Rack 'Em Up (and Up and Up)

[kevin_standlee]

Yesterday evening after returning from the Open House at the Fire Department, we went to Lowe's to see about getting the additional crossbeams for the shelving for the garage. We saw that they had received two more bundles of eight beams each, and while they can be sold individually, Lisa said that she could use sixteen beams. We sought out the manager and explained that we'd bought ten of them earlier in the week because that's all they had, and he agreed that it would be no problem for us to "return" the ten we'd previously bought (without having to actually physically haul them back to the store), then buy 26 of them, sixteen of which we'd collect tonight in addition to those we already have. That let us get the 20% contractor discount, and my 5% Lowe's Card discount still applies, so we ended up saving more than $90 on the heavy-duty (each shelf is rated to hold about 900 kg) shelving beams.

One problem, however: one of the 8-packs was trapped on the top overstock shelf in the store, buried under a bunch of other rack material. While I dealt with the Head Cashier to "return" the ten original beams and pay for the entire lot, the manager had one of the other staff bring a portable lift over to the shelving area.


Standing well back behind the temporary safety barriers, we watched as the poor Lowe's associate struggled to move the shelving material from the top rack and to free our beams. She just barely could manage it, and there were times when it looked like some of the shelving material was going to come crashing to the floor (a good reason to stay back!); however, after 20-30 minutes of struggle, our beams were free. Of course we kept them in their 8-pack wraps as Lisa and I hefted them onto a cart. They're fairly easy to move with two people, but terribly unwieldy for one, especially one person scrambling around three stories off the ground (she did have a safety harness) trying to shift hundreds of pounds of other overstock rack material.

We got the rack material home and unloaded with minimal issues. With the small racks and a pallet of boxes moved to the locker, Lisa has almost managed to clear enough space to be able to put the Small Orange Pickup back in the garage. I helped her move one of the pallets on which we'd been temporarily storing boxes out of the garage and onto the pile of pallets outside. We shuffled vehicles so that we could move the Rolling Stone back to its space within range of ground-side power; the RV shop had accidentally left some of the interior lights on while they did a separate repair to the refrigerator in addition to installing the steering stabilizer, and we want to make certain the batteries are fully charged before I head off to the Bay Area for a two-week stint tomorrow.

That was a very productive Friday the 13th for us.

Comments

[retro-rider55.livejournal.com]

I hope to Hell the Sales Associate is recognized for their effort in dealing with someone elses' previous SNAFU in order to serve you too better. I've worked in union shops where they haven't...

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I hope so, too. Certainly management knew she was doing it — the store manager was the on-the-ground safety spotter!

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

That looks like you had a good place to watch, too. I still remember a coworker who had trouble interpreting my instruction to "stand back," by which I meant, "no, really, several meters back, well outside the place boxes are likely to fall if I don't run to forklift perfectly. And ideally farther back than that." We had several exchanges about this, as the view was apparently best from the Falling Objects Zone.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

You're probably more aware than most about Lisa taking safety precautions seriously. There was a very real possibility of some of those sections of shelving sliding off the lift because of the very awkward way the store associate had to load them on the pallet. The store manager told her it would be okay — those shelves are tough — but the associate was doing her best to not drop them as she maneuvered the lift and the rack sections.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

So you wouldn't consider yourself friggatriskadekaphobic?