Forklift Driver Knew a Warehouse Path Was Unsafe, So He Took It to Prove His Concerns Were Valid
Shutterstock
Sometimes, you can talk all you want trying to explain why something is a bad idea, but the person in charge either won’t listen or refuses to believe you, convinced they know better.
In those types of situations, would you keep talking, find someone else who might be on your side, or prove your point with actions instead of words?
In this story, one forklift driver at a warehouse is in this situation, and he decides to prove his point with actions when the building coordinator won’t listen to his concerns.
Security cameras made sure to capture everything that happened.
Keep reading for all the details.
building coordinators are idiots
So I was working in a warehouse a couple of years ago as a dock clerk. My job duties included processing and labeling containers of packages to be shipped globally. I was also 1 of a handful of forklift drivers in the building.
I would have to drive a sit down forklift from my side of the building to the far side of the building on a regular basis to pick up and move pallets of cardboard gaylord shipping containers and bring them to the other side of the building. Sometimes I would have to do that at least 2 to 3 times during my shift.
The various paths that they would setup for me to drive to do that part of my job could be pretty tricky at times, because I would have to raise the pallets into the air very highly at times to make it around certain objects. That was not always the easiest task, but it was obtainable to do that for the most part.
OP does not like the building coordinator.
The building coordinator and I did not always see eye to eye on things and we would have regular disagreements on things the whole time I worked as a dock clerk at this job.
He would attempt to set things up and I would look at him and argue about the way that certain things would not work out with the way he had them setup.
His rebuttal would always be, that is how the higher ups wanted it and I would prove him wrong on it just about everytime.
This sounds like a really bad idea.
One day I come into work and the building coordinator was already there mapping out this 1 area to setup some new lanes to store the shipping containers in.
The problem with the new lanes he was trying to put in place was that now I would have to drive all the way around a conveyor having to drive dangerously close to other coworkers, to then be able to drive to the other side of the building.
He didn’t want to listen to me when I told him that it would make my job and anyone else working in that area now a very dangerous place to work in.
The conveyor I would have to drive around would regularly have at least 3 to 4 girls working in that area. Also the area I would now have to drive thru is a high volume area for foot traffic. It was near the break area and closest to security and the closest restroom for a lot of ppl.
This sounds almost impossible.
So I walked away and gave him 1 last chance to listen to me.
Now for the malicious compliance.
Since the building coordinator did not want to listen to my warning about the way that he was setting up things in an unsafe environment, I waited for him to finish setting up the area and then let him leave for the day.
Afterwards I tried to drive a forklift thru the now designated area that he wanted me and any other forklift operator to drive thru. Said area had maybe 4 foot gap that I would now have to maneuver a forklift thru, with the end of the conveyor and trash cans on 1 side and rolling bins sitting on the other side. The forklift I was using was roughly barely about that same width in size.
This really isn’t going to work.
I made it about half way thru trying to go thru that gap with a couple of coworkers and a security guard standing there to watch me try to drive thru this gap. I had to come at this gap already at an angle, because of other containers and items in the area I was coming from.
I was headed to grab a pallet of shipping containers to bring back to my side of the building. This was all done in clear view of the security cameras also.
Since I had to approach it at an angle, I ended up running into some of the rolling carts and pushing them into a fence on the other side of them.
As soon as I hit the carts I put my forklift in park, went to get my supervisor, explained what had happened and what had lead up to it and told him, I would back my forklift out of the area and then I wouldn’t touch the forklifts again until the issue was fixed.
OP finally got what he wanted and needed to do his job.
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
The next day the building coordinator came in specifically on my shift to make sure he could set me up a lane that I could drive thru eliminating the lanes that he had setup the previous day.
He made sure that he checked with me on what I needed for it.
I made sure that the lane he setup was at least 2 storage lanes wide, clearly marked to not store anything in that area and was able to drive thru it without having to raise the pallets of shipping containers in the air.
I’m glad there are security cameras. Telling the supervisor what led up to the problem was a smart way of handling it. Instead of simply claiming it’s a bad idea, proving it was even better.
Trending and Popular
Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.
This is a good point.
Yeah, I’m sure they’re not that big.
A janitor weighs in.
Here’s some more context about the containers.
Actions speak louder than words. That’s the lesson in this story, but it’s not always a good idea to prove someone wrong with actions if they could cause a horrible disaster. In this case, nobody got hurt, but there was enough damage to prove the point.
Trending and Popular
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
