Continuing on memory lane at the Hardware Wholesalers Inc. (HWI) Cape Girardeau, Mo. Warehouse.
The first PA (Public Address) system was kind of unusual for a warehouse. The system we had was the type used in some schools. Announcements were made from a central point at the front office. Most of the staff did not know but the PA system had two way speakers. You could make an announcement to a particular area and if the person making the announcement flipped the right switch they could hear comments from anyone near the speaker.
As I said most of the staff did not know this. I made an announcement to the Bin section starting bench and packing area, to clean up the area as soon as you complete your last order.
A lady name Judy was near the speaker and said, “what if I don’t want to”. I replied, “Do it anyway”. I heard her ask another staff member, “Can they hear us in the office?” Being the north end of a south bound horse I answered her saying, “Yes we can hear you”. Later I was told by the manager not to do that anymore.
I would say we had fun and did things that would get you disciplined today. The following is one of those things.
In those days HWI had totes or hampers that were made of heavy duty corrugated. We actually sealed the tote top on using a lead seal that was crimped on with a special tool. Totes were not supposed to be too heavy but occasionally there would be a tote that would weigh 100 pounds or more.
Each tote had a serial number and we had to record each number. These numbers were also listed by route and provided to the returns person. We learned later that they never did anything with the serial numbers it was just a waste of our time.
One day someone decided to play a joke on someone in shipping. They nailed an empty tote to the shipping cart, put the top on it, sealed it shut and it was on a cart with other merchandise. The shipper began to remove the merchandise from the cart and he got to that tote and it would not move. He tried a couple times but could not budge it. Finally he went to get his lead person because the tote was too heavy. Evidently the lead person was in on the joke and told him what had happened. All the other shippers thought it was funny.
You would get a disciplinary action if you did that now.
Talking about shipping and practical jokes in shipping:
Another joke that would likely get you a disciplinary action in today’s world, but we thought it was funny. In the warehouse there were large cartons, when I say large I mean 4 foot by 4 foot by 4 foot.
There was this short fellow that worked in shipping and he decided to put one of these large cartons on a shipping cart. He climbed inside and pulled the top on the carton. The cart was set to divert off in the shipping area. One of the shippers lined the carts up to be loaded and the shipper pulled it inside the trailer. When the fellow inside the carton felt them begin to move the carton he jumped up and scared the shippers. Almost everyone thought it was funny except for the two guys who were the victims of the joke.
There was a fellow in the warehouse that was what we called, “goosey”. If someone walked up behind him and touched his rear end he would scream, “woo woo woo wooo”.
Well those guys that worked around him knew about this and they would try to catch him when he would get on the intercom to make an announcement. Just as he started to make an announcement to the entire building someone would grab his rear and he would shout, “woo woo woo wooo” to the entire center.
I guess that would be harassment now days.
Don Ford
More later
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