A Funny Warehouse Story

I get to spend the day in the warehouse loading and unloading plastic juice bottles. There are 1,188 64 oz bottles on the 5-foot tall pallets with about 9-12 layers depending on what size of bottle is needed. I had five weeks on the forklift and I became a member of the "warehouse club" this day. I was warned that it would happen someday, and today is my lucky day!!

As I was unloading a trailer and going to the far end of the warehouse, I was stupid and crashed into a row of pallets on my left as I was looking to the right at the row I was filling in. Naturally, the row that I had just bumped into was a full row off 22 pallets (11 on the top and 11 on the bottom). But next to it was a partial row that had two pallets missing on top. Well, those two top pallets of bottles starting swaying and before I could get off the forklift or do anything to stop it, down came one of the pallets.

The pallet lands just right, breaks the bands from the factory, and out come the bottles - and they go everywhere!!! The more I tried shoving them back into their rows between the cardboard layers, the more came out the other end! The pallet is now looking like a upside down "V" and there is nothing left to do but let all the bottles leave their home. I am just thrilled that this has happened at 9am.

Now I get to pick up the bottles and put them in garbage bags to get them out of the way. Then I get the job of re-stacking them, layer by layer, right where they landed. When I was able to get enough of them moved, the pallet was put on a stack of concrete blocks as I continued stacking. 1,188 bottles on the floor, pick one up and stack it on the pallet and now you have 1,187 bottles on the floor! (does this remind you of a song??) I got three layers done and then my co-worker helped me wrap those layers so they wouldn't fall out from in between their cardboard layers. I spent all day stacking bottles. All this bending and up and down just killed my back. I could hardly stand up straight! Good thing I have a cane. Hope I can get into my bed tonight, and then back out of it in the morning. I can hardly wait for tomorrow to get here so I can finish this job. I think it will be a long, long time before I am this stupid again!

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