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Hello all, I brought a bad cold back with me from Atlanta, Georgia last week, I hope my voice isn’t too bad on the ears, I just didn’t want to miss the show this week! I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career, lets dig into today’s topics. I want to talk about a little equipment in a minute but like I mentioned I was out of town last week for a large hiring event, so let’s start there. I don’t get to put on my Recruiting cap very often, a part of my job that I really enjoy. Anyway, I want to again voice how, I feel anyway, we should prepare for our interviews. This event was really driven by Facebook, meaning there we’re no telephone interviews. That’s one of the big advantages of a job fair for us as applicants. As I mentioned this event was really driven on Facebook. So, ads were sent out to all the job boards. Each one included the location, the dates and times, what the positions were, and they all listed the pay for each one. Phone numbers were included in case someone wanted a little more information before driving to the job fair. Most of the social media post suggested filling out an on-line app too before your actual interview. Now, I get it. Some people like using messenger or commenting on social media. It’s important to realize though that the recruiters are hearing from hundreds of people. People are calling the phone line for more info, a ton of applicants applied online, there’s honestly no time to type out and answer questions through Facebook. I even saw a couple of post where people were upset that no one had gotten back with them in like 2 hours. Like we’ve said before, looking for work is work itself. If we have all the information to make an informed decision on a position, it’s us, that has to go sell ourselves to the prospective employer. I assure you there are 50 others that are going to do everything within their control to get in front of that hiring agent. I also saw a lot of replies that just said info. I understand what they were asking, but everything the recruiter could have supplied was already in the advertisements. Quick story, all the ads mentioned that the job fair started at 8 a.m., I actually showed up about a quarter to 7 to get some things set up and there was a lady and a gentleman already at the door. I asked them if they were there for the Job Fair, the lady said you bet, I wanted to be the first in line. The guy was laughing, he said she was in the parking lot when he pulled up and she got out of the car and beat him through the door. One of them was a little light on the experiences needed but you know what, the recruiter hire’em based solely on their initiative. I guess what I’m trying to say is, yes, finding a job is difficult sometimes, lets be sure we recognize it and put the work into it. It’s not the recruiter’s responsibility to run us down. It is there responsibility to give us a chance, but we’ll need to get in front of them for them to be able to do that! And I guess that’s all I wanted to point out about our job searches!
So, this week I was getting caught up on some end of the year safety reporting and I ran across an old supervisors investigation article. A gentleman, I assume, had a warehouse utility position. His job did not require using any kind of electric powered equipment at all, but he did have to use a manual pallet jack daily, not often, but a few times a day just to move pallets with trash bins on them. His supervisor had noted that over the last two months the employee had came to him and stated that he wanted to learn and be certified to operate an electric rider jack. The supervisor wrote that he explained he’d be happy to work with him when things slowed down but right now there just wasn’t any extra equipment that he could use during his shift anyway but that he’d train him when he could. Well, the gentleman needed to move a pallet and there was an electric jack in his way. He figured everyone was at lunch, no one was around to help him, and he saw it as an excellent opportunity to justify him moving it himself. Now he knew that he was not authorized to get on the jack, and he admitted that he had been told to never even touch a piece of powered equipment until he had been trained and certified to be on one. The temptation was just too much, I guess. He mounted the platform of the unit and rolled the throttle bar forward to go only about 6 feet. We all can remember that feeling of losing our balance the first time we leaned forward and gave that handle a little twist, right? Sure, enough he lost his balance and since he was leaning forward his hand just twisted even further giving the jack even more momentum. He ran the jack into a barrier doorway, pinching his right hand between the handle and the concrete beside the door jam. He was lucky there wasn’t any permanent damage, but he did bang his hand up pretty good. He was out of work for like 12 days. That’s 12 days of lost wages. He had done something that was against the rules, there was no grey area here. He could have really hurt himself or hurt an innocent bystander. I guess this is where I’ll throw in my 29cfr1910.178 speech about never get on, operate or even touch a piece of powered industrial equipment that you are not certified to be on.
I applaud him for mentioning his desire to learn and operate the equipment, he was doing everything right. And his supervisor probably should have worked with him a little sooner. I think that as Sup’s we need to be upfront with our employees, if we are going to work with someone regarding equipment training let’s not leave them hanging, maybe he should have set a date for training or been up front and just told him no. Either way the employee was in the wrong and it nearly cost him dearly! Let’s not ever be that employee! So, we’re in week 2 of 2019! Do you have your goals and plans written down on paper yet? I just finished mine this week. I am going to stick to the plan and I am going to measure my progress every Friday morning. I’ve decided, based on my performance in 2018, that I’m going to set quarterly goals this year. Don’t get me wrong, I did a pretty good job with last years goals, but I figure only planning 13 weeks out I’ll have more time for corrections to the plan if I need to swing off track for a week or two! I’d love to hear a little about your plans. If you’d like to share any of those goals with us shoot me an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com. And I hope you’ll like our Facebook feed and follow us on Twitter using @whseandops. I hope my voice didn’t mess up todays episode, and I appreciate you taking the time to visit us here at WAOC. Until next week, treat others with respect, treat your equipment with respect and share a Safety thought with a co worker and a family member!