In the world of warehousing, wither we’re in manufacturing, production or distribution we have a saying, Get the doors closed.  Our supervisors and managers use that amongst themselves and their bosses, that’s their primary goal for the shift.  Now that encompasses controlling their hours, meeting their production or productivity needs and setting the plate for the next shift.  Welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  I’m Marty T Hawkins and with this episode we’ll all be getting the doors closed on 2019!  I’ve had a blast this year, and our Thursday get togethers have been a big part of that fun.  We have some great plans for WAOC in 2020.  We’ve lined up some interesting guests, on a variety of different topics and we’ll be talking a lot about those first steps into the front-line management opportunities out there.  I’ve met several new recruiters and hiring agents that’ll help us with our career choices this year & I’m excited about learning from each of them!  As we get those doors closed on this year, I’d like to thank you, all of our listener’s for stopping in each week and for all the participation, emails & questions you’ve sent in.  It’s each of you that have kept us going for 170 consecutive weeks.  You’ve made it worthwhile for us and I hope we’ve brought you some useful information, somethings you’ve been able to advance your careers with this year!

So, a part of getting the doors closed each shift is the planning that goes into tomorrow’s shift!  I take a moment every day to review the days successes and what I could have done better!  I actually as myself “What is one thing that’ll make me better tomorrow” every night.  We’ve learned a little about planning & goals this year, it’s such an important part of our careers whither we have found the perfect job for ourselves or we’re on a path to a position we see as our long term career or where we’re wanting to retire from.  I was thinking what better way to review the years planning than from those that’s lived it with our group!  The logistics of getting everyone together for a show proved impossible here at the last week of the year so we thought we’d try reaching out to individuals separately and adding those calls to the show as they called in.  As I’ve mentioned several times, we here at WAOC are nowhere close to being audio experts. It’s going to be a lot fun anyway!  As you know one of my favorite podcasts is hosted by Cindy B Brown, if her show Unlocking the secret to living rich is not on your weekly got to listen list you’re missing out when it comes to your money!  Anyway, I grabbed about 2 minutes of a recent episode, #115 titled Set Goals Now that came out the first of December, with her permission of course, and I wanted to play a couple of highlights it here for you.  I’ll be sure to post a link to the full episode in today’s show notes too, I’m sure you’re going to want to catch the whole show, it’s just that good.  So, let’s hear her 5 points to setting goals.    http://unlockingthesecretoflivingrich.libsyn.com/115-set-goals-now

Wow, powerful stuff.  After I listened to that episode I called Cindy, yep I know a published author, not affiliated with her book or podcast but I like them both, anyway I called her and told her how great that episode was.  In our world of operations, we can apply each of those 5 tips in our planning and structuring our goals!  I have integrated those 5 thoughts into my overall goals for next year.  We have to accept the roadblocks that we’re going to experience with our tasks.  Our jobs are touched, I won’t say controlled by others but at least touched by the task before us or our mechanics or in many instances our computer systems.  Things like, let’s see, if I’m a loader trying to get my productivity and the selectors aren’t focused and brings my product up in a timely fashion, I’ll need to adjust my workflow.  Or maybe our maintenance department didn’t fix our pallet jack and we’re working with a manual jack for a few hours.  We will have to compensate for those roadblocks in order to hit our shift goals.  Or of course we could say, well, didn’t hit my productivity because I didn’t get my product quick enough or my jack wasn’t working, I guess.  I probably set my goals a bit high, but I use them to push myself, I place a lot of worth in myself.  And her #2 & 3, visible and accountable, our systems and metrics can do all that for us, I never want my productivity to be towards the bottom of the printout.  I think I mentioned it before, but one of my biggest motivators when I was an order selector was to stay out of the bottom half percentage wise on the productivity sheet posted at lunch each shift.  The supervisor would highlight all the names in pink marker that were under the nightly average.  Even if we were all selecting at average the bottom half would get the pink marks.  As silly as it is, that only happened to me once.  My goal was not to be in pink.  And as for aligning our goals with a purpose.  Well, I think, work wise or employment wise, it’s to make money, grow with our companies, make more money, advance within our positions, and make even more money, right? Setting goals and planning our careers will achieve those dreams for us and our families!

So, Let’s get to a couple of those calls and talk a little about 2019, planning and 2020!

You may remember Corey, he’s been on the show a couple of times.  I believe the first time we met cory he had just been promoted to unloading lead, he went on to become a unloading supervisor and is now learning all the tasks involved in setting the plates between shifts.  The receiving, running, put away, shoot all the different tasks, I guess.  Cory how have you been Sir?

You know Corey is a long time WAOC listener.  When we first met, he was living and working up in Pennsylvania and really had the itch to move to Texas one day.  He developed his plan, transferred within his company, advanced through several different positions over about two years and is now working for a National Foodservice provider and continues his growth through great goals and planning!

Next up our old friend Phillip, Phillip really needs no introduction, he’s visited with us several times.  He oversees several facilities in a couple of different states as well as manages their unloading and time keeping programs.  Wow, I guess the last time we spoke was when we did a show from your office in Chicago, I think that was late in 2018!  Are you getting the doors closed on 2019?

And I was very fortunate to catch up with John, the V.P. of Operations for a large National Sourcing company.  John with you overseeing so many Supervisors and Managers spread across the nation I’m sure you understand Getting the doors closed on 2019!  How have you been?

Did everyone pick up on a recurring theme today?  All of our guests had taken responsibility for their success.  They planned for it by writing those goals down and holding themselves accountable for their results. No one achieved everything they wanted too, but everyone was positive about rolling them over and getting across the finish line next year!

Well with all that being said we’ll get the doors closed on another year for us here at WAOC.  I hope you join us next Thursday for the first show of 2020.  Oh, and Our W2’s will be coming out next month, if you didn’t make at least $5200 more than you did in 2018 lets fix that for next year!  As we’ve learned this year, we can control our earnings, our savings, and our careers! And as always if you have any questions, comments or topics please email [email protected].  We love getting mail!  Until next week and next year, Be Safe, productive and prosperous!

Welcome to week 51 of 2019 everybody, and to episode #169 of Warehouse and Operations as a Career and I’m Marty T Hawkins.  Next week we’ll find ourselves wrapped up in the Holidays and Christmas.  I know it’s pretty much a regular work week for a lot of us, well I guess there’s some time off of course, but for example I know of several distribution centers that the order selectors will be off on Tuesday night as delivery trucks won’t roll out on Christmas day and we’ll work Wednesday night, Christmas night, so routes can be loaded and roll out Thursday morning. Some production facilities are even off or closed from Tuesday through Friday, and I know one that won’t be gearing back up until Saturday morning at 1st shift.  I had a guy ask why did he have to work Wednesday night, it was a holiday!  Think about it, most industries will be working, not a full day maybe but, fast food places, shopping centers, call centers, retail, distribution, entertainment, restaurants, and most service places will be working at least half a day!  Its not really that odd.  And transportation, those trucks are still moving freight across the country!  Many of our independent drivers never really get a day off!

I heard a few recruiters stating this week that it was hard to set interviews between thanksgiving and Christmas, people wanted to wait until after the holidays to start work?  I started my first real career job on Nov 22 with a company and stayed there for 26 years.  I figure if a person is responding to an ad they are wanting to work.  There’s usually 5 or 6 weeks between Thanksgiving and the new year, that’s a long time to go without a payday.  We definitely need to honor the season for what it is, and respect it of course, and its great getting the family together, those times are important, we need them.  But jobs are important for us too, we know all year long we’re going to be scheduled on those holiday nights.  It’s easy to set our holiday gatherings around our schedules.  I worked nights, as an order selector for 6 years and never missed out on a holiday event.  I didn’t like it but that was the job I had.  I always felt worse for the fast food and convenience store workers that had to work during the day on holidays!  My point being our jobs take care of our families every week, don’t get frustrated over a day or night worked, you can make it work!  I know one guy that got upset and quit his job because his brother was coming into town on a Saturday, his normal day off but the boss told him he’d need him that week.  He got all upset, threw a fit that Thursday and quit his job because he wanted to spend all day Saturday with his brother.  As it turned out his brother got hung up and didn’t make it to town.  No play day with his brother & no job on Monday.  I have a hundred stories like that.  Let’s work out what we can and work it around our jobs, or that’s my thought process.

