morose code

When someone tells you to move a fridge, always hope that it's one of those small bar fridges that you can toss up into the air and then prod to wherever it has to go because they're constructed primarily out of space age materials, freon, and helium.

Having said that, always assume that it won't be. Most likely it will be a kitchen typical fridge, in which case you'll need more than one person and some sort of vehicle of mass transportation (a large piece of cardboard or blanket to place under the legs in order to slide it long distances across tiles or carpets at the very least, ideally a dolly of