As I tell of these memories from the HWI warehouse at Cape Girardeau, Mo. They will not necessarily be in order. When I think of something that happened I try to make a note and these notes are not in chronological order.
At some point I was promoted to supervisor. I believe there were two main reasons for this promotion.
First, I had experience in all aspects of warehousing to include but not limited to unloading, loading, and stocking, order filling and cleaning. I also was experienced in inventory control (adding to and deleting from inventory system) along with counter sales.
Second, I was outgoing and opinionated; I said what I thought and I was often correct. I was too dumb to be afraid of what people thought or said. It was my opinion, and I didn’t mind telling others that, I thought I was good at most things.
There was a period of time when Cape had a night shift. Lonnie was responsible for the night shift and he needed a week of vacation. I was asked to fill in for him at night. The night team was a small group and the main duties were stocking.
I was in my office doing some paper work when I heard a loud crashing noise, followed by screaming. As I stepped out of my office, I looked to my left down a long aisle that went from one side of the building to the other. (Back then the Cape warehouse was only 200,000 square feet.)
I could see a fork lift face down and a lot of merchandise all over the floor. The operator Mitch was ok, he was the person who was screaming. Everyone ran to the scene of the accident.
As I said, the fork lift was face down and the forks were slightly imbedded into the cement floor. The product was creosote in gallon cans and some was leaking onto the floor, some had splashed on the wall.
No one was hurt, so I decided to have the fork lift righted (back on its wheels). All the fork lifts were electric (battery powered) and I wanted to stop the battery acid from leaking out on the floor. This fork lift was a TW (three wheeler). We used another fork lift and a chain to stand the lift up.
As soon as we had the fork lift back on its wheels. The team began to clean up the leaking creosote, and I went to call the manager. It wasn’t long before he arrived.
Mitch explained the accident this way. He had a pallet of creosote on his forks which weighed close to 2,000 pounds. He had stopped in front of the overstock location, where he planned to place the pallet on the top level, which was 15 feet high. He was parallel to the rack talking to another stocker. The other stocker left and Mitch began to lift the pallet. His plan was to get the pallet lifted to the 15 foot level then turn the lift facing the location and drive forward placing the pallet on the rack.
Mitch failed to tilt the forklift’s upright back, which would bring the weight of the pallet back over the lift and allow him to maneuver the pallet to the over stock location. He raised the load and as the load approached the 15 foot level, the weight of the creosote tipped the fork lift over face down on to the floor.
For many years, each time I would visit the Cape center I would go past the wall that still had stain from the creosote and remember the event.
Mitch stayed with HWI and later was promoted to a supervisor position.
Don Ford
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