Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Excitement at work

Had quite an exciting day at the office today - my colleague had mentioned that there was a Christmas Promo pack in the bulk warehouse that one of us needed to check, and since it was technically a new title, it was my job.

I trundled over to find that it had been put away already, on a shelf. "Ok," I said, "can I just go and check it out to see what's in it before I write the description?"

"Sure," said John (the warehouse guy, not the hubby), "hop on the lift!" He gestured towards one of the big industrial forklift riser thingys. I climbed into the cabin, thinking we'd drive along the bottom of the aisle and then lift the forks up to the location, pull the stuff down, look at it, and put it back.

Not so. Up we went (while moving forwards), until we were about 50 feet in the air. I was clinging desperately to the back of the chair and trying to be nonchalant about leaning over the edge to open the box and look in it. I think John sensed that I was not a happy bunny, so he opened the box himself and looked at it, reading off the contents to me as I wrote them down in my notebook.

As he zipped back down to the ground, he commented that he'd really gotten the willies the other day when he'd had to go up to the ceiling to change a lightbulb...at least when you're in the stacks you have a reference point that's right next to you - he was all on his own, 90 feet in the air.

I didn't feel unsafe - the Brits are FANATICAL about 'Health and Safety,' I just had a bit of a thrill. The notes that I took are complete gobledeygook, by the way.

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