Early morning of July 14, 2010.
I was driving through Tronoh Mines en route to Tapah when I got a call from the lorry driver. “Lias, lori sangkut kat Rawang! Overload, tayar dah panas ni ha. Jadi saya tunggu lori lagi satu datang, transfer barang. Saya mungkin lambat sikit, dalam lebih kurang pukul sepuluh setengah, begitulah”, he said.
First hiccup of the day, I thought.
In the mean time, Bro was already on his way. I alerted him about the delay. I need to think of something. There is a big pile of tables should be dropped in such a way that it is easy for my men to store the tables temporarily at the nearest classroom to the library on the ground floor, and it is also convenient for us to carry the tables to the first floor of the library (where the labs are). As I drove along the kampong settlement near Kampar, my mind was calculating the distance from the hall to the nearest spot before the stairs to the lab at the library. I had called the teacher in charge of the installation yesterday to have the porch at the hall emptied, so as to allow the lorry to park there to make it easier to access the pave way next to the hall.
Two obstacles that I can remember – first, there is a one-step high ground about 100 meters from the drop point. With 300kg of load on a trolley for each trip, it is merely impossible to move the load up the higher pave way to the classroom near the ground floor of the library.
Secondly, the tables are weighted at 18kg each. That means 256 tables’ total weight is about 4.6 tonnes. To carry the tables up to the first floor is partly a pain in the ass.
The 300kg per trip on the trolley can be easier if there’s a ramp. I recon there was a metal drain cover grill at the parking garage at the hall. I just hope it can be taken out so that we could use it as a ramp. That solves part of the problem for the one-step higher ground. Well, IF it works.
My greatest fear is injury. I have a history of slip disc, where the disc between lumbar four and five was dislocated sometime ago. Carrying heavy load worries me somehow because I remember Dr. Roslan said if I’m not careful, I may have the same problem again. At the same time, Bro has got the same problem too, only he didn’t undergo surgery because his was not as severe as mine. The only person who is fit (well, he should be) is Zali. But today Zali is not with us. He’s still in Ipoh to settle some cases and delivery of printers for CENCON order at SK Marian Convent.
As the driver parked his 1 tonne lorry, he was surprised to see me and Bro at the garage. “Korang berdua jer?”
“Yup, kami berdua je”, replied Bro. I could see the driver raised his eyebrows. Luckily he brought his trolley along, so that added some relieve.
And so there we were transferring the tables to the classroom. The ramp was there, and the whole process took about three hours. As usual there were some complaints about the management and the technical team was being mistreated. The lorry driver threw a question at me, “Lias, apa pendapat kau? Semua budak-budak tech ramai yang resign. Team korang pun tinggal berdua bila Bro berhenti”.
“Takpelah. Allah Maha Kaya. Saya masih ada kudrat untuk buat kerja-kerja ni semua. It can be done”.
There was absolute silence for a few minutes. I guess Bro understood my principle, and he shared his thought with the lorry driver.
By the time the call for Isyak prayers were heard, Zali arrived from Ipoh. We went out for a quick dinner and came back to carry those tables up the stairs to the first floor of the library. By midnight, we managed to carry 132 tables and AVRs. Tomorrow we’ll be carrying 132 PCs, 132 monitors and about 20 units of printers from the office to the library.
Calculate this:
1 unit of PC = 15kg
1 unit of monitor = 4.5kg
1 unit of printer = 13kg
Number of stairs to go through = two, i.e. one going down for one floor (from the office down to the library pave way), and one going up for one floor (from the pave way to the lab at the library building).
Total distance = about 250 meters.
Number of person = three (two with slip disc problems, so that makes it… hmmm.. one and a half!)
Tell me how many kilojoule of energy is needed. Go figure!
