funny
- Thread starter Bruno
- Start date
We arrived at a medical clinic in a medium-size Louisiana town on a hot summer day to move a piece of medical equipment to a building about half a mile away. It was an inside pickup, liftgate, inside delivery load. The item was important and expensive enough for the shipper to fly in an observer from another city to watch the move.
The machine was on wheels and easily moved, except patients in the waiting room had to be asked by staff to move out of the way so chairs could be moved to clear a path. The liftgate did its job. Once in the truck, the machine was fully pad-wrapped before being secured to the wall, the observer keeping an eagle eye on it every inch of the way.
It began to rain hard between the load and unload. No problem. We carry a tarp just for situations like this. The tarp was wrapped over and around the machine and tightly secured with bands carried for that purpose. In the rain, the machine was lift-gated to the ground and wheeled into a large building, then down a long hall, then down another long hall, then down yet another, and finally into a newly constructed suite of rooms and a small room within them that had been built just for the machine.
Upon arrival, additional people in the new building arrived and began to chat and mill about. I don't know what the machine was but it was clearly something of importance to these folks and they were excited to see it.
It took a few minutes to free the machine from the bands, tarp and pads and move them into the hall. A technician had directed the exact placement of the machine. With the bill of lading signed, I was gathering up the gear to take back to the truck.
As I was just about to leave, the technician's face dropped and he froze in place, as in deep thought. He held in his hand the machine's power cord, which had a special heavy-duty plug. There was no outlet for that kind of plug anywhere in sight. It seemed that when the room was built, no one thought about wiring it for the machine. I made a quiet exit before others realized what was up and the fireworks started.
Oh, yeah, and then there was this guy at the expo who showed up wearing a pair of shorts....
The machine was on wheels and easily moved, except patients in the waiting room had to be asked by staff to move out of the way so chairs could be moved to clear a path. The liftgate did its job. Once in the truck, the machine was fully pad-wrapped before being secured to the wall, the observer keeping an eagle eye on it every inch of the way.
It began to rain hard between the load and unload. No problem. We carry a tarp just for situations like this. The tarp was wrapped over and around the machine and tightly secured with bands carried for that purpose. In the rain, the machine was lift-gated to the ground and wheeled into a large building, then down a long hall, then down another long hall, then down yet another, and finally into a newly constructed suite of rooms and a small room within them that had been built just for the machine.
Upon arrival, additional people in the new building arrived and began to chat and mill about. I don't know what the machine was but it was clearly something of importance to these folks and they were excited to see it.
It took a few minutes to free the machine from the bands, tarp and pads and move them into the hall. A technician had directed the exact placement of the machine. With the bill of lading signed, I was gathering up the gear to take back to the truck.
As I was just about to leave, the technician's face dropped and he froze in place, as in deep thought. He held in his hand the machine's power cord, which had a special heavy-duty plug. There was no outlet for that kind of plug anywhere in sight. It seemed that when the room was built, no one thought about wiring it for the machine. I made a quiet exit before others realized what was up and the fireworks started.
Oh, yeah, and then there was this guy at the expo who showed up wearing a pair of shorts....
Tennesseahawk
Veteran Expediter
I got married! Kinda funny, in a cruel way. 
This happened just this week. It's not rolling on the floor kind of funny, more like you gotta be kidding me kind of funny. I had a random and I'm standing there with the cup in my hand, ready to go produce my sample, and the building gets evacuated due to a gas leak.
Good question. We were out of the building about 15 minutes. When we went back in I could smell something, but it didn't smell like gas.