Stupid forklift tricks

A couple days ago, I had one of my "misadventures." (One of many, you'll see.) In retrospect, I should have taken a picture of what happened, but at the time, I was a little stressed about what had happened and wasn't at all thinking "I should get a picture of this!" I'm sure I will get another chance to get a pic of something that I screwed up though, probably soon...

I was using a forklift at the ice plant where I get my giant ice blocks for making my ice sculptures, and I accidentally REALLY messed up the big overhead door. Or I thought I really messed it up. It looked really messed up, which I why I should have gotten a picture. See then I don't have to just sit here talking about how messed up it was. I could show you instead.

Here's what happened. (Quick background info: I use the forklift all the time while I'm there and I generally don't have any problems. Also, I was somewhat proud of the fact that I'd never smashed into anything with the forklift before; until the other day, that is.) I was loading about 600 pounds of ice (2 blocks) into the back of my truck. My truck was in a slightly different spot from the usual because some stuff was in the way. So I was doing things a little differently than how I usually do them. That should have tipped me off that I should be a little more careful, but it didn't. The truck was outside and I drove the forklift through the large doorway. The overhead door was partway up, plenty high enough for me to drive the forklift through with the ice riding low to the ground. I raised the forks and loaded the ice into the truck. Then I monkeyed around a little bit, pushing the ice further into the bed and then got off the forklift and got the ice all ready for its trip back to the freezer where I work so that I could carve it into pretty ice sculptures. Once I was done, I got back into the forklift and backed it up to put it away.

BAMM!!!!

fuck.

Now, in the past, I might have yelled "Goddamnit!!!", thrown a thing or two, and all in all had my own little hissy fit. But after you've broken as many ice sculptures as I have (it's not an uncommon occurrence for me), you stop freaking out about broken things. It's kind of like the soldier that no longer reacts to bullets whizzing around his head. So I didn't even say "fuck," I just thought it.

I stopped the forklift and looked up to see what I'd done. The forks were partway raised after I'd loaded the ice and the top of the raised fork assembly had clipped the door BAD on the way back through. The bottom part of the large metal door was off the tracks, badly bent, and actually torn along the edges where it had come out of the tracks. They had replaced this door relatively recently and it did not look good for me at that moment. I've attached an amazingly detailed diagram of what happened below:

I looked around to see who else had witnessed my colossal screw up. I was somewhat surprised to see that nobody had noticed. There were several other people in the plant, but it was noisy and they were probably 40 yards away. Anyway, they didn't have a clear view of the door because an office was in the way. I seem to remember that I kept looking up at the door, hoping that it would look better if I looked at it more. Instead, the more I looked at it, the worse it looked.

After I realized that nobody had seen what I'd done, the bad (and stupid) part of me started thinking, "Well, maybe if I just leave, I won't get blamed for screwing up the door!" Then the more reasonable, logical (and sarcastic) part of my brain responded, "Yeah, brain donor, there's no way they'll figure this one out. They're about to close and when they go to shut the door and it won't budge, I'm sure they'll just wonder why the door tore itself apart and then go about their business. No way they'll know that you did it!"

In the face nearly certain blame, I did the right thing. I called the plant manager and told him that I'd f-ed up. Unfortunately, after the little conversation in my brain, I'd obviously done the right thing only because I knew that I'd get blamed anyway, not because it was the right thing. So now I felt stupid AND guilty. So I tried to make it better by going to run some errands and coming back when the plant's fix-everything-that-breaks guy came by to clean up my mess. Somewhat annoyingly and despite some help from me, he was able to put the door back together in less than half an hour and you could hardly tell that I'd been there. Apparently, this had happened before and he was well practiced at fixing it. I'd thought that I'd created at LEAST two to three hours of fix-it time. And maybe they would even have to order some parts, which would mean that it would take DAYS to fix the door. But nope. After watching what he did, even I could fix it the next time. (That is, if they'll let me use the forklift any more...)

And for my next trick...

Of course, the title of this entry is "Stupid forklift tricks." The sharp-eyed observer will notice that "tricks" is plural. So far, I've performed only one trick for the audience. For the next trick, I only played the role of assistant, I wasn't the main performer. But it was a better trick, I must say. In this case, parts did have to be ordered and it did take days to fix!

Once again, we have the scenario of forklift meets door. Different door, different driver, maybe same forklift. Here's what happened:

At the same plant, they of course have a big freezer for the ice. This freezer is VERY big, with two sliding doors that are large enough for forklifts to easily drive through. Inside, pallets of ice are stacked to almost twenty feet. This is also the freezer that the ice blocks are stored in and sometimes, I store my ice sculptures in there too.

