A Day For The Rest of Us.

Are we veterans? No. Are we Presidents? No. Are we Christopher Columbus? No. We are laborers. This is our weekend. We are free. No warehouse, no working. Just beaches and camping and maybe a few drinks. We salute the genius behind labor day, a holiday for the rest of us. We will make sure we have a beer for you, Mr Labor day holiday inventor..


In other news we had quite a few battles in the warehouse this week, especially driving that monster of a fork truck. Here are how they turned out:

Fork Truck vs Broom
Victor: Fork Truck

Wooden Pallet vs Our Ankle
Victor: Pallet (ouch)

Yankees vs Redsox
Victor: Yankees :(

Gatorade Bottle vs Floor once Youkilis was called out for running out of the base path
Victor: Floor

Hydraulic leak vs Fork Truck
Victor: Hydraulic leak

Repair man vs Hydraulic leak
Victor: Hydraulic leak

Pipes and a Poop

Ah, the wonder of it all! No, there aren't any flying cars or flux capacitors yet. Nor are there jet powered hover boards or auto sizing clothes. However there is the Internet, HDTV and instant coffee just to name a few. Technology. Isn't it wonderful? We out in the warehouse are not without technology. We have fork trucks and computers and a parts online system that shows all the gooey guts of international trucks, oh it's so much fun! Yet some how in this day of information, amidst all the technology in the world and all the wonder in the warehouse, the front counter cannot figure out what exhaust setup a certain bus needs. The solution? Send the customer six different pipes and have HIM figure out which one fits and then have him send the other remaining pipes back to the warehouse! Sounds like a great idea! Do we see any problems with this? Of course we do. We out in the warehouse like to be efficient. We like to get things done. We don't like going in circles. Let us go over why this process is not efficient and why, dare we say, that the front counter person to rename nameless is a big poop.

Our hero must first receive the order of pipes for said bus. Upon receiving the order our hero puts the pipes in stock in preparation to be sold. Pipes get sold. Our hero pulls the pipes and sends them out for delivery. If all goes well and everything is pulled right our hero can go home with a smile on his face, knowing his job was done well. Or can he? Alas, he cannot! For in the back of our hero's mind he knows that 5 of the pipes he just pulled, probably with blood sweat and tears (well maybe not tears) are bound to come back, just for him to put away again! Not only is our hero doing 5 times the work for one pipe, but what about our hero's driver? The driver must check all 6 pipes on the first delivery to make sure he is delivering the right parts, then load them on his truck and deliver them to the customer. Upon arrival the driver will unload all 6 pipes from his truck for the customer. The next day our hero's driver must then return to the customer, take the 5 pipes, load them back on his truck to bring BACK to our hero who will offload the same 5 pipes he just loaded to put back into stock. More still, the hero's driver must then credit the customer's account the 5 pipes that were returned. Then and only then will the universe be back in alignment.

We find it amazing that in this, the technology age, one counter person cannot determine the exhaust setup of a certain bus. We also find it suspicious that this order was handed down ten minutes before 5 pm (quittin' time). Is it possible that this person was in a hurry to get home and instead of taking some time to look up a few parts he tried to take the "quick and easy way"?

Oh it's possible..

it's very possible.

Stick A Fork In It

Our go sox forklift is down for the count. Apparently he is leaking hydraulic fluid or something and is out for repairs. Now we have to use the big fork truck. We don't like driving the big fork truck. It's big. It can hardly fit down the aisles. We have to do 80 point turns to go anywhere. Friday we got down 3 skids of tanks that we are unable to put back up because we cant maneuver the big fork truck. It reminds us of that scene in Austin Powers where he's banging the walls for 10 minutes trying to turn his cart around. At least Austin can see where he is going. We can't see a thing on the big guy. The genius' over at Nissan thought it would be a good idea to completely block the drivers view by shoving every hydraulic part, nut, hose and bolt right at eye level. It's not fun. We like the little guy. The little guy likes us. Most importantly the little guy likes the sox.

