Full-Blown Grins

Weight and balance calculations

Full-Blown Grins

There was a shrill, screeching sound as a forklift worked to position the pallet of landscaping material on the truck.  The driver was trying to stop another sounding alarm.  It was the truck’s squawking over-weight alarm.  All this caused another attendant to pull her calculator out and rush her fingers across the screen, so she could calculate weight & load numbers in the midst of this bothersome noise.

In moments, she reported that the numbers worked and that weight tolerance & safety were not going to be a concern.  In response, the forklift driver nodded his head in understanding.  Then, he jumped down from his machine and lowered the right-side truck-bed-side-boards so he could try a different approach.

He had been working from the rear of the truck and now recognized that he couldn’t solve this problem from that position.  His actions announced a subtlety he recognized through personal experience.  Weight was only one of two issues we were dealing with on this load.  Balance, though hidden from my inexperienced eye, could make the load manageable and secure.

The screeching happened anew as he lifted the load and then pushed it toward the front end of the truck’s bed.  When it arrived in his intended position he began to let the truck assume the entire weight of the pallet while holding his breath.  The screech from dragging the pallet ended and the weight-alarm’s squawking remained a memory.  The three of us gave each other hopeful glances and then our mouths moved into a full-blown grin at the welcome silence.

I strapped the load in, climbed into the truck’s cab, started the engine and began driving to the drop point.  Our work of calculating load capacity and actuating balance allowed my drive to be uneventful.  That was the good news. 

The bad news was that the forklift didn’t make the drive with me!  Upon my arrival I had a new weight and balance issue.  I parked the truck, climbed into its bed and began to unload the two tons of material, one heavy bag at a time.

“Weight and balance problems seem to persist everywhere I go!” I muttered to myself as I worked.

After two days of struggled labor, I stepped back to survey the results of conquering weight and balance issues.  The completed landscaping project had softened, balanced and beautified my yard.  My ears remembered the shrill, screeching sound made as a forklift driver worked to position this landscaping material on a truck just a couple of days earlier.  And, my heart remembers the lessons I learned about weight and balance.

Perhaps you and I could remove lots of bothersome noise from our lives by completing some of our own weight and balance calculations?  Who knows, maybe doing so would allow us to enjoy our life’s journey with a few more full-blown grins positioned on our faces.