Well I strayed way off subject that time but I do want to talk about week 51 or the closing of the year for a few minutes today.  If we’re in the production world we’re probably going through an inventory about now.  Whither your facility utilizes a cycle count program, meaning a program where we have cycle counters counting items every day, rotating through the sku’s or slots and the aisles on some type of a schedule where every item is actually counted like monthly or quarterly so as to always know exactly what’s in the building or a normal inventory where everything is closed, no inbound or outbound and no invoicing for an entire day or weekend, anybody enjoy that kind of inventory?  I used to dread being paired with a salesman or a merchandiser to hit the aisles to count product.  Never met one that could read a ti and hi or even verify an item number.  Inventories aren’t important to us as warehousemen, but they are important to our companies.  A wealth of information comes from a true inventory.  Asset figures, tax information, and real dollars, gains and losses are verified through the inventory process.  And in our distribution worlds now can be our busiest times.  If we supply the retail environments, we’ll need to keep those orders going out and keep those shelves stocked.  Even food distribution facilities, usually people quit eating out as much before the holidays but all those shoppers will hit the restaurants when their out shopping so things can really pick up for us during the last three weeks.  And oh my gosh, delivery drivers, December is the worst month of all.  And not just for the parcel and package drivers, any delivery driver.  Think about all the stressed-out individuals their dealing with all day long!  Something as simple as a truck damage or mispick is going to set off the customer.  And it’s probably not really us there upset with to begin with! The over the road drivers may just have it worse than anyone in the supply chain.  They’ve taken possession of a load, been told they have a confirmed appointment time, maybe even a load to pick up for the return ride home only to find they can’t get back in time to make their holiday plans.

The end of year for our company may be budget time too.  We all hate it when our bosses are consumed with the numbers!  For us we’re looking for increases and they may have to be looking at cutting expenses.  Yep, all this is going on and we throw in the most important holiday of all right in here at the end!

I don’t mean to sound all hum bug about this time of the year.  We want out children, spouses and family members to have the greatest year ever, and there is nothing more than our family.  I guess my real point is we can control all this.  We can plan for it and we can be ready for it.  Think how great I’d be if we were the one smiling all the way through it.  Wouldn’t bother us at all. I’d like to hope we’ve all learned this year that by planning out our goals we will control how we’re feeling and doing by week 51.

Well I strayed way off topic that time, but what I was wanting to bring up was some outstanding growth I’ve seen and heard about the last couple of months.  There’s been so many people enter warehousing as general labor and their already operating equipment and moved thru a position or two.  I’ve heard from, I don’t know, I bet 20 individuals that are blowing up their numbers as order selectors.  And unloaders, I’ve seen so many men and women hit their stride and really making good money this year.  My greatest story would have to be 6 people I know that had never been in a warehouse before and had the opportunity to be taught order selecting.  They’ve all hit their productivity and achieved a career they’d never dreamed possible.  You’ve gotta love Operations right?  There’s something for everyone, we can honestly earn what we want too!  Yep its work, hard work, but it’s out there and ripe for the taking!

And our industry just keeps growing.  No matter what region you’re in, commercial warehouse space is popping up everywhere.  A quick internet search will tell you that there are over 400k warehouses in the U.S.  By the end of 2019 its estimated that they’ll be over 780 million square feet of space that will have hit the market, with 225 million square feet being planned or built right now. And a lot of that space, some estimate over 50% of it is being built without tenants or signed leases even.  People are betting on all this growth. We’ve made some great career choices people.  If we’ve planned out a strategy, our careers, the jobs and opportunities are going to be out there for a long time to come.

The supply chain.  We’ve learned this year how the field of Logistics has grown.  Technology is the future.  Not robots, their cool and all but men and women, learning the new technologies, moving freight globally, more efficient and quicker is where it’s at.  As we just mentioned all that storage space is going to need workers, supervisors, managers, directors and vice presidents.  I’ve never seen the opportunities out there like they are now.  If we’re just wanting jobs, they’re out there and if we’re wanting advancement and growth its available and ready for us.

Well, I kind of talked about what I wanted to today but I didn’t mention half of the things I had in my notes.  I get excited about operations.  I’d encourage you to search the web for an hour this week.  Just look up warehousing, you’ll find so much positive information out there and it’ll be interesting, I guarantee it!  If you run across something you’d like to share send it over to me, email [email protected] or use that little @whseandops on Facebook or Twitter, there’s always people there that’d love to join in on your conversation.

Until next week, the last week of the year, remember as great as operations is, our jobs can be dangerous.  Be safe first!  And always go home to the family waiting on us!

Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I’m Marty, and I had pallets on my mind this week, thought we’d talk about that for a minute today!  Back in March we looked into the history of the skid or pallet and talked about how it came to be, why there’s so many different sizes and its importance in the industry.  That episode was called The Pallet, check it out if you’ve ever wondered why they are used as they are today!  Anyway, so this week has been a week about pallets for me.  It feels like every conversation I’ve had this week was about pallets.  You know, as an unloader, receiver, pallet runner and put away lift driver we have the immense responsibility of checking and verifying that every pallet we touch or deals with our task at hand is, if not in tip top shape, that its safe to be stored in our racks.  And then as replenishment lift drivers, order selectors and loaders it’s our jobs to make sure all that empty wood is then separated at the end of our shifts into, the good or reusable stacks, and the broken, salvaged or just plain broken to pieces stacks.  I work with several large distribution centers that employ 1 or 2 pallet sorters or even 2 shifts of people that their sole responsibility is to separate the good and bad wood.  The good pallets will of course be used next shift for the unloading process all over again and the bad wood, well, I guess it’ll depend what your facilities programs are as to what happens with those!  I’ve been to buildings before that’ll haul all their bad wood out to an area in the truck yard where a utility man or general labor associate will tear them all apart and the wood is sold for scrap.  Some places take it a step further and have table saws, nail guns and a little new wood out there to replace the slats or runners, maybe add those hated double runners down the sides of our pallets even.  Oh, and those little metal plates, has anyone ever seen those plates be effective?  You know, they usually place’em over a cracked runner, nail them in place, and there suppose to keep the crack from growing!

As I mentioned, in all our positions we carry the responsibility of making sure the pallets we’re using is fit to be stored in the racks.  The product we’re hauling and moving can weigh several thousand pounds. I had a supervisor tell a great story about a pallet runner that had caught a bad pallet on his front docks.  An over the road driver was working his load, almost a straight roll off and he even stated in the driver’s defense that the right outside runner couldn’t really be seen due to a slip sheet being folded down against the board.  The runner, being cautious with any hanging plastic or cardboard hanging over the surface area had gone over to cut the excess or overhang off the slip sheet and noticed the cracked runner! The driver gladly restacked the item onto another pallet and stacked the bad board to the side to carry back with him.  That brings us another thing about pallets we probably talk about.  In many instances our carriers will require that we replace the pallet counts for them.  All that means is that, like this guy, let’s say he rolled off 24 pallets for us to receive, we’d give him 24 comparable pallets to take back with him.  Pallets are expensive.  Now not all drivers or loads will want to take back any pallets.  They could be on there way to pick up another load and won’t have the room for them.  That’s a win for our facility.  Or it is if his or her pallets were in good condition in the first place.  I’ve seen companies make a driver take back their wood or charge them a little disposal fee for leaving them.  That’s one of the ways one of those pick up and deliver pallet companies I mentioned earlier comes in handy.  I don’t think we talked about how that actually worked.  Its simple really, I think that’s why we’re seeing so many companies useing’em.  Typically, they will leave us an empty trailer on the yard, and we’ll fill them up with all our bad wood.  They come by and pick it up, some of them work off of a schedule each week or we’ll just give them a call when we get it filled up.  Anyway, they’ll take our bad wood, rework what they can or rebuild what they have too and sell them back to us at a contracted price.  Pallets can be a nuisance, anyway you look at them, but one of those necessary evils.  That’s one of the tools we use to perform our task, right?

Another supervisor was telling me how he’d ran out of pallets on the inbound side.  It’s happened to all of us.  Come on, your shaking your head up and down.  Best laid plans.  He had to send everyone down the aisles to pull all the empty pallets from the pick slots just to get his trucks unloaded.  I laugh about it but its not all that unusual.  The bad thing is that a good number of those pallets aren’t of quality to use again.  Think about it, let’s say the pallet started out as barely even a “B” grade.  The unloader’s tossed it around, a pallet runner has drove under it, what, at least once or twice and probably at least one fork driver’s driven into it.  What’s the odds we all performed our task properly?  I hope we have; I mean that is each of our responsibility.

