Three repair companies couldn't fix it. Then Earl's dad showed up.
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Tim here. Our forklifts have been dead for nine months. Both of them, including the small backup one.
At least, I think it’s 9 months. I’m actually not entirely sure anymore.
And, see... 50+ pallets, hundreds of packages, and more than THIRTY TONS of stuff(might be more, I’m guesstimating), from knives to bowls to aprons to ramen packaging, just all came rushing into our facility, all at once.
And without the forklifts, we only had one choice: Move it all by human power.
Pallet by pallet. Box by box.
We got so used to it that it became normal. Need to move a pallet that weighs a literal ton? Get three people and a pallet jack.
Well, actually, Ana’s strong enough to move them alone, which we keep telling her not to but she’ll sometimes do it behind our backs just to prove she can.
Need to load the warehouse racks? That's a team event, stacking things one by one, box by box, onto the lower racks. The upper shelves haven’t been used in ages, and we’ve filled up other areas of the facility to compensate.
It worked. Somehow, it always worked. But not anymore, with everything that just came in.
Three different repair companies came by over these months. The first one came and said the batteries were drained and just needed to be charged(they were already charged).
The second said the full electronic suite was shot. The third just shook their head and charged us $500 to tell us it couldn't be fixed.
Each time, we paid them and went back to pushing pallets ourselves. But we never stopped taking our daily dose of hopium. We never gave up hope.
Then, just the other week, our new supply chain guy, Earl, had mentioned it to his dad Terry over dinner.
Terry showed up on Tuesday this week. Hardy as a horse and twice as determined, this man poked around on our forklifts, and twenty minutes later he emerged with the verdict.
“Batteries are dead.”
I’d blinked at that, confused
.
“Really? That’s it?”
“Yup.”
He talked a bit about the specific type of battery: deep cycle ones, and some other things I didn’t quite understand, but tried my best to keep up with.
We could even get the batteries at the local auto-shop. At least, for the smaller, backup forklift.
“How’d the other repair guys not figure that out?” I asked on the drive there.
He shrugged.
“Skill issue.”
(Okay so he didn’t specifically say that but i’m embellishing here since that’s basically what he said.)
The big forklift’s a bit more problematic, but we found the parts and, hilariously, will need the backup forklift’s help to lift out those batteries and make it all work... but that’s just waiting on the parts.
Three companies. Nine months. Thousands of dollars in "diagnostic fees." And Terry found the problems in less time than it takes to make noodles.
Well, like, not boiling them, but like, when we’re making it from the flour and--
Well, anyway.
Everything’s been arriving all at once, and we can finally handle all of it. When we had to slam the emergency brakes from tariffs, it threw a huge wrench into any semblance of supply chain normalcy, and put us way behind where we wanted to be.
But now, everything’s arriving, and I guess we’re rising from the flames... kinda like a phoenix, eh?
I can’t believe we’re halfway through September already.
October's going to be wild, and belongs to the chickens... I guess we’ll need to call it coqtober, huh?
From catching up on shipping everything, to the return of old Seiso favorites and flavors so good it’ll steal your face again, to something that’s violently chicken and grey markets and charming tigers and pouncing on seagulls and so much more (33 projects, last I checked?), we have so, so much more coming your way!
Thank you for sticking with us all this time, and supporting us through all these ups and downs.
It’s been a wild year, and it’s gone by in a blink. But we’re still alive, and still kicking, and still relentlessly fighting for a better future.
Speaking of which, I gotta go rearrange all of Q4(again) because of some interesting circumstances that have come up, so I’ll leave it at that!
Remember to be kind, and savor life’s little victories!
-Tim, Founder Vite