Wet Dock, Late Truck
At 5:20 a.m. the dock is 38°F and wet from rain blowing in. Twenty-two pallets of parcels arrived on a late truck, and the supervisor wants them off the floor before the 6:00 a.m. shift meeting. You are wearing work shoes but no gloves. A coworker is throwing 20–30 lb parcels about six feet into a hamper instead of stacking them. You notice a cracked pallet board under a 68 lb box, and a puddle is spreading from the dock door toward the walkway. The supervisor says, "We don't have time for a safety meeting - just move."
1. List the hazards you see and state what you actually do in the first five minutes.
Read the worked answer
Hazards, roughly in order of how soon they can hurt someone:
- The puddle on the walkway - a slip and fall under a load is the most likely injury here.
- The cracked pallet board under a 68 lb box - sudden failure, crush injury to feet or hands.
- Throwing parcels - dropped loads, strained backs, struck coworkers.
- No gloves - cuts from staples and split cardboard, poor grip in the cold.
First five minutes:
- Put a cone or a pallet in front of the puddle and pull a squeegee or mop to move the water away from the traffic path. If you cannot dry it, redirect foot traffic.
- Do not lift the 68 lb box off the cracked pallet by hand. Get a pallet jack, or restack the box onto a sound pallet with a second person.
- Ask for gloves before you start handling cardboard.
Reasoning: you cannot eliminate every hazard at once, so you address the ones that can injure someone in the next few minutes and you use equipment instead of your body where the load is heavy.
2. What do you say to the coworker throwing parcels, and to the supervisor?
Read the worked answer
To the coworker - direct, brief, not preachy: "Hey, those are going six feet and one's going to bounce out. Can we stack them instead? I'll take the other side." Offer a concrete alternative and help, rather than just criticizing.
If he keeps throwing, tell the supervisor as a fact: "Parcels are being thrown into the hamper and one bounced onto the floor."
To the supervisor - brief and solution-oriented, not a lecture: "We've got a puddle by the door and a cracked pallet under the heavy box. I'm going to cone the puddle and jack that pallet - it'll cost us a few minutes. Can someone grab gloves?"
Reasoning: a supervisor under deadline pressure will accept a safety delay that comes with a plan and a time cost. "We can't work" gets ignored; "here's the hazard, here's the fix, here's the time" gets approved.
3. The supervisor repeats that the pallets must be off the floor by 6:00. How do you proceed?
Read the worked answer
Meet the goal as far as it is safely possible, and be explicit about what you are and are not doing.
- Start with the pallets that are dry and sound; move those quickly.
- Handle the puddle and the cracked pallet first among the problem loads, because those are the ones that will produce an injury claim.
- If 22 pallets genuinely cannot be moved safely by 6:00, say so with numbers: "We can get 15 by 6:00 safely; the rest by 6:20." A supervisor can work with a number.
Do not bypass the hazard to hit the clock, and do not simply refuse and stand still.
Reasoning: the exam and the job reward people who keep the operation moving without trading away safety. The judgment is in partial completion plus honest reporting, not in choosing one extreme.