The Sox make the warehouse go round. We have pictures of Manny, Dice K and Mrs. Warehouse Worker and our self at Fenway on our locker. Each morning when we come in we mark a W or a L on the Red Sox magnet schedule posted to the right of our pictures. It gives us something to look forward to, something to talk about and something to keep our minds off the fact that we have to bash into everything with the big fork truck all afternoon. Management follows the sox, salesman follow the sox, customers follow the sox, therefore it is in our best interest that we too follow the sox. Luckily we've followed the sox since we can remember. It's great that we can do it at work. When we listen to the sox during the afternoon we don't even notice the grease that's rubbed all over our face or the metal spurs dug into our necks from lifting 14 foot exhaust pipes onto trucks. No. We don't notice a thing. We simply work and listen and take pride in the fact that our little fork truck we drive around, well he supports the sox too.

Get well soon buddy!

Week in Review

What we learned this week:

Mud flaps are not windshields.

When we make a mistake and ship out a mudflap for a windshield we should probably remember to ship out the windshield on the next delievery.

Always remind the drivers that they are transporting glass and inform them to not stack glass on two wheelers.

Deposit pay checks the day you get them, to make Mrs. Warehouse worker happy.

Tuesday is not Friday. Despite friends being in town from afar one should not party like its Friday on a Tuesday.

A clean warehouse is a happy warehouse. A happy warehouse makes management happy. Happy management makes us happy.

Hornets don't like WD-40

Being short 3 delivery drivers can be extremely confusing. (i.e, Lisa did Jason's route, Cliff did Roland's route, Roland did Lisa's route, Lee did Tom's route and we have no idea who's route John did but he went out too.)

The Brake Drums and the Bees

Today we felt a little better about ourselves after we were the recipients of a shipping error. Glad to see we're not the only ones in the business that have identification problems. A brake drum and a leaf spring can be very easily confused. Almost as easily as a mud flap and a windshield. To see how well our common everyday readers are in identifying truck parts we've provided a short quiz. Can you identify these parts? Leave your answers in the comment section and see if you have what it takes to be a true warehouse worker.


A. )


B.)


C.)


D.)



In other news we found a nice hornets nest inside the cardboard dumpster. The company that empties the dumpster or "the dumpster guy" as we like to call him, only comes on Tuesdays and Fridays. Sometimes the dumpster gets too full and we have to climb in to squish the cardboard down until said dumpster guy arrives. Two of us had been jumping in the dumpster recently, unaware of the evil that lurked beneath. Luckily we both came out with our lives. Who knows what would've happened had the hornets decided to attack. Maybe the dumpster guy discovers our lifeless bodies as he flips us into his giant truck, or maybe we get stung once or twice... who knows.

Upon discovery of the nest a co-worker came out with a fully loaded can of WD-40 and let the little buggers have it. It was amusing to watch as they poured out a tiny opening on the side of the dumpster and fell to the ground gasping for air. Some made it out and some are probably still in there. All we know for sure though is that the survivors are going to be mighty agitated come tomorrow when the dumpster guy comes and flips over their home. We hope he brings his epi-pen.

Shipped in Error.

You would think that after two years of working in a parts department one would know the difference between a mudflap and a windshield. I mean, the description of the part just gave dimensions and all the mudflaps we send out have dimensions in the description. Unfortunatley, as I learned today, so do the windshields. So I sent a mudflap to a customer instead of a windshield. Big deal. Is that really going to be brought up come promotion time? Can't the customer drive just one day without a lousy windshield? It was an honest mistake right? Do we really need to bring up the fact that the one windshield I sent to a different customer today ended up breaking?

No, we don't need to bring that up, let's never talk about it again. In fact I'll be happy if I never have to deal with glass at work ever again. It's big and breakable and thats a bad combination for a skinny guy that's not very graceful. Maybe I can call in sick the next few days so I don't have to deal with the new windshields that are going to come in to replace the one that smashed and the one that I'm going to have to switch out for a mudflap tomorrow...

Or maybe I could go in and take notes on how they ship it.