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Unloading, Loading, Sanitation positions and the recoup, salvage areas, oh, and the returns or valet clerks. All these positions are sometimes listed and advertised as G/L or general labor positions and I’m not sure why? I was speaking with a few people on-line, they seemed to be shying away from a loader job that was listed on one of the larger boards. It wasn’t one of mine, but I joined in any way! I thought it might be because it was a 2nd shift job, the start time was 7 p.m. The pay was listed, and it seemed like a fair and market rate for the area. The advertisement was for a full-time position with a national distribution center. The social media post was receiving quite mixed replies. Not about the hours or the money, but people kept calling it just a general labor job? Now, and, I’ve been doing this for a while, but what is just a general labor job? I assure you that none of the 6 positions I just mentioned are general labor jobs!
Hi everyone, and welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I’m Marty and we’re not going to talk about G/L tasks today! I would like to speak to a couple of those jobs, some people equate to being general labor tasks. Maybe I can explain why I don’t think of them as general labor jobs at all.
So lets start with the job of Loading since that was the position the job board had listed. A few of the comments were: I’m not a general laborer. Now I want to point out that nowhere in the ad was the words general labor used. Another person stated that she had been a general laborer 5 years ago and she wasn’t going backwards? Now that one really stumped me. I’m assuming, probably shouldn’t assume anything when it come to a post on social media, but I’d think if I’m not working, accepting any job is forward movement! And I really liked this one: Not for me, loading trucks is hard work. You have to admire the honesty, right? Not sure why they had to comment but we all have opinions, I guess. See what I mean? The comments weren’t about the hours or the pay or the company, they all mentioned the position. And a few threw in the words general labor.
Now in defense of all the replies, being a loader back, oh, maybe 10 years ago, the position was a g/l task. But I doubt, or from the few profiles I looked at, I didn’t see anyone that would have known that!
Being a loader, a while back was as simple as unloading your freight from buggies or carts that had been selected by order selectors and hand stacking them on the floor of a trailer. Building your load as you went. Trailers and containers would be stacked from floor to ceiling and from side to side. Your company didn’t make any money hauling air. I had a supervisor once get on me because he could see a few spaces between my stacks or along the side of the trailer I was loading. He explained that a good load was one that a mouse placed at the end of the dock plate couldn’t find a way to enter the trailer! I would literally work an 8 to 10 hours shift, sometimes more, without ever looking at a load sheet, mapping diagram, loading manifest or an unloading schematic. And I’d do all that without ever scanning a barcode or verifying a batch number for the driver to know where to find a specific product in an exact zone or spot on a particular pallet!
I was considered a general laborer at the time. But today, well things are more than a little different. Everything I just mentioned can be a part of their jobs and more!
Technology now touches the loading jobs. I consider loading to be a skilled position. Learning to read a load map and knowing how to place the pallets onto the trailer so the driver can identify each stop is a skill, shoot, it’s a science in today’s world. Very rarely, at least in the delivery or route world will we be loading a trailer on the floor anymore. And even then, most of the time now, we’ll be scanning a batch of boxes or every box confirming that we’ve loaded them on the trailer or in a container.
Even in the bulk world, or where we’re loading pallets by using a forklift, we’ll have responsibilities. I want to mention really quick, it is our responsibility as a loader that we make sure the wheels are chocked and a jack stand is in place up front if the trailer is not connected to a tractor. Even when loading with the aid of equipment we’ll probably be scanning, confirming where and that we placed or loaded the pallets. I heard someone call a pallet a skid today, we’ll talk about that on another episode. Call them pallets!
OK, let’s all agree, a loader is not a general labor job. I’ll give in a little and call it an entry level position. And I’ll only do that because there are so many places one can move on to from there. A loader is familiar with every item our company stocks and ships. They work closely with the Auditors, the selectors, inventory control, and don’t forget about the transportation side. We’ll meet the drivers and maybe the people from the fleet yard. The loader position is a skilled position, any type of loading position is going to be a skilled position. I heard a guy say that he works with the nation’s largest parcel package carrier and his job is just to load boxes in the trailer, no order, no scanning, no paperwork. He said it’s a g/l position when he was describing it to a person beside us. I asked him how hard it was to get all the cases loaded as they kept coming down the roller conveyers. He said every box had been measured and he had to make everything fit, that it was like a jig saw puzzle. I asked could just anyone do it and how long did it take him to learn to load that way by himself. He grinned and said ok, you made your point! Loading today is a skilled position.
Unloading, Loading, Sanitation positions and the recoup, salvage areas, along with the returns or valet clerks are not g/l positions.
Try training for a warehouse sanitation job today. It’ll take weeks before we’re turned loose by ourselves. We’re using chemicals, lucky, today, a lot of our cleaning compounds lean more towards the natural side, but we have to know how to use them. An unloading, well, that’s a whole show on its own. With the importance of the breakdown sheets and the help they give the receivers now. It’s far from a general labor job!
I wanted to know why everyone had a problem with the term general labor. Nobody would or could give me a reason. I’m still not sure why the position was being looked down upon. I feel a job is a job and there’s a job for everyone. I don’t mean we should take a job we don’t like. As you know if you’re a long-time listener, we here at WAOC believe you have to love what you’re doing, our jobs and careers are a long-term commitment. Better like’em right?
Speaking of long term, we’re in week 46, where are we all at with our goals? I’m having to make a few adjustments, and that’s ok. I’ve done much better than I thought I would, everything being considered. I’m starting to think about my 2021 plans. I am ready for 2020 to end. We’ll be talking more about planning and goals in a couple of weeks. Let’s all start thinking about them though.
Well, until next week, please remember that no matter what our job is, skilled or unskilled, that we understand our first priority is Safety, safety of ourselves and our peers. Safety at work and at home!