New Day, New Challenges

Today was interesting as we own the industrial estate from which, the company operates, and several other companies lease or rent units and one of the larger units is a paper convertors who make toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, paper towels, healthcare wet wipes, face masks, and paper suits; and as I got to work this morning one of their employees was waiting for us to open up and told me their MD would like to talk to us about a problem, so I walked round with him expecting it to be a problem with the building; boy was I wrong.

He told me he had problems and asked if there was any way we could help and said he had plenty of raw materials, but, that they had been switched to toilet paper and their huge warehouse was full, they had lots of artic trailers but only two tractor units and drivers, and one of his drivers was in hospital after a car accident, leaving him with one driver and a full warehouse, and if there was any way we could spare him one of our drivers or even a few with our tractor units, he could clear the warehouse and switch to antiseptic wipes as they were also in demand. His next problem was with alcohol and his suppliers had it, but he had emptied his trailer into his storage tanks and if someone could get his trailer to his alcohol suppliers they would swap this for a full trailer and fill his when they got time, then we could take their empty back and bring his full one back.

I hitched his empty trailer to one of our artics and took off to his supplier, they have been working 12 hour shifts to fulfil orders and they told me where to drop the empty and which full one to collect, this was hitched up and taken back and dropped for them to complete their production run.

As I went back into their warehouse I noticed several of our men manually loading the packing conveyors which load the toilet roll packs onto pallets and wrap them, and I noticed all 10 of his trailers were out and he said our men had loaded the packing machines and packed 10 trailer loads of toilet rolls in about an hour and they were just packing the rest of the loose packs ready for the return of the trucks, and that they were like machines to pack and load so much in so little time, and these trucks were going to local distribution warehouses to be put into their systems.

Their MD asked what he could do and was met with "put the f*cking kettle on" so he did and made us all tea and coffee.

Our guys were shown how to reset one of their packing machines to include a row of disposable hand towels, a row of antiseptic wipes, and a row of surgical masks onto the same pallet, and I fetched one of our rigid trailers and as a pallet was packed they loaded my trailer in record time, I asked where they were going and it was straight to a local hospital who were lower down the pecking order than those with A&E departments, so I took off and parked in their main car park, and blocked it, but hey. As I went to reception I was met with lots of people so I pushed straight to the front and told the receptionist to get the most senior member of staff they had, she looked a bit strange, but rang the matron who duly came, she asked what I wanted and was met with what do you want and took her outside and opened the trailer, she was gobsmacked and said she would take me to the deliveries entrance and tell security to open the electronic gates. She got into the cab and we drove round, she asked if I could get an articulated trailer into the space, so I did, but I churned a bit of grass up and she said "f*ck the grass if we are getting all this equipment which was urgently needed" then realised what she had said and apologised. She said their staff who could drive a fork lift didn't arrive until 9am and could I wait, I said if she had a forklift I could unload it, and she fetched the keys for the forklift and I unloaded the trailer, she got some staff to begin breaking the pallets down and split the load and put it in different store rooms and when the trailer was empty I got the biggest hug and thanks for getting this much needed equipment there.

As I returned to the paper convertors our guys were packing the wet wipes which were coming off their production lines an an alarming rate and loading trailers with them and toilet rolls at an alarming rate and trailers with mixed loads were going to wherever they were needed locally, they went directly to supermarkets with lorry loads of toilet paper, paper towels, and wet wipes and they were often met strangely as they weren't expected, but when they found out what was on them they suddenly jumped the queue. I went to one supermarket and the manager was gobsmacked and asked how many staff I needed to unload the trailer and I said none, just a forklift, as I unloaded he said they would have to be broken down and put onto trolleys for the shelves to be stacked, I said f*ck off, just drop a complete pallet in the shop and put a member of staff on them to allow customers 3 packs of each, so they blocked a little section off and I dropped a full pallet of each in the shop, and boy did the customers go mad. They were issuing three packs of each and as I returned to get the next pallets off the first two pallets were nearly bare, so they took them to the shelves and I dropped two more pallets in, then unloaded the rest into their store room.

We worked from 6am to 10pm and we cleared his warehouse, this will give him about 4 days of production storage at full capacity, and we haven't got a shortage of toilet paper, wet wipes, or disposable hand towels; then came the surprise, he told everyone to bring their cars round where he had his staff load our cars with bulk packs of toilet rolls, wet wipes, and disposable towels.