Gretta stood in position by the conveyor belt and readied herself to grab the next cardboard box that reached her. She snatched it and pulled it toward her so it rested partially on the metal shoulder that ran along the belt. Inside the box, an eclectic collection of purchased items sat beneath a printout of the customer’s order. Gretta rummaged through the items—with care—to ensure everything paid for had been inserted by a picker.
It was, so Gretta picked up her roll of “QC” stickers. But right then, another box trundled along the belt and pushed aside her box. Gretta dropped the sticker roll and grasped at the box, but in vain. It hit the floor, and its contents spilled out with a loud clattering.
The other box kept going. After split-second vacillation, Gretta chased it down and brought it back to her position. Her face hot, she glanced over at the other QC station, but Anna’s back was to her as she checked a purchase. Farther down the belt, Justin at the taping station was pretending like he hadn’t seen anything. But how could he not have?
When someone yelled, “Break!” Gretta blew a stray lock of her black hair away from her face. If she hurried and repacked the first box, she would still have most of her break left.
Even more irritating than the fact that this happened at all was that it wasn’t the first time. And every time, Gretta felt like everyone in the warehouse was looking at her. Fortunately, none of the merchandise was broken.
On her way to the break room, she saw Tyrone, the warehouse manager, walking the same direction. She almost didn’t say anything, but he always told people he had an open-door policy, so she fell in beside him. “Hi, Tyrone.”
“Hello, Gretta! How are things with you today?”
“All right. But I wanted to mention something that would make it better. Make every day better.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Sometimes the pickers get done packaging the orders about the same time, so we have a collision at the QC station. I had a box get knocked onto the floor right before breaktime. So I was thinking … what if I had a button at my station that could stop the conveyor belt? You know, so I can work on one box at a time without other boxes pushing into the one I’m working on? Or they do the QC stickers at the taping station to save me having to take both hands off the box?”
Tyrone stopped and faced her, his mouth scrunched to one side like it was anytime he was thinking about something. “Come with me,” he said suddenly, beckoning once as he turned away. Gretta glanced toward the break room—but she had Tyrone’s attention, so might as well take advantage of her chance.
To Gretta’s surprise, Tyrone led her to the steps that connected to the catwalk ringing the warehouse’s interior and started to climb. Gretta hesitated; no one but managers and maintenance workers were allowed up there. Tyrone noticed his shoes were the only ones rapping against the metal steps, so he twisted so he could see her and beckoned, sharply this time. Gretta hurried after him.
At the top, Tyrone took up a position halfway down the long side of the building. This point offered a sweeping view of the entire fulfillment center. He leaned forward onto the handrail, and Gretta did the same.
He pointed toward the QC stations. “Take a look at the conveyor belt that comes to you. Follow that to the pickers.” His finger moved toward the banks of merchandise. “If you can stop that belt, then it’s sometimes not moving when pickers finish, so they’ll get a buildup of boxes there waiting for the belt to move again, and they’d sometimes have to wait for you to move the belt to put the next box on. That will waste some of their time.”
Tyrone turned back toward the QC stations and pointed again. “Now, let’s think about the taping station. If we give those folks another thing to do along with inserting the filler paper and taping up the box, that will slow them down, leading to a backlog building up. We can’t have that.”
Straightening, he faced Gretta and continued, “I appreciate that you’re thinking of ways to improve the way we work. The problem is that you typically see only your part of the process, and you’re asking me to make your life easier with a change that would benefit only you.”
“I guess you’re right,” Gretta agreed with a slump of her shoulders.
They descended to the main floor. “There is something we could do,” Tyrone said slowly. “We could end the conveyor belt six feet sooner and install metal rollers in that gap. That would allow the belt to keep moving, but the boxes would stop on their own after coming off the belt. When another box comes up behind, it will move only until it’s off the belt. What do you think?”
Gretta smiled. “It sounds like it would be better for sure.”
“Great! I’ll see what I can do.”
Gretta felt better about the situation. When Tyrone said that, he wasn’t just saying it. He meant he would do everything in his power. And that would be enough.
On commenting: Please share your thoughts! You can leave an email address, but it’s not required. Leaving an email address may prompt you to sign in with a social media or WordPress account.
The Weekly Parable 