I hated hearing this one, and it come up all too often.  An employee was caught selling pallets off the dock.  Now he wasn’t actually selling his companies wood but that was a bit of a fine hair to split.  All the wood drivers didn’t want to haul back he’d gather up right outside the doors and he had a buddy that’d come by in a pickup truck and load them up.  They had a pallet company that would pay them by the pallet.  Of course, he was let go, I mean come on, at the very least he was conducting other business while he was on the company’s clock.  I felt bad for him but, well, it was just a bad decision.

I don’t want to get into the Chep pallet program or Peco programs but there’s a lot of responsibility there in keeping up with those commissioned pallets too.  Great programs, but our companies have to have a very solid accounting system in place for it not to be a headache.  But again, its our responsibility to follow all those programs and make them work!  Don’t get me wrong, I love their wood.  A very sturdy product, heavier pallets but we as stockers don’t have to worry about them giving way on us!

As a forklift driver I always worried about what I was staging up in the racks.  If I was going up to the 6th or 7th level with some weight I’d always do a double take on the pallet as I was lifting it.  I didn’t want any of my loads falling.  I’ve taken more than one load back up to the docks and had’em restacked.  I don’t take any chances!

I mentioned the different grades of pallets earlier.  I wont go through all of them but I’ve always used https://nazpallet.com/pallets/grades-of-gma-pallets/  to help explain the different grades.  I’ll add that link to todays show notes, I know I have it around here somewhere.

According to them a great or premium grade A pallet will have 7 boards on top

5 boards on bottom

6” lead boards top and bottom

Avg. top deck spacing 2.5” to 3.5”

3 stringers (1-1/2” x 3-1/2”ea)

4 way entry

And a regular grade A

7 boards on top

5 boards on bottom

Average top deck spacing 2.5” to 3.5”

3 stringers (1-1/2” x 3-1/2”ea)

4 way entry

No block repairs to stringers

Each stringer can have one repair plate to strengthen any split

Of course B graded pallets can be much cheaper and are generally used for shipping.  There graded on much the same way. Between 6 to 7 boards on top, depending on board width which can be 3.5 to 5.5 wide)

No less than 4 boards on bottom

Avg. top deck spacing 2-1/2” to 3-1/2” but can be up to 4” – that’s more than enough to twist an ankle on!  Of course, we’ve learned to never walk on a pallet anyway right!

3 stringers (1-1/2” x 3-1/2”ea)

4 way entry

They’ll typically have plugs (repairs) on stringers – you’ve seen those added blocks of wood nailed over any split or broken runners or stringers before.

No more than two boards (stringers) thick at any one point

Chips or partial split boards may even be acceptable

I keep mentioning the responsibility word again today.  As you’ve probably picked up on by now, what we do can be dangerous and its so important we all take care of each other.  Every position touches another.  Check out that March episode, you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about pallets.

Well, I veered off track again this week.  Think about your pallets though, everyone has a good pallet story to tell and I bet we can all learn something new about’em.  Or maybe at least what not to do with them.

Until next week, be safe everybody, put to practice what we know is right.  Lets all punch out and go home every day!

I was walking a facility earlier last month and saw one of the new model scissor lifts.  The plant manager asked me if I knew anything about one of these, and, well, I had to say no.  It may have had the most futuristic control console I’ve ever seen.  I’m Marty with you here today with Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  Now I’ve operated several scissor lifts and a couple of different Ariel lifts for that matter before, but this was the first one of this type I’d seen.  Come to find out his real question was had I ever been certified to operate it?  As we’ve learned before, in order to be certified we have to be observed operating it on his dock.  And of course, been through a 29cfr1910.178 course with a trainer, where we would have learned exactly how to operate the unit and all its unique Safety concerns.  I asked hadn’t the manufacturer or salesman supplied him that instruction?  He shared they had said something about it and maybe it’d been scheduled for next week sometime.  I told him I’d get on the phone and find out and I’d make sure everyone I planned to have operating it probably should attend that training.  Now of course I’m more than confident that I could had climbed up on the platform and have no problem performing the task with it but, as we all know, I’d need to be trained and observed on it before I’d even touch it right?   I went and looked up a little more information on scissor lifts and learned they are not compared to Ariel lifts and are actually more closely associated with scaffolding.  I ran across a really informative Hazard Alert at https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3842.pdf  Working Safely with Scissor Lifts.  Now, as with any publication I’d strongly suggest you seek guidance from your employer or a local OSHA Outreach trainer with specific questions about any piece of equipment, but I thought this 2016 article mentioned some really good points.

Scissor lifts provide a safe and reliable platform for workers to perform job tasks when used according to the manufacturer’s instructions. When not used properly, scissor lifts can present a serious hazard to workers. Employers are responsible for keeping workers safe. This Hazard Alert highlights specific hazards present in workplaces where scissor lifts are used, and controls employers must implement to prevent injuries or fatalities.

The Alert starts with an Introduction:  Scissor lifts are work platforms used to safely move workers vertically and to different locations in a variety of industries including construction, retail, entertainment and manufacturing. Scissor lifts are different from aerial lifts because the lifting mechanism moves the work platform straight up and down using crossed beams functioning in a scissor like fashion. Although scissor lifts present hazards similar to scaffolding when extended and stationary, using scissor lifts safely depends on considering equipment capabilities, limitations and safe practices. Over a one-year period, OSHA investigated ten preventable fatalities and more than 20 preventable injuries resulting from a variety of incidents involving scissor lifts. OSHA’s investigations found that most injuries and fatalities involving scissor lifts were the result of employers not addressing: • Fall Protection • Stabilization • Positioning.

The next sections explain How To Safely Use Scissor Lifts and covers Fall Protection (see 29 CFR 1926.451(g) or 29 CFR 1910.29(a)(3)(vii)).  Stabilization and Positioning.  It mentions how dangerous high winds can be if we’re outside using a lift.  I once had an employee using a scissor lift out in the truck yard, changing the light bulbs up on the, what’d you call them, I guess the parking lot light poles.  Anyway, I thought it was too windy to be out there.  From the ground it looked like the entire unit was swaying back and forth.  I had him come in, I figured we could change the lights anytime.  He didn’t agree with me and felt he’d have been fine to finish.  I don’t know what could have happened, but I know we both went home safely that night.  It goes on to speak to Maintaining the Lift and following the Manufacturer’s instructions.

The next section addresses Training Workers.  Employers must provide workers training on hazards, including how to work safely with or near scissor lifts. (29 CFR 1926.454). Training must, at a minimum, include: • Manufacturer’s instructions for operating the scissor lift vertically and while in transit. • How to handle materials on the scissor lift, including weight limits. • Other worksite hazards workers may encounter when working on a scissor lift (e.g., contact with electrical wires). • Reporting any equipment defects or maintenance needs.

OSHA Standards Employers must comply with the following OSHA standards (29 CFR) to protect workers from hazards associated with scissor lifts. General Industry • 1910.23 – Guarding Floor and Wall Openings and Holes • 1910.28 – Safety Requirements for Scaffolding • 1910.29 – Manually Propelled Mobile Ladder Stands and Scaffolds (Towers) • 1910.333 – Selection and Use of Work Practices Shipyards • 1915.71 – Scaffolds or Staging Construction • 1926.21 – Safety Training and Education • 1926.451 – General Requirements • 1926.452 – Additional Requirements to Specific Types of Scaffolds • 1926.454 – Training Requirements Additional Information Many scissor lifts are covered under OSHA’s Scaffolding standard. For technical assistance, please refer to OSHA’s eTool and other resources on scaffolding. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has standards for manufacturing, owning and operating scissor lifts. They can be found in ANSI A92.3-2006 (Manually Propelled Elevating Aerial Platforms) and A92.6-2006 (Self-Propelled Elevating Work Platforms).

Really, just like all of our warehouse or light industrial equipment, if we know how it works, what safety concerns it may present and have been trained on that safe operation, it’s another great tool to achieve our tasks.

A quick follow up on the facility’s new unit, everyone attended that training and although it’ll only be used occasionally, I feel good that the Manager had it parked and didn’t even consider anyone operating it until the trainer came out and conducted the course for them. I only wish I could have attended and been allowed to operate it.  Those controls looked awesome!

