Architects... unclear on the concept.
May. 12th, 2013 12:43 amtime for another rant about architects designing stupidly. Just ignore the rest of this if you don't care.
I sometimes drive a delivery truck for my employer. I was doing that today when I was sent with a 24 foot box truck to MIT. The Media Lab, in particular. Yes, it did have a loading dock. On a narrow side street in Cambridge, Mass, with parking on both sides of the street. Yup, every spot was filled. They did warn me that the loading dock was narrow.
It was a single space wide loading dock, behind a roll up door. I had to back the big truck up, between the two parked cars, as impatient cambridge drivers blew their horns at me and skittered around me, usually right into the place I was about to move the truck into. I thread the angle without bending the truck or anyone's car. now up across the sidewalk, between the steel bollards that mark the loading dock lane on the sidewalk. Said bollards are narrower than the ramp cut into the curb.
Now I gotta line up on the garage door opening. Holy crap, it's way narrower than it looked from the street. So I jockey the truck back and forth a couple times and finally get the tail aimed so it will get into the opening without bending the building. And ten feet inside, there is a building structural coloum taking up another six inches of the width. Double crap!
I get inside, without bending or breaking anything. The passenger side door is so close that it is unopenable. But the driver side door opens enough for me to get out. So I squeeze back to load up. oops. remember that pillar. There is only about 12 inches between the side of the truck and it. I would have to crawl under the truck, under the rear axle and out the side under the lift gate to get back there.
The crew there is good, and they say that they can get it all loaded without me. So I pass them the key to the padlock and they open up and load it and close it up. Unfortunately when the toss the keyring back, it hits me right on the lip hard enough to draw blood. I'm the driver, legally responsible for the safe packing of the load. cross my fingers and hope for the best.
So now it's time to leave. Driving out is a little easier, but I have to pull out until I'm nearly crashing into the cars parked across the street before I can turn to go down the street, since the bollards are close enough together I'd rip the liftgate right off if I turned too soon and the overhang hooked it on them. Safely finished that. now it's just the crazyness of cambridge and boston traffic to get through back to work.
I don't ever want to deliver there again.
Edit: Yup, they made a mistake loading the truck. Warehouse manager gave me a hard time about it today at work. He seemed to accept my explanation. *sighs*
I sometimes drive a delivery truck for my employer. I was doing that today when I was sent with a 24 foot box truck to MIT. The Media Lab, in particular. Yes, it did have a loading dock. On a narrow side street in Cambridge, Mass, with parking on both sides of the street. Yup, every spot was filled. They did warn me that the loading dock was narrow.
It was a single space wide loading dock, behind a roll up door. I had to back the big truck up, between the two parked cars, as impatient cambridge drivers blew their horns at me and skittered around me, usually right into the place I was about to move the truck into. I thread the angle without bending the truck or anyone's car. now up across the sidewalk, between the steel bollards that mark the loading dock lane on the sidewalk. Said bollards are narrower than the ramp cut into the curb.
Now I gotta line up on the garage door opening. Holy crap, it's way narrower than it looked from the street. So I jockey the truck back and forth a couple times and finally get the tail aimed so it will get into the opening without bending the building. And ten feet inside, there is a building structural coloum taking up another six inches of the width. Double crap!
I get inside, without bending or breaking anything. The passenger side door is so close that it is unopenable. But the driver side door opens enough for me to get out. So I squeeze back to load up. oops. remember that pillar. There is only about 12 inches between the side of the truck and it. I would have to crawl under the truck, under the rear axle and out the side under the lift gate to get back there.
The crew there is good, and they say that they can get it all loaded without me. So I pass them the key to the padlock and they open up and load it and close it up. Unfortunately when the toss the keyring back, it hits me right on the lip hard enough to draw blood. I'm the driver, legally responsible for the safe packing of the load. cross my fingers and hope for the best.
So now it's time to leave. Driving out is a little easier, but I have to pull out until I'm nearly crashing into the cars parked across the street before I can turn to go down the street, since the bollards are close enough together I'd rip the liftgate right off if I turned too soon and the overhang hooked it on them. Safely finished that. now it's just the crazyness of cambridge and boston traffic to get through back to work.
I don't ever want to deliver there again.
Edit: Yup, they made a mistake loading the truck. Warehouse manager gave me a hard time about it today at work. He seemed to accept my explanation. *sighs*