Thanks for stopping back in with us today, Marty T Hawkins here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career. Today I\u2019d like to share a situation I ran across last week that I think is a relatively new issue in our industry, well, I guess it\u2019s always been an important issue but maybe we just have to take it more seriously now than ever before. That issue is workplace violence, more importantly how even an argument on the floor can stick with us throughout our work careers. Oh, and lets start today on a lighter note real quick, Last weekend I was honored to have the opportunity to attend a Safety Roadeo or I\u2019ve heard then called an Equipment Roadeo too. I myself like to word Safety being in there somewhere! If you ever have the chance to be a participant be sure and take advantage of it and sign up. I\u2019ve attended 60 or 70 of them over the years and can honestly say I\u2019ve enjoyed every one of them and I\u2019ve learned something new every time I\u2019m around the contestants. Their purpose is usually to bring our families to our workplace to meet and fellowship with our peers and show everyone our skills. The one I visited last week in New Mexico was one of the best I\u2019ve seen, not the largest but it was laid out very well and I think everyone had a blast competing and meeting everyone\u2019s families. The Management cooked for everyone and they had some amazing snacks throughout the day for everyone to munch on!
\nI think the most stressful points at a roadeo are the Safety Testing and the Pre Trip areas. The Safety testing for the Warehouse participants is usually something like 10 to 25 questions on Safety in the warehouse and Equipment usage. The Transportation testing will usually be on State regulations and D.O.T Safety and Laws. A Roadeo usually consist of 3 different events. One event for the Pallet Jack Operators and that one can even be broken down into a Singles category and a Doubles Category. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen a Triple Pallet Jack event yet, that\u2019d take up a lot of dock space wouldn\u2019t it! The 2nd event is for Forklift Operators, and again that event can be broken out into 2 categories, the stand-up types and the Sit-down lifts. And the 3rd event is Transportation. I\u2019ve seen this event broken out to include a Box Truck or straight truck competition and maybe a 28ft tractor trailer event or 36 or 48 ft, I haven\u2019t been to an event where a 53ft unit was utilized, again maybe due to the amount of space that would be required.
\nThe warehouse courses are typically constructed using pallets that are stood on end, yep, a bit surprising to you as all you\u2019ve heard through your training we\u2019re to never stand a pallet on its end but hey, we\u2019re in a controlled environment and they do make the best obstacles for a competition course. There\u2019s hundreds of variations but usually you\u2019ll have a very tight figure eight track, a blind pallet drop and a couple of squeeze turns and a straightaway to make while carrying a load. The forklift event is about the same utilizing the same type of obstacles and challenges. The Driver or transportation events are designed with our day in and day out delivery challenges being tested like tight right hand turns, blind side backing and straight away pulling skills being tested. As a delivery or route driver those are skills that are presented to us every day!
\nAfter the Safety Testing each event has a pretty rigorous Pre-Trip test we have to go through. That\u2019s where our maintenance man will disable 3 or 4 of our equipment\u2019s safety or operational components and we have to find them while performing our equipment pre check. These are fun as we typically don\u2019t get to have our check list in hand like we would during our normal shift.
\nAnyway, at each event we\u2019ll be judged, usually by volunteers by our company\u2019s vendors or 3rd party partners on our skills driving through the courses. Like points being deducted each time we touch a pallet or traffic cone or have to...