You know another piece of equipment that can be taken for granted and not much thought given to’em are our balers.  You know, where we bale up our cardboard or shrink wrap.  OSHA has some great information on balers, I’ll include that link in today’s show notes as well. https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/recycling/recycling_cardboard_baling.html

These units can be really dangerous if we use them improperly.  Remember, they are machines.  And we’ve learned that we are never to operate any machine or equipment that we have not been properly trained on and certified or authorized to operate.  True or False?  I hope we all said true or shook our heads up and down just then.  Seriously, these machines work under high pressure, crushing pressure if you will.  One of my concerns are those door locks, they look super heavy duty, don’t they?  Ever considered how they’d swing open if a weld or latch failed during the compacting cycle.  I never stood anywhere near those doors after pushing the compact button.  I’d make everyone step away.  I got laughed at a lot but again, we all would go home every night!  Even carrying the bailed product across the docks can be dangerous, ever think of the weight of those things?  I used to stack them; we have to stack them securely. They could easily crush us if they fell back on us.  And those units can be considered a confined space depending what type we’re working with.  All the safety guards have to be in place before operation, I always did a walk around them before I’d use them!  The page I mentioned listed the OSHA Standard Requirements for us too.  Specific OSHA standards that apply to baling and compacting equipment include:

29 CFR Part 1910.146, Permit-Required Confined Spaces

29 CFR Part 1910.147, Lockout/Tagout of Energy Sources

29 CFR Part 1910.212, Machine Guarding

Again, all the equipment we’ll experience throughout our operations careers can be operated safely.  It is our responsibility to know the equipment, know its safety concerns and how to operate it properly and safely.  It’s our duty, our job to follow those rules, standards and laws.  If we never operate or even touch a machine or piece of equipment that we have not been trained on and authorized or certified to operate we stand a much greater chance of not ever having an accident!

If you operate a scissor lift during the course of your duties or have to work with a cardboard or shrink wrap baler share your thoughts with us, send me an email to [email protected] or maybe start a conversation on our Twitter or Facebook feeds using that little @whseandops.

Well, we’ve wrapped up another week.  Next week will be week 50 of 2019.  Until then be safe, learn something new about your equipment or machines, maybe check them out at OSHA.gov.  I bet you’ll learn something new about their Safe Operation!

Hi Everyone!  Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I’m Marty, is everyone wrapping up their year?  Was it as prosperous as you’d hoped? Not just monetary wise but did we achieve the growth professionally that we aimed for?   If not you’re ready for 2020’ though right?   Well I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s put all that on hold for a bit.  Earlier this week I noticed several articles along the lines of How to Leave a Job.  That got me to thinking about one of the opportunities I hear from Recruiters almost every week!  In our chosen fields of Operations, Warehousing, and Transportation not only do we, as employees have the ability to move around a lot, but so can members of management.  Every week I hear about someone I’ve worked with that’s left company X and started with so and so company.  As we’ve learned this year, advancement, new positions and reaching out for opportunities are how we can climb that corporate ladder. Of course, if we love our jobs or our task, and it provides us the income and environment we’re looking for I think that’s a perfect fit too!  Where things can get sticky for us, with either scenario, is if we’re unhappy with our employer, or maybe a supervisor or maybe the drive is just longer than we want for now.  For whatever reason, there really are right ways and wrong ways to leave our jobs.  I want to go a little deeper than just saying we should always give a 1- or 2-week notice, so let’s talk about that for a few minutes today.

Wither we’re seeking employment through direct hire with a company or utilizing a staffing agency, the job market is tough.  We always hear about low unemployment or high unemployment rates meaning jobs are hard to find or easy to find blah blah blah .  When we’re the one looking for a job it’s always a task for us.  I mean first we have to decide what we want to do, then we’ll spruce up our resumes or clean up our work histories and get out there and put in applications.  We’ll probably have several phone interviews and hopefully we’ll get the opportunity to go out to facilities and have a sit-down or that face to face interview.  And when we get the job it may not be what we thought we wanted!  Or let’s say we’ve moved, now we’re living 10 miles farther from our workplace we’ve been employed with for 5 years and it taking us 30 more minutes to get home every day.  Maybe our old supervisor’s been promoted and the new one, well let’s just say we’re no longer happy where we’re at.  Back to what I was saying about recruiters earlier.  One of their biggest struggles is with hiring people that really want or need a position and then the new associate doesn’t show up on the first scheduled day or maybe quits showing up after the 3rd day.  No phone calls, no contact, no information shared of any kind.  I’ve heard that less than 10% of exit interviews are ever responded too.  I know of a couple of companies that utilize programs for texting or emailing out exit surveys even.  We wouldn’t even have to speak to anyone from the company.  And I’m told those responses are even less than 10%.  Isn’t that the opportunity for us to explain how the hiring agent may have missed the high points of the position, or our chance to explain why we felt the job description did not match the expectations explained to me during the interview.  Or maybe that we just changed our minds and went another direction.  A short apology from us may go a long way with the recruiter!  Anyway, so why is it important to quit a job the right way?  Well, I have quite a few opinions on that subject, most of them from experiences and I’ve gathered a few facts on the subject as well!

Ok, so let’s look at a few of the don’ts or things that can really come back around to haunt us on down the road.  Ok, what’d I do with my bullet points, here I got’em.

Ok, there is never a good reason for walking off the job at lunch.  Just disappearing.  This seems to be a big one nationally, most of the articles I ran across mentioned this one.  Last week I had an order selector, on his first day, he didn’t say anything to anybody, just didn’t come back after lunch.  Left his selection batch and pallet jack in the aisle for someone to find it about an hour later when they were looking for the pallets to be loaded on the route truck.  Do you think his recruiter will ever place him again?

Recruiters and hiring agents really get frustrated with us when they’ve spent time with us on the phone and interviewing us, they’ve taken us through the on-boarding process, committed to their customer or their operations departments, and their bosses that they have a great candidate starting tomorrow and then we just never show up.  No phone call, no communication and no further contact.  It happens all too often!  And I’ve actually taken calls from those same individuals 3 and 4 weeks later asking me if I have any work for them!  I guess I’m a little more understanding than most because when I check with the recruiters, they look at me like I’m crazy and just kind of shake their heads.

And as a long-term employee, and I can understand we’re leaving one employer because somethings happened.  We’re excited about our new job of course but, now’s not the time to start slacking off or talking bad about our management or even the company.  We may be frustrated to the point of showing them or trying to screw over our supervisor and just quit coming in.  I assure you we’re not causing any long term hurt to either.

And then there’s the employee that quits showing up, but they don’t have another job lined up even.  Who have we really hurt there?

It’s important that we give that 1 week or 2 weeks’ notice anytime we can.  Oh, and if we have some time off or vacation in the bank, don’t take it as our 1-week notice.  Our jobs not going to get done, we’re not helping our former employer by doing that.  In most instances we’ll get any vacation owed us when we leave, we’ve already earned it.  Most companies are going to honor that commitment to us as employees.

So, what’s wrong with doing all the above?  Well, you’ll be surprised how many of your fellow teammates, leads, supervisors and Managers you’re going to run into throughout your careers in this industry.  Recruiters may not want to give you another chance.  Our old teammates may not give us a stellar recommendation if there asked by their new employer.  And you’ll be surprised at how many of our old Supervisors you’re going to run into down the road.

What we do is hard work, can be long hours, and It’s so easy for us to get frustrated on the job, and too easy for us to make a really bad decision by just

ghosting our jobs.  I found a few articles that are along the lines of How To Leave a Job.

https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/not-burn-bridges-when-you-quit

25 ways you might accidently burn bridges when you quit a job

And I found a really good article on Facebook, actually it came from a posting on the Las Vegas Job Board and More group.  It was published by PrideStaff and you can find it at https://www.staffinglasvegas.com/2019/11/20/never-burn-bridges-with-temporary-employer/?fbclid=IwAR1rgEFIR1zm8RLFIjZtn6Jad1v-PAOW5dPmWc9hZn9B8U2Qcu5_eopBNa8

Another good one is at https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/quit-job-without-burning-bridges

How to Quit your Job without burning bridges

I’ll add these links in today’s show notes but there’s hundreds of these type articles online, you know how I am about a little self-education, check out the 3 I mentioned and look a few up on google.  They’ll definitely point you in the right direction!

I’ll blame human nature on all these kinds of decisions!  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/human%20nature

Tells us that human nature is: the nature of humans   especially : the fundamental dispositions and traits of humans

If we’re just looking for a great job that fits our lives, everything we’ve talked about today is fine for us.  We have a skill, it’s operations and we can just go someplace else, we’ll find work and a job.  It’s so easy to take the easy way out of a bad situation and just walk away from it.  And in many instances or situations that’s exactly what we should do!  In my experience though we will be limiting our careers and our futures professionally by taking the easy way out or leaving a job the wrong way.  Never burn Bridges, as I mentioned before, I run into people that I’ve worked with 3, 5, 10, even 20 years earlier almost monthly. And in many instances, they can help me out with new business or referrals!

