistics (I mean workers) was the returns section. A large table and a bunch of various sized cages to the front blocked any chance of escape. The rest of the section was surrounded by four shelf high pallet racking. Shonky choc-a-block pallet racking.

Sometimes a forkie would squeeze in there with the high reach to get a pallet down. There was no protocol. Nobody stopped working or moved away from the area. He actually entered through a gap in the racking which gave about an inch gap either side for the forklift.

The more I write the more I shudder.

Reckon that’s enough for now. More to come. Cheers