Thursday, September 17, 2009

JOEL


Joel was unusual and, unfortunately a tragic figure.
Essentially a loner, Joel kept to himself and plodded on with his duties which (unfortunately) most people left him alone to do so.
Joel was a Storeman which meant that his responsibility was moving boxes of alcoholic beverages from one place to another. Joel's methods of 'storage' were rather unique and often involved transferring the contents of one carton to another carton without marking the contents on the second carton. This was kind of like a lucky dip or Santa's Christmas box. There were advantages like when I purchased a case of Yalumba Shiraz to discover later that it contained a dozen of Chateau Cos d'Estournel 1973, a really decent 2nd Growth Bordeaux. I feel sorry though for the person who did the opposite.
Some things that Joel did were:

Ran the hot tap over his hands, at scalding temperatures, for ages while washing them.

Had the electric pallet jack (a walking type of fork-lift) pressing him up against the wall while he had his fingers on the reverse drive - all the time the machine was crushing him. I heard a plaintive "can you help me mate" and rushed over to free him.

Walked to an from work from one side of the city to the other.

Stored pallets of beer or spirits randomly so that often the most wanted and popular items were buried at the back.

Sadly Joel is no longer with us which is a shame as he definitely added to life's rich tapestry.

2 comments:

Richard (of RBB) said...

Are you going to do one on Steve - the guy whose shoe appeared at a corner before he did?

THE WINE GUY said...

No.
I'll leave the truck drivers to you.