Well, there’s a few thoughts on how to leave a job and that’ll wrap up episode 166 of WAOC and the 48th week of 2019.  WOW, 4 weeks until 2020!

Until next week, remember where Safety is concerned human nature does not figure into the equation.  Always put Safety First, professionally and in our family lives!

Back at you with Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I’m Marty and I have no idea what all I’d like to talk about today!  I’m way behind again on our Q & A but I haven’t really pulled up anything.  You know what, lets start off with our PM’s or the preventative maintenance programs or duties.  You may not know it, but our facilities keep pretty accurate records regarding the maintenance performed on our equipment.  That’s one reason our pre-trips are such a big deal, our maintenance technicians use those to address the day to day issues we document.  I was looking at a weeks’ worth of pre-trip reports today on a spotter tractor.  Its shared between two people, one works Sun, Mon, Tue and early Wednesday and the other works late Wednesday, Thur, Fri and Saturday.  So, on Tue one gentleman marked that the wipers and mirrors needed attention and the other guy, on his shift, marked everything as o.k.  Same thing happened on Wed but in the morning the sliding window needed attention and later on in the afternoon the next pre-trip was filled out as everything being fine!  I know its so easy to take those couple of minutes for granted but they are truly important.  If our unit, say an electric rider jack or our reach lift is squealing a little and its almost time for the regularly scheduled maintenance they may bring it in earlier than scheduled and put us some new brushes in it.  We all love how our equipment runs after the electric motors have been cleaned out and brand-new brushes have been put in right?  For those still utilizing brushes anyway.  I say our preventative maintenance programs are important but actually they may even be regulated.  We deserve to be operating safe equipment at all times!  A good PM program will check things like Fluid levels, tires & wheels, how do we dent so many wheels on our counterbalance lift, all our hydraulic connections, battery life and water levels, our steering boxes, load wheels, masts, chains, oh and one of the most important things for me is torqueing all our nuts, bolts and screws.  Anyone ever heard a bolt hit the ground and couldn’t find where it came from.  And on all our electric equipment everything needs to be kept tight.  Bad brushes can ruin our motors, and the same thing with loads wheels.  I’ve had to dig miles and miles of twisted up shrink wrap from drive and load wheels before.  There’s a lot of parts that need lubrication too.  Most preventative maintenance programs are written with either hours of use or clocked in hours as a scheduling indicator.  All this is important!

With all that being understood, as a supervisor sometimes it’s hard to pull a piece of equipment out of the operations to get caught up on our scheduled PM’s.  But I assure you it’s the thing to do.  I myself held a pallet jack or kept it on the floor for like 3 weeks over its hours mark and ended up ruining the battery.  It was down for over two weeks then as they had to not only replace the battery but a lot of the voltage wiring to it as well.  Just this week I had a facility call me complaining about having to purchase a $5k battery for their forklift.  The water level had been dry for what they assumed to be over 2 months.  Besides the expense it’ll be down now until the battery is built and arrives.  Of course, that pointed to bad pre-trips.  They discovered every operator had just been marking that the water levels were good.  You can bet they’ll be some discussions and re-training with that crew now.

So, pre-trips, let’s talk about that for a minute.  They do become routine to us.  But their main purpose is our safety.  Our preventative maintenance programs are designed and written for our Safety. Yes, these programs will help reduce expense and keep our machines running longer, but they deliver us operators a safe unit to perform our task with!  A good pre-trip will cover http://media.ehs.uconn.edu/Occupational/GeneralSafety/LiftTruckOperatorsPre-OperationChecklist-ElectricalPalletJack.pdf

Motor Off Checks

Fluid leaks on floor below Truck – Hydraulic Oil, Battery

Tires – Condition /Pressure

Forks, — Condition

Hand Guards – Attached

Safety Warnings – Attached (Refer to Parts Manual for Location)

Operator’s Manual in Container

Capacity Plate Attached – Information Matches Model, Serial Number and

Motor On Checks (Unusual Noises Must Be Investigated Immediately)

Service Brake – Functioning Smoothly

Steering Operation – Functioning Smoothly

Drive Control – Forward/Reverse – Functioning Smoothly

Hoist and Lowering Control – Functioning Smoothly

Horn – Functioning

Lights & Alarms (where present) – Functioning

Hour Meter – Functioning

Battery Discharge Indicator – Functioning

And OSHA.gov has some really good pre trip sheets on everything.  I like their forklift one.  Again it’ll incorporate checks for motor off and motor on.  I wont go through the whole thing but some of the high lights are:

Record of Fluid Added

ALL OPERATORS MUST BE TRAINED AND EVALUATED ON THE TYPES OF INDUSTRIAL TRUCKS AND ATTACHMENTS THEY WILL BE OPERATING.

Your Pre-trip is so important, and it’s the law.  They are required by OSHA.  We need to be doing them and we need to treat them as a legal document.  You can bet that if something happens while we’re operating them it will become a legal document!  Remember that we’re signing our name to it too.

I think us as operators sometimes think that all that responsibility falls on our maintenance technicians.  It is our job, even in a true activity-based pay situation they’ll be a component for us to do it.  Think about it, its our safety we’re talking about.

We’ll we ended up with a good topic, preventative maintenance and pre-trips, two things that helps ensure we’re productive and that we go home every day!  We’d like to hear about your PM program or what your pre-trip reports are like and how your facility handles them!  Maybe we could start a discussion in the Warehouse Equipment Operators Community group on Facebook?  And don’t forget about the WAOC Facebook and Twitter feeds, we’re easily found using that little @whseandops.  If you like the groups maybe, ask a friend to join’em.  And if their good friends I’d appreciate you recommending them to subscribe to the Podcast!  Until next week everyone be safe and lets all take our equipment’s operation seriously!

Have you ever been accused or caught horse playing at work? I’ve seen so many meme’s on social media this week I’d like to talk about that for a minute.  Welcome back everyone.  I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career!  My first trip to HR was over a bit of horseplay.  Me and 2 others grabbed an inventory control guy and shrink wrapped him to a support beam at the end of an aisle.  We were on our way to lunch, I guess we assumed someone would come by and cut him loose.  A bad assumption on our part, I guess.  A cooler lead did walk by and cut him loose about halfway through lunch, to say the least, he was more than aggravated when he entered the break room.  We were all friends though, he laughed it off, even bought us a few beverages after work that morning.  I’m still not sure how HR got involved but thank goodness I, and it was only I that got called down to HR the next day, anyway I was extremely grateful I didn’t lose my job over it.

I once got picked up and thrown down the dumpster shoot, aggravated didn’t begin to describe my attitude once I climbed back up that nasty thing.  I hate to admit it but a couple of weeks later I seeked my revenge.  There was a 4 one-gallon case of syrup damaged in the salvage area.  I took that and a half bag of flour to the dumpster, made sure to cover every square inch of the shoot and plotted my revenge.  Took me a few minutes, it was quite the playful scuffle, but my friend ended up in the shoot, sliding all the way down to the bottom cleaning up the syrup and flour as he slide down. That was at the end of our shift, so I scooted on out of the building.  The next morning everything was funny again and he’s been a lifelong friend still to this day.

As an order selector, we used tovairs and buggies back then, anyway one of the nightly pranks was to unhook the second buggy from the first and watch the selector take off down the aisle and having to walk back to get the second buggy.  Oh, and during breaks you never wanted to take off your freezer suit and leave it hanging on your equipment.  Us freezer selectors came back from breaks and lunch on more than one occasion only to find that our gear had been placed inside the freezer and was like ice when we were dressing back up.

Now I’m not proud of any of these pranks, I wish we were more mature than we were and that we’d of had the training we all get today.  That was back before the OSHA standards and HR’s involvement in the operations.  I found a good definition at https://www.fs.illinois.edu/docs/default-source/safety-compliance/horseplay.pdf?sfvrsn=d65f6ea_0 a toolbox talk article that gives us some information asked  What is Horseplay? Horseplay is rough or rowdy play or pranks that occur at the workplace. Horseplay can be activities such as joking that includes physical contact, playing around, racing, grabbing, foolish vehicle operation, social pressure to participate in unsafe acts, harassment, and unauthorized contests. Often workplace horseplay incidents go unnoticed or are ignored as harmless fun. However, making horseplay a part of your workday may jeopardize your health and can lead to serious or deadly injuries. Each year there are hundreds of injuries in the United States from pranks at work. Workplace horseplay incidents may lead to serious injuries at work, divide the workplace, and prevent employees from getting their jobs done. In some states, horseplay that results in injury can result in criminal prosecution. Courts have held that these injuries are not the result of an accident but are deliberate acts.

