Corporate just implemented this dolly-less loading system that involved putting product on tiny 4 wheeled trolleys. You stack up your bread, pies etc. onto trays that sit on these trolleys, and roll them into the trailer. Easy as pie. (no pun intended)
Engineers had concluded that, to hold back these stacks from flying out the back, you'd install a strap every 2 rows of stacks (4 stacks in a row).
Well, corporate didn't send us enough of these straps, and we ran out of straps for one load, save two. Told our boss that we can't send a load because we didn't have enough, so he storms up to the dock, tells us lazy dog fuckers to just use the 2 straps at the back... So we did. I mean, it's not like they can't hold back 10,000 lbs of force or anything.
Driver pulled out the load, and got maybe 25 feet before physics took over. I saw the doors fly open and 140 X 4 X 48 loaves of bread slid out the back like a waterfall.
The 2 straps snapped right in half and flung into the wall of the trailer, making a 2' long gash. The trailer itself lunged forward as if this mysterious force propelled it forward.
It took 4 guys 8 hours to clean it all up. No trucks could enter or leave until it was, either. This also happened around midnight--when all the long haul drivers delivered the product to smaller distribution centres across the country for further distribution to stores. It rippled to other distribution centres, causing them to give away overtime to shippers after they basically sat around and watched TV for 8 hours, waiting for their loads.
They even had to call a wrecking crew to pull the trailer aside--the sudden 20,000 lbs of force had damaged the frame so badly the driver refused to pull it. Customers got pissed off because their deliveries were late, arriving in mid day. That all combined with the actual dollar value of the product, it probably costed them hundreds of thousands.
They started taking me seriously after then: I was "demoted" to production (grab ze panz, load ze panz, wipe de zweat), the boss got a nice promotion to a cushy office job
Then there was this other time where a couple crackheads set a load on fire I'm our yard, and nobody noticed there was a 50' tall fire out in the yard for hours.
zylithi