My first real job out of high school, my “forklift certification” was the only other guy in the warehouse basically telling me not to crash into things. A few months in, I casually ripped around a corner, no clue why I ended up stopping. But when I did, one of the structural columns was between the forks, definitely would have destroyed it or the forklift if I hadn’t stopped

So here I was loading stuff onto a pallet. I was on foot next to my Forklift. Around the corner comes another forklift going way too fast and backwards with a double-high load. It runs right up onto my right foot and had it gone much further would have broken my leg. What happened instead was the steel-toe metal part of the boot crumpled over my big toe and other toes. It shattered the big one in several places and broke two others as well. They had to cut the boot off of me… This happened on New Year’s Eve about 10 years ago. It took almost 6 months to walk normally again and a lot of physical therapy.

I was using the forks as a workbench to cut a piece of 1/2" steel with an acetylene torch. I thought I had enough overhang to make it work.

Those forks ended up about 1.5" shorter after I finished my cut.

Uneven load shifted as I was about halfway out. Too afraid to try to shift the forks over to try and balance it as it was up about 8m up. The most experienced operator passed by 10 seconds later and said yeah hold up and pushed the load towards the center. After it was safely on the ground, he asked if I got scared. Told him I needed to check my pants. He laughed and said," good! You’ll always remember and it will never happen to you again."

I watched this safety video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJYOkZz6Dck

I was getting off to adust my forks and avoid dropping my skid. My boss told me, ‘Should be fine like that.’ I listened to him, lift the skid, and it IMMEDIATELY tipped over. Your boss isn’t driving. You are.

Backed a forklift into an AC window unit of an office my first day on the job. I was fired by the end of the day and that’s the last time I ever drove a forklift.

I forgot I had an interview and stayed out drinking all night. went to the interview blind drunk and there was a practical test at the end.

Ended up getting the job so I clearly didn’t smell like a brewery.

Reverse parked it 2cm too far to the left causing a corner protector to scrape along the side with a very loud screech. Everyone looked because of the noise and I still feel bad to this day. To be fair the corner protector did the job, so in the end not a problem.

I was picking up a pallet of test seeds and driving them across the field with them in front of the forklift.

I didn’t check my load, hit a bump, and before I could break, ran over half the bags spilling it everywhere.

I am embarrassed to this day.

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