I don’t remember anyone ever getting upset to the point that fist flung but I’m sure it happened.  Also we live in a different environment or world today.  Not only are we taught that horseplay will not be tolerated by our company, as the article stated it may very well be against the law and we can be prosecuted for a bad act.  This week I’ve seen a lot of memes floating around.  A college and I were talking yesterday how so many of them evolve just equipment these days.  I loved one of them, a fork drivers peers took a roll, or several rolls of shrink wrap and totally wrapped shut the driver’s compartment.  I wondered how many wraps around the lift it took, and how much time was spent on a prank that could literally be cut and removed in under a minute.

I had an employee, one of my employees at one of the facilities I work with dismissed this week for skateboarding a manual pallet jack.  To make matters worse he was assigned to the production area where they don’t even have manual jacks.  He was caught on video skating the jack over in the warehouse.  I don’t know, maybe he was coming back from break or lunch, saw a jack and for whatever reason got on it and skated it.  As we all know, that’s not allowed anywhere.  It doesn’t seem all that dangerous, but I could spend 10 minutes sharing broken bone stories about skating.

Thank goodness for the rules and laws regarding horseplay in the workplace today.  I’m so thankful I never hurt anyone or got hurt myself in my younger days.  And thank goodness that our industry has grown so much in the last 20 years, especially in the Safety arena. I for one appreciate the training we receive today, and I hope we all realize the progress made, and that we each do our part to act, think and be safe at all times.  We can save the playing around for the playgrounds with our kids!

Enough of all that I guess, you’d never be guilty of horseplay in the workplace, anyway right?

So I was asked, how do I start a plan for next year.  I sat down to write out my plan and goals and nothing came to mind.  How do I get started, what’s it supposed to look like?  That’s a very good question.  There is not a right way or wrong way.  I myself grabbed pen and paper this week and started planning what I wanted to do in 2020.  Even if I try and separate my personal and professional goals, they somehow seem to intertwine themselves every year, so I find that I usually start out with my personal ones and see where that leads me.  My advice would be start with the obvious ones.  Now you can’t write down to make 10,000 more dollars next year without adding the steps you’ll need to take to get there.  By the way, 10k is only $4.81 more cents an hour, and those are just regular hours throughout the work year, if over times involved its even easier to make.  That could be as simple as 1 promotion or 1 department transfer.  Maybe going from a non-PIT or powered industrial truck task to using some sort of equipment or an equipment position.  Imagine the increase coming from say the restaurant service fields into a sanitation or utility position.  Or a warehouse General Labor job to a pallet runner job.  If you’ve listened to most of this year’s programs you already know how you can make those moves.  Oh, and it’s so important that we take advantage of any program our company offers, whither through production incentives, 401k programs or any bonus opportunities.  Picture this, and I don’t know the exact formula that this facility uses, but here’s a great example of just plain making money.  An attendance program.  If you are on-time every day of the week you earn between $50 and $70 dollars for that week!  That’s a possible $2600 a year just for being on time.  I can easily get up 15 minutes earlier than what I need too knowing I’ll make $50 more dollars a week than I earn productivity wise.  With $2600 dollars on the table, out of around 15 people there are usually only 3 to 6 of the employees earning it.  And the others are only like 5 to 8 minutes late.  Running 10 to 15 minutes earlier would put them all in the money.  Now, not earning it is fine, its not effecting their jobs or potential at all, but, in my eyes that’s a $1.25 more an hour, and is a part of that $4.81 increase to get me that extra $10,000 I’m wanting to make next year!

I got lost there again, anyway, like I said there’s not a wrong way to start on your goals.  I listed 3 things I wanted to do next year.  On my list I wrote visit New York city, I have a friend that’ll be giving her 1st TedTalk up there next year, what a great excuse to take a trip right? And then I added a convention I wanted to attend in Orlando Florida, and added a few instructor certifications I wanted to achieve under a education header.  Of course, I’ll need to pay for those trips and classes, so I’ve started creating a spending budget for 2020 as well.  Now next time I set down to work on it I already have three things to work off of.  Try not to make it any harder than it is.  It’ll come to you and you’ll be surprised how easy the paths are to achieve each one of your goals.  It is time to get started though, jot down some ideas today and come back to them in a day or so.  I bet you’ll already have some great ideas about how to achieve’em. You know last year about this time we talked about how to save $1378.00 using the 52 week money challenge, I’ll add the link in todays show notes again today.  I love this simple challenge. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/thoughts-on-the-52-week-money-challenge/ , anyway how’d you do there?  We talked about adding $5000 to our end of year wages this year, what’d we figure that’d be, um, what was that , $2.40 an hour.  I’ve heard for a lot of us that’s achieved that.  Yep it was hard work, we may have had to change positions even, but we achieved it!  Want to double that this year? $4.81 cents an hour increase?  Its very doable, we’ll just need to have a plan.  I’ll put together an episode on planning and goals real quick, a how to get started if you will.  Maybe I can get some help, I’ll ask around and see what I can learn.  If you have a time honored and proved technique please share it with the group, send it over to [email protected] and we’ll help you share it!  I’m kind of excited to put something like this together.

Well, there’s a few of my random thoughts for the week.  And please take horseplay seriously, the equipment we operate can be dangerous, treat it with respect.  It will not be funny when someone gets hurt or we lose our positions.

Until next week be Safe out there, our families are waiting on us to get home!

So, isn’t warehousing just another job, I know you can advance anywhere with any job but it’s just a paycheck when it’s all said and done?  Hi, I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  If you’ve listened to any of our episodes you know we here at WAOC throw a little more passion into warehousing than that.  Of course, a warehouse job can be, and for many people, it is just a paycheck.  And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with looking at it that way.  On out Oct 10th show we looked into the new Gig or app work available to us now, and on the 3rd we spoke to the advantages of part-time warehouse positions.  Both are great avenues for us when we’re looking for seasonal monies or supplemental income, or maybe our personal responsibilities will only allow us to work when we want or we can!  Again, there’s, or I feel that there’s, a position that’ll fit anyone’s needs in our industry.  I’ve mentioned many of my old-time friends and their positions before.  Many of them have been selectors or forklift drivers for 15 or 20 years, I have a great friend that’s been in warehouse sanitation for 30 years.  They never wanted more responsibility; they loved their jobs and I’ve got to say there all really good at what they do!  So yes, if we’re looking at it that way, warehousing is just another job and it’s a paycheck when it’s all said and done.  Saying that just made me think about general labor positions, well not really G/L tasks, more like general warehouse jobs.  That’s another thing about warehousing, it encompasses so many different industries and one-off tasks that there’s literally something every one of us can do.  So, I went on-line and looked at all the different open positions out there in warehousing, and I found a ton.  Let’s look at some good paycheck jobs real quick.  Now when I say paycheck jobs, I’m not saying there’s no advancement opportunities with’em, we’re just going to talk about the task itself.

Here is a good ad.  50 people are needed for packing candy & nuts.  I’d assume these would be shipping for the holiday season coming up.  It states no experience needed, must be able to stand for long periods of time and work in a cool environment.  Although this is 12-week project permanent employees may be hired on full time.

I saw another ad for the storage and selection of phone/computer parts.  Pretty much the same qualifications, applicant needs to be comfortable with standing for an 8-hour shift and able to lift up to #20lbs throughout the shift.  They called this position picker and shipping.

Here’s one that sounded pretty good, it was titled a packer position.  You’d be packing paper and plastic cups that came off a production line, checking quality or controlling quality coming off the line and placing the sleeved product into the shipping boxes.  This one was at a production facility that also stored and distributed the products.  A pretty big outfit.

Personally, I think some of the best warehouse jobs are in our production and manufacturing arenas.  Things like:  Packers, Sorters, and Shipping, you know like the parcel lines and services.  Warehouse sanitation, that’s a great field.  Forklift driving, especially with positions where your hauling freight on the larger docks can be another great long term and career position.  Any kind of machine operation is great and can be long term.  I know a lady that’s been operating a pinto bean machine for many years, she’s bagging 25 and 50 lb bags off of a production line, she loves it!  Building maintenance is a great choice too.  There’s a pallet jack mechanic here in Texas that’s been with the same company for over 9 years.  At that same building there’s a facilities guy that’s been changing light bulbs and light building maintenance forever.  I’ve known both of them several years, their great guys and you’ll never meet a happier employee.  Assembly is another long-term position, oh and pallet sorting, I know of a pallet sorter out east that’s been doing it for over 20 years. These are all great positions, Careers if you will that will provide us with great paychecks, and they’ll take care of our families.  Again, if a job and a paycheck is what were after warehousing can certainly provide it.