Now you should know a couple things before I go on with the story. First, down on the Gulf Coast where I live, it's usually pretty hot. Each year, winter makes its annual visit for a couple of days and then disappears till next year, kind of like Santa Claus. Then the rest of the time, it's usually ridiculously hot and humid. Second, mostly because of the the first thing, I'm kind of a freezer door nazi; I like the freezer door to be closed! When it's open, whatever ice sculptures I have inside are not getting as cold as I'd like them to be. And when you're delivering an ice sculpture, you're sometimes driving for hours with the sculpture wrapped up in sleeping bags or some other insulation. They're rarely delivered in a refrigerated vehicle because then your costs go up and it's usually not necessary. It's good when the ice gets nice and cold (or it's cold out, which it might be for 2/365ths of the year; not good odds!) because then my job is easier. So when somebody leaves the door wide open, the first word that pops into my head is "IDIOT," even when I'm the one who left the door open.

Okay, so I've got my sculptures in the freezer and they're cooling down, and I'm thinking about what else I've got to do that day, which mainly has to do with delivering sculptures. Then one of the guys at the plant drives the forklift into the freezer and leaves the sliding door OPEN. Usually, they come right back out with a pallet of ice, or maybe nothing if they were putting freshly made ice in there in the first place. But he doesn't come out right away. And that big, giant freezer door is sitting there OPEN.

So I go back to what I'm doing and try to pretend that the door isn't OPEN. I'm thinking, he'll come out in a sec and CLOSE THE DOOR. But he doesn't...

When the door is OPEN, you can't see into the freezer because there's a curtain of clear plastic strips in the way. In this case, I'm using the word "clear" very loosely because they may have been clear at one point, but they're not now. On top of that, they're fogged up because the door is OPEN. These strips keep a lot of the hot air from rushing into the freezer, or at least they slow it down enough so that it's not a big deal if they don't CLOSE THE DOOR when they're making quick trips in and out of the freezer. But this wasn't a quick trip, because the door is STILL OPEN!

Finally, I can't take it anymore. I go over and part the strips to take a look inside. The forklift driver is off the lift, bundled up in his jacket and banging on the floor with some sort of a garden-looking implement, trying to break up ice on the floor. I guess he's doing this because the wheels on the forklift are spinning. But I see that he might not be coming out for a while. So I close the door so my sculptures will get nice and cold. Yep, I CLOSED THE DOOR. I didn't yell "Hey, I'm CLOSING THE DOOR!" or anything because I figured he wouldn't hear me. I just closed it.

Do I really need to tell you the rest? You know what happens next. I don't need to tell you.

But it was kind of cool, in a way. Imagine that you'd locked an angry superhero, like the Hulk or maybe the Thing, in the freezer, and he wanted out. Well, first thing he's going to do is punch the door, right in the middle. That's kind of what it was like. There was a great big "WHUMP" and the giant door shifted outwards and split in two. Then, right after that, probably because he hadn't previously broken as many things as I have, you heard something like "GODDAMMIT, WHO CLOSED THE FUCKING DOOR!!!"

That would be me.

Now, technically, it wasn't my fault that he cracked the door in half. You're supposed to watch where you're going (says the pot to the kettle). He couldn't see that the door was closed because of those not-so-clear plastic strips (the door is white, too) and he drove right through at I'm-in-a-hurry speed because he was expecting the door to be open, despite that he'd been in there a while. Fortunately, he backed into the door. Otherwise it probably would be split AND punctured after the forks stabbed through it. But he was doing things the way he normally did them (stupid or not) and I threw a monkey wrench into his routine.

Once he got out of the freezer (he had to use the other door), he repeated his question about the identity of the door closer. I told him that I was the door closer it and why I'd closed it. Then, I told my side of the story to the plant manager and I'm sure he did too. We didn't talk to each other for a few weeks after that, at least. All the King's horses etcetera were able to put the door back together and now there are big giant metal strips on the door, holding it together. I kind of think of it as the Frankenstein door and that all it needs are a couple of giant bolts out of either side.

Aside from the obvious common threads (door, forklift, idiot driver), these "tricks" share another aspect. In both cases, there was an unusual circumstance which made a significant difference. We were both on automatic pilot and didn't realize the difference in the circumstances, so we messed up. MAYBE I will learn from this and red flags will go up, bells will start ringing, or whatever when I'm doing something that's normally routine in a slightly different way. But probably not. Anyway, if I don't, I'll be able to share it here, so there's that! If you find my misadventures entertaining, then go ahead, root for stupidity!