Not So Famous…

Ok, so I’m at work, and this dude from Fiji, who is impossible to understand, is driving a forklift. This Fijian dude is driving WAY too fast, and drives into the treating department, and suddenly, (because the floor is wet), his lift stops responding to the steering wheel. (The “Slippery When Wet” sign should have tipped him off to the inevitability of this occurrence.) His out-of-control lift slams into a sliding aluminum door, puncturing it with the forks. Expensive door, because the guide-rails and EVERYTHING have to be replaced now. So what happens to him? Possibly a verbal warning…if that.

Fast forward a few months later. Not 2 months ago, we had a class on safe forklift driving. If you didn’t pass the test at the end, you had to retake the class until you finally got certified. Meaning all of us passed, or we couldn’t drive. Simple enough! This Fijian dude is working with the rest of us on inventorying the entire warehouse. The dude picks up two heavy bins, full of product and starts backing up. It’s common for this dork to get in a hurry, to where he screws stuff up constantly. Now, I realize it’s important to get stuff done in a timely manner, but if you can’t do stuff at a certain pace without many mistakes, you SLOW DOWN…but this guy can’t figure that out. Well, lo and behold, when this guy backs up, his lift tips, and the bins of product fall and spill all over. In our business, if product touches the floor, it MUST be thrown away!

Now, I understand that stuff happens. They’ve made millions of dollars off a phrase that says basically that: Stuff Happens. But you can help avoid some of that Stuff by slowing down and doing stuff correctly. So what happened to this Fijian dude??? He can’t drive a forklift right now. Not until he retakes the test. Although why that should fix matters I have no idea. He took the test before, and apparently it did nothing for him. By putting him behind the wheel of a 8,000 lb forklift, my company is endangering me and people around me.

Don’t get me wrong. I work for a great company, but based on all of the mistakes this fruit has made, he should be GONE. That’s really the topic of my rant. (Besides just getting it off my chest how annoyed I am at this guy.) I’m sick of some people being treated differently. Why is the Fijian dude being treated as the Golden Boy??? Because he’s a minority, and my company is afraid of a lawsuit. Again, don’t get me wrong…they have every reason to be afraid. Why do minorities spend so much time telling us that race should have nothing to do with anything, but the second something untoward happens to them, they cry “RASCIST!!!!” It is THEY that ensure race has everything to do with everything. I tend to agree with them…race should have nothing to do with it. In my life, it doesn’t.

My rant has more behind it than just the Fijian dude at my work. There are other people I talk with on a regular basis…and one of them happens to be black/African-American. He is constantly bringing race into everything. Now, I understand that not everyone thinks like me…and race is an issue with people. My problem is that the Civil Rights people are rather schizophrenic on this topic. Jesse Jackson “preaches” that race shouldn’t be an issue, but rather than living that philosophy, he brings race into EVERYTHING. Make sense, people, or shut up and get off my T.V.