And your distribution facilities have those positions available too.  It’s a little different as in distribution we interact with each other much more.  I don’t mean us as individuals really, but as departments.  Unloaders are working very closely with receivers who work closely with runners and forklift drivers and they’re attached to inventory control, putaway and replenishment forks and order selectors.  And those guys are bringing freight out to the loaders and transportation.  None of our distribution tasks are independent of the others really.  With all that being said, any of those jobs can be long term for us.  I just find that human nature sometimes pushes us to think that the grass is greener over in the next pasture.  For me anyway, although I always loved every position, I ever had it seemed I always wanted to do what that next department was doing! I think forklift driving and sanitation positions are probably the best jobs to have as long term jobs to keep in a distribution facility.  Or those are the positions that I know the most people enjoying them.

So yes, Warehousing can be just a job, some great jobs actually. But no, I wouldn’t call them just a paycheck though.  We stuck with them because we loved the work, enjoyed the team and the company, I’d like to call those jobs our careers!  I like to think of jobs as something to pay our bills with and careers as what we enjoy, something that pays for our life, our families and our homes!  I hope all that answers your question.

Well, there’s only 7 more weeks of 2019 ladies and gentlemen!  Have we all accomplished what we wanted too?  I’m right in line with all my personal goals for the year and I’m doing pretty good with my professional one’s too.  I’m starting to believe I may wrap up the year just like I expected too!  One of my opportunities this year was I got a little overzealous in my goals.  I think that’s something all of us planners do.  But that’s ok, we can always adjust as we go.  Remember, although we’ve written down our goals, and hopefully have someone helping hold us accountable for them, we can always change things up as needed.

So, what about journaling, have you gotten on board with recording the events of the day yet?  Are you doing a little planning for tomorrow or for the week?  Maybe the next month, quarter or year?  See how I slid some planning in there!  Seriously though, and honestly.  If you want to earn more money, journaling will get you there.  I dare you to try it.  https://mellowed.com/journaling-for-beginners/  has a great article for beginners.  I’ve used the Franklin Day Timers before, there great.  That’s the method I started with actually.  I’m using Michael Hyatts Full Focus Planner right now, a bit complex, but maybe something you’d like to look into once you develop the habit!

Speaking of habits, how are we doing with our self-education this year?  This is one area I feel I got out front of in 2019.  I wanted to learn much more about Safety, particularly in the light industrial field and I’m feeling good about that goal.  There’s so much free info out there about our fields, I hope we all take advantage of it.

So, 2020, what’s sup?  To be truthful I haven’t sat down and put anything to paper yet. I need to set aside some time in a quiet place and get busy though.  I haven’t given next year’s goals much thought even.  I hope each of you are ahead of me there!  Share some of your ideas with me.  Send some thoughts to [email protected], maybe that’ll get me started! Over the next few weeks maybe we can get a discussion on goals and planning started on Facebook and Twitter?  If you haven’t followed or liked us yet, use that @whseandops and join in each week!  I learned something about Chep pallets this week from the Warehouse Equipment Operators Community on Facebook, join that group to learn a little about the differences between PECO and CHEP pallets.  Chad, one of them members there explained his thoughts very well, almost changed my personal opinion!

I have a lot of bullet points written we just didn’t get to today.  I got side tracked on planning and goals.  Well, we’ll pick up next week where I left off, I guess.  If you do have any thoughts on goals, seriously, send me an email.  I’m always looking for some fresh thoughts.  Maybe we can help each other out!

Well, until next week, be productive, prosperous, and above all Be safe out there!

Welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I’m Marty T Hawkins and I thank you for taking the time to check back in with us today.  Last week WAOC had the privilege of attending the WERC conference in Grapevine, Tx.  We really enjoyed all the learning sessions and visiting with all the vendors.  If you’re not familiar with the Warehousing Education Research Council I’d urge you to check them out.  Check with your management team, odds are someone in your organization is a member and they’ed be happy to share all the weekly info distributed by their authors and members.  Today I thought we’d talk about a few things I took away from the conference, a few thoughts of mine anyway.

There was a lot of technology talk, everything from new handheld units to new innovative speech technology to advanced WMS or warehouse management systems.  As you may remember I’ve recently been putting together some training classes and working with young men and women that’s never worked in a warehouse environment before, training them to use the electric rider jacks and to become production-based order selectors.

Anyway, I had a thought.  You know, when we drive our vehicles somewhere, let’s say to work for example, our minds really take us there.  I bet you don’t remember making every turn, turning on our blinkers, changing lanes, all those little things like that.  That’s because our minds are trained to make those kinds of motions.  Yeah, we have to be focused on driving, but our minds or memory really handles the simple or repetitive tasks, don’t they?  That’s what we train equipment operators too, our minds can do the simple task or thoughts.  We’re consciously are thinking of that next slot, checking out our surrounds, watching for others etc and our minds subconsciously will see that our speeds and maneuvering through the warehouse is handled safely.  Of course, we’re staying focused and safe though.  As professionals, I’ve learned our minds are one of the greatest systems within our industry.  Anyway, technology made me think of that.  Wow, I wondered off topic there but really, to some degree I feel we train our minds and muscles to let us learn to be more productive and a much safer employee.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about some of the technologies that were discussed, and I bet some of us have a few opinions on what’s out there now, how its improving and what’ll be available to us in a few years!

Back in the mid 1990’s I had the fortune of working with one of the first order selection systems brought to market.  Everything was wired.  We had a wrist mount unit that had a small cable running to our finger scanning unit.  We wore a battery pack and a small label printer around our waist, a cable connected the two.  There were small wire clips that held the wiring to our freezer suits so everything didn’t get all tangled up.  Cumbersome but effective.  Today everything is Bluetooth or NFC with no communication delays and no wiring of any kind.  These units are much more productive than the ones I learned with.

Speech recognition came out a few years later and again, and I’ll be nice here and say it was ok.  No but really, you had to speak very slowly, it’s learning capabilities was slow.  We all speak the language a little differently, especially here in Texas.  We had to provide so much input, verifying our locations, repeat our check queue’s over and over, it was just slow.  I’ve never been a fan of speech selection but after seeing how far the technologies came over the years, I’ve got to say I’m sold on it now.  I visited with several men and women using todays units and talked about all the advantages and efficiencies experienced by the employees and employers today, I’m on the bandwagon again!

Lucas Systems gave a great presentation on the new speech technologies and systems, from both an employee and management prospective, I feel it’s worth a look.  I’ll include their URL in today’s show notes in case you have a moment to check out their Work Execution Software.   https://www.lucasware.com/

Another great session was with ImageNet Consulting.  https://www.imagenetconsulting.com/

I myself am a data guy, the more live data I have access to the more I can get done.  Now I know that’s not always true but we learned about all the available systems and how they can be made to talk to each other, share with each other if you will.  Imagine having a dashboard or several even throughout your warehouse showing how many cases have been picked and how many are left to be selected.  Even having the ability to see each employee’s productivity every 30 minutes and tell what routes have been loaded out as well as what’s loading out right now and by whom.  I’m a dashboard believer.  We had some great discussions on the advantages of data and of course how you can overload on it too.  Check out their link and services, I assure you you’ll find something that’ll set off a lightbulb in the brain!

I thought Optricity had some great thoughts on slotting, warehouse optimization and improvement solutions too. https://optricity.com/  I’ll add that URL too, I think you’ll find there doing some really good things out there.

As a young supervisor it’s easy to get caught up in all the technologies and systems.  Especially after attending a really good conference.  It’s important that we keep our feet firmly planted in the present too, I mean we have a job to get done on a daily basis, we can’t overreach our company’s goals or our abilities.

I know here at WAOC we’re always talking about self-education, researching things we know little about and learning all the time but I encourage you to take advantage of every opportunity to sit with or be around those with experiences, that’s where the short cuts to knowledge is, I try and learn from others mistakes so I don’t have to make them myself!

That reminds me of an employee a few years ago, he wasn’t one of mine, he worked on a different shift, but he came to me about how his supervisor and/or the transportation supervisor would sometimes come and sit at his table during break.  He’d say man, there’s 10 open tables and they’ll come sit down at mine.  He kind of worked on his own so he was usually alone in the breakroom.  I kept trying to tell him to listen to them and strike up conversations, that’s free education dude.  Again, getting noticed by our management teams will never turn out bad for us!

