Hello all, I’ll try and keep this as short as possible. For reference, I am in the U.K.
I am subcontracted by an international distribution company as a janitorial supervisor to clean one of their inbound warehouses. I work exclusively on the warehouse floor, and have been here for over a year.
Six months ago a man started work as a forklift driver. It is widely known amongst their own staff that he is consistently negligent and downright dangerous in the way he drives. A few examples I can think of include him ‘spiking’ items on the forks after just casually driving over/through them instead of viewing them as obstacles, reversing into cages, damaging warehouse bollards by reversing over/into them, being on his phone at the wheel.
As the cleaner for the warehouse floor, obviously I am a pedestrian while in the warehouse and have had a few ‘near misses’ where he has come close to running me over.
I also use a ride-on floor cleaner that scrubs the floor with water. By law I have to distribute wet floor signs around the areas I clean so that everyone is aware the floor is wet.
Every single day without fail, at least one sign is destroyed by [negligent driver] by running over said signs with a forklift.
I have gone to the management of the warehouse about this previously and nothing has changed. Today, i went to manager in her office as THREE signs were smashed yesterday by him. My concerns are that if someone can casually hit/smash into wet floor signs, then it doesn’t bode well for pedestrians walking around the warehouse. At this point I am genuinely concerned for my safety. Her response? The signs are allegedly ‘hard to see’, and there are ‘too many’. I relented and agreed to come to some kind of compromise, but I’m angry.
I HAVE to put the signs out. It’s for everyone’s safety. Why is it ok for her drivers to smash my signs? Why is she not concerned that her drivers don’t see bright yellow signs and run over them? What else are they not seeing?
I guess I’m asking: what should I do? I just went off to a quiet place and had a little cry; I love my job but I feel like I’m not being listened to, and the damages are somehow being blamed on me. It’s so exhausting being bottom of the food chain.
I apologise for the length of the post and thank you if you got through it. Any advice/solidarity/laughs all welcome. Thank you, anti work!