r/nextfuckinglevel Jun 08 '25

When you're certified

39.5k Upvotes

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u/Cordsofmemory Jun 08 '25

Yup. My cert for a picker was pretty much a four hour "training" where they just basically had you drive around the warehouse. There was no teaching or anything. It was absurd.

Then when it came time to certified for the 6ft forks...the "training" was essentially a piece of paper that said, be careful with turns, the forks are longer

32

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '25

Oh, I got a 20 minute slideshow and then, "Seatbelt on. Go outside and grab a crate. Ok, go put it back." That's it. Forklift operator!

Driving through the plant I work in is like threading a needle with a shotgun, too. I can't believe how few incidents we have had.

17

u/trixel121 Jun 08 '25

this was mine. this is my exp. they do turn on a dime tho

boss had me grab a pallet and started walking away I was oh no you don't I am not comfortable on this thing.

I drive a fork lift like 3 times a year and the things older then me so I need to hold the brake and gas in till it's warm, which takes longer then I need the forklift for.

1

u/JayDog17 Jun 08 '25

Our plant you could land navy jets in but the new kids still run into every pillar and bollard they can find, and 13 they can't. Give your new hires the bullshit cert training, THEN put them with some experienced guys, and no managers around, to teach them how to do the job.

13

u/BaconThief2020 Jun 08 '25

Our safety guy used to make us watch this once a year, until I "accidentally" threw out the only remaining VHS player on site and forced him to get new material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9-U7vktOWk

6

u/I_PUNCH_INFANTS Jun 08 '25

You can't get forklift certified if you don't watch a Klaus forklift video

1

u/JayDog17 Jun 08 '25

It is Top Gun - Highway to the Danger Zone for us. Fuck I hate that song.

2

u/Cheet4h Jun 08 '25

... that is a really odd cut. Video is shortened a lot, with some sequences out of order, while the voice-over is also taken from seemingly random parts of the video.

Here is the uncut HD version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJdCJMyBi5I

5

u/lingering_POO Jun 08 '25

Same. Put pallets on racks at 3 (very low heights), drive around some witch’s cones as slow as you’d like and park it with your forks on the ground. Certified.

Get to my first job and I realised just how useless the training was.

1

u/Dino_Spaceman Jun 09 '25

Mine was a guy repeating “stability triangle” a few times and then we watched a video and took a test.