When I go to these distribution conferences, and of course I love all the breakout sessions, but the vendor expo is where I get to talk and visit with everybody.  It’s always great to see people in the industry you’ve known for years and meet all the new associates coming up in the ranks.  I saw a couple of vendors I worked with 5 and 10 years ago, still loving their products and enjoying what they do.  I think I was most impressed with the robotics being displayed.  In the coming years I think we’ll see some really innovative and efficient tools and systems to further our productivity gains as associates. Another thing I was impressed with was all the android tablets and handheld units.  I won’t bother you with the specifics, but I’ll include a few links in today’s notes.  I had the opportunity to handle no less than 10 different units and I wanted every one of them.  Today’s WMS or warehouse management systems are awesome and have grown into so much more than I could have imagined 10 years ago.  A great conference all the way around.

Well, there’s my week in a nutshell.  I enjoyed the WERC Conference and feel like I learned a lot while just visiting and meeting others.  I’m not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned today, I just thought you may find their services interesting.  I’ve included several links in today’s notes and I’ll add a few from the vendor expo too, there’s so much tech and new product lines out there, I enjoy trying to keep up with it all.

If you attended the conference last week let me know what you thought of it, maybe share with the group what all you learned or what impressed you the most!  Send us an email to [email protected] and we’ll compare notes.  And don’t forget about our Facebook and Twitter communities, just use that little @whseandops on either and we’ll get a discussion going! While I’m throwing plugs out there remember you can find many of us hanging out at the Warehouse Equipment Operators Community page throughout the week on Facebook too!

Until next week, keep learning and keep safety in the forefront of our minds!

Welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career!  I’m Marty, and I’d like to apologize for the background noise today up front, hey you got to record where you can right!  I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for the comments last week that were sent in, we really appreciate all the interaction and participation!.  So I’m way behind getting a few listener questions answered, I thought I’d start there and we’ll see where we end up today!

So Zachery is in sanitation, its not stated how long he has been with his employer but his question is “I am wanting to get my palletjack certification so I can change jobs, we use Crown stand on pallet jacks here but the school is using something called Raymond.  How different are they and is it easy to learn?”

Very good question Sir and thanks for sending it in.  First I’d like to share a few thoughts on paying for your certification.  The OSHA standard their teaching too is 29cfr1910.178.  Now please don’t take my comments wrong, these are great classes, they will help prepare you in the safe operation techniques you’ll need to know and understand when operating powered industrial trucks.  Yes, they are definitely worth the money you will spend on the class and your certification.  And this is where I have to say, But, because your employer will or should be providing that training to you and they will do it for free!  They are required to observe you on-there-docks-on-the-equipment.  I get a little peeved with some of the schools out there that advertise their certification classes and imply that we’ll be able to go out and get a higher paying position right off the bat by having their certification card in our hands.  When we hit the streets, filling out applications and speaking with the recruiters the first thing were asked is how much experience we have on the equipment.  Everywhere we apply is going to want us to have 3, 6 or 12 months experience.  So back to Zackary’s question, I feel there is no difference between the models operationally.  All the controls pretty much even look the same. Last week I operated a Raymond Rider double pallet jack and 3 weeks ago I had the opportunity to operate the Crown version of the same jack.  Now if I was a maintenance man or salesman I may have a preference but I’m an operator so if it’ll make my production numbers I’m all in with it.  As for learning on one and operating another model, I do not feel its going to make a difference.  I’d urge you to be careful, perform your pretrip, check the name plate on the jack too.  It’ll tell us the weight capacities etc and look over the attached user manual.  Of course if you trained on a steer assisted unit and jump on a jack without the assist it’s going to operate a little differently.  You’ve learned to be safe on the equipment, the functions are going to be about the same.  Be cautious, aware of your surroundings and others and you should be fine.

Zachery, my suggestion would be to go speak with your supervisor or manager.  Let him or her know that you’d like to move into the other position and how interested you are in operating the equipment.  You’ll save some money, your manager is going to know your goals and I’m sure they’ll help you be successful in them!

Lets see, oh here’s a question about pallets.  “Why does everyone say not to walk on pallets.  A lot of times I have to walk over pallets to move a case or just because the pallet is in the way.”  I didn’t write down the name but that’s a fair question I guess.  I have seen so many ankle injuries caused by an associates boot or shoe falling in between the plank boards.  Our footwear never wants to come out as easily as it fell in and our forward motion is going to make us loose our balance, we fall to one side or another, and then we loose a weeks worth of work while our ankle sprain heals.  And in many cases that’s best case scenario.  I know a couple of men that was in a brace boot for several weeks, and 1 guy that had to have pins inserted into the bones.  As to having to walk over a pallet because its in our way.  Lets stop and pick it up.  Move it to where it is suppose to go.  Its for all of our safety.  Every company I am associated with will have a line that states Do Not Walk on Pallets within their preferred work methods & as for picking up stray pallets it’s probably in our job descriptions as well.  We will occasionally have to step on a pallet to reach that case in the far right or left corner, just be careful.  Step with our foot across 2 boards, not running along one.  And remember at some point we’ve probably signed a piece of paper stating we know not to walk on the pallets.  Our safety teams take that stuff serious.  Lets not give them a reason to write our names down on a piece of paper and pass it along to our boss right?

I hear some form of this question almost weekly, something about the daily shift start up meeting or the pre-shift meetings.  A quick side note here.  Last week I had a gentlemen call me about how he received a corrective action to sign from his supervisor for being tardy 7 times over four weeks.   He honestly felt that was not justified because the first 7 to 10 minutes each day is just their startup meeting so he wouldn’t have been working yet anyway.  Well, like I explained to him, our start times are our scheduled shift times.  One of my favorite speakers, who just happened to be a great football coach as well, Vince Lombardi, taught me that if you are 5 minutes early you are already 10 minutes late.  Lombardi time means being to work 15 minutes before your scheduled start time.  You will be surprised how much more you will learn and hear about arriving early to work each day.  Anyway, I hope after we spoke he better understood the importance of being to work on-time and the importance of showing his supervisor that he was a motivated employee and interested in his job.

So back to our daily start up meetings.  I know these meetings seem like a waste of time.  We’re production people, we’re at work so we’re ready to go.  Ladies and gentlemen, our start up meetings are an important part of our jobs.  We’ll learn about how many widgets we need to produce this shift or how many cases we’ll be selecting and loading out for the night.  Our errors like misships and truck shorts may be covered from the night before.  That’s our money sometimes, depending on how were paid.  By participating in those meetings were going to get noticed by our management team and in a good way!  Here at WAOC we’re always talking about sharing our self- education and letting or giving our supervisors the opportunity to share a little of their knowledge with us as a group.  They hardly ever get a chance to impress upon us or teach us, haha, we hardly ever ask them any questions.  Our start-up meetings are a great time to let them talk to us and help us.  But we have to engage them at that level.  I’ve always used our meetings to really solidify our safety culture within a facility.  What better way to bring safety to the forefront of everyone’s minds than as a group before we all head out into the aisles or up on the docks?  I’d suggest that we try and look forward to that daily meeting.  Get the shifts information, make an impression and use it to motivate ourselves to the shift.  And please remember this is an excellent time to perform some pre-shift stretches.  We’ve learned through all our ergonomics trainings the importance of getting that blood flow to our muscles, helping them prepare for the work ahead!

And as to our safety meetings.  Whether their daily, weekly or monthly, take them seriously. Its sometimes a dry subject, we’ve all heard the same things a hundred times but we gain new experiences with every shift.  What I mean by that is when we’re listening to the same thing we talked about last week is that this week we may have seen an instance where that knowledge can be applied a little differently for us.  Being one that gives those talks weekly I try and broaden the audience a little, maybe throw in how our significant others or husbands and wives could apply a little lifting techniques when putting the babies in and out of the car seats or how to avoid lifting and turning when getting our groceries out of the car.  This is a great point for us as employees to speak up and throw in an experience of our own.  Again participating and getting noticed, and, maybe helping one of our peers take a little better care of themselves through safety as well.

And I guess to make it real simple, these meetings may just be regulatory.  Simply put, it’s a part of our jobs, a task that goes right along with our job descriptions.  Lets all be on time for them, be interested in them & participate.  It’ll pay off in the long run I assure you!  Well. That’s it for today.  I hope you found something interesting and found something or a thought that you can apply towards your plan and goals.  Until next week let’s all get involved and talk Safety to someone next week!