Translate

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

They are all out 07.10.18

 

               All the boys and the adult are out of the cave, and that is a good thing. I am happy for the boys and their families. President Trump has announced his pick for the Supreme Court, and I assume he has made a good pick. Even when the news is good, I get tired of hearing the same thing over and over. For me once or even twice hearing the same thing is ok, after that let’s get to something else.

            Yes, I understand that the problem is mine and not that of the so-called news reporters. I should turn the TV or Radio to a different channel and then I would not continue to hear the same crock over and over. The problem with that is the BS that they have on TV is not the BS I like. Again you are correct, it is my problem. I have been watching my security camera screens a lot lately. As I look at them now there is no activity. Tres is laying at the back door awaiting an opening so he could re-enter the Homestead.

 

            I was talking with a friend yesterday, when he told me of an unsafe situation where he worked. After our discussion I began thinking about unsafe situations that I have experienced in the olden days, in this setting the olden days was back in the early to mid-1970s. One thing that popped into my head was when I was a lead person in receiving. We had just returned from break and I got on my forklift (a three wheeler, aka a TW) and drove out into the trailer that I had been unloading. I was about mid-way in the trailer attempting to pick up a pallet when the trailer began to move. That is an odd feeling to say the least. I stood on the break peddle and I mean stood on it to keep the lift from moving. 

            The trailer moved about 30 feet from the dock and then stopped. The driver casually walked back to the rear of the trailer to shut the doors. He was surprised to see me in the trailer and he apologized, then back the trailer back up to the door. I stayed on the lift until he came inside and assured me he had chocked the trailer. The driver was there to get an empty trailer, he hooked up to the wrong trailer and you know the rest.

            If he had pulled away from the dock as I was either entering or leaving the trailer, both the lift and I would have fell about 4.5 feet to the cement drive below. That would not have been good.

            Another unsafe situation that I recall, this one did not involve me but did involve a fork lift. This was a larger lift, a four wheel lift, which had driven into the trailer and picked up a pallet. This was one of those trailers that set lower to the ground and when entering or leaving the lift had to go down into the trailer and up to get out of the trailer. All of our operators had unloaded this type trailer and even though it was not easy we could unload or load them.

            This particular trailer had not been chocked, (chocked means wheel blocks to keep trailer from moving) and when the operator with a load attempted to back out of the trailer the lift was exerting a lot of pressure as it attempted to back up hill and out. The trailer moved away from the dock, and the dock plate stayed on the trailer. Our lift had the back wheels on the dock plate and the front wheels in the trailer and there was a gap between the trailer and the dock. The operator was standing on the break peddle calling for help.

            We had the driver to slowly move the trailer back against the dock and we were able to get the lift back in the building safely. I think we established a rule that we were not to go into a trailer unless we had ask the driver if he had chocked the wheels, or we personally look to see if they were chocked.

 

            Let me relate one other unsafe act that I was involved in, and then I will shut up. It was inventory time and I was on a lift. One of the female employees said that she needed to count the boxes on a pallet that was on the top of the rack. I had an empty pallet on the forks of my lift so I told her to get on and I would lift her up so she could count. Back in the olden days we lifted people up like that fairly often.

            She reluctantly got on the pallet and I raised her 15 feet above the floor and moved her as close to the pallet as possible. She was so scared that she could not let go of the forks back rest, and she could not count the boxes. I brought her down. I then did the safe thing and brought the pallet down and she counted the boxes at floor level. No one was hurt but it was stupid and unsafe.

 

Be safe in everything you do!

 

Safety instructor:        Don Ford


Virus-free. www.avg.com

No comments: