Some Changes Were Made in the Warehouse

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He had to go. Even for me, despite my disdain for not having a warehouse guy in place—the last incident was severe enough that even I had to say, "this guy is a liability that we simply cannot afford." To make a long story short, he placed a pallet with two ZF gearboxes on it that weighs roughly 850 pounds each on the top rack 16 feet in the air. That was the first no. Apparently when he placed the pallet onto the rack the cross boards fell through and one of them broke. The pallet was basically held up by the half of the broken board that fell just right. It was the only thing keeping the pallet in the rack—but both drives shifted and were essentially on the verge of coming down completely. He did not tell anyone about this and just left it there. That path between those racks is a frequent walkway for our delivery drivers to use our restroom. At any time that single piece of board could have shifted or given and that pallet could have come crashing down with the weight of all 1700 pounds potentially killing someone. We frequently use other parts of the rack for large and heavy water tank storage. While it is never the intention to "jar the rack," sometimes getting other things down you do often "bump" the rack. Any of those "bumps" could have been just enough to bring those gearboxes down as well. The firing offense was not necessarily that he put the pallet as high as he did. It was not that he necessarily had the mishap with the cross boards falling through causing the pallet to nearly fall then. The firing offense was that he did not tell anyone what happened so that it could be fixed and dealt with. To be fair it was not the first time there was something not right that he did not communicate, which added to the infraction. Not that it was required nor necessary that I was asked my thoughts on what to do, I did appreciate the fact that my thoughts were considered. My recommendation or input was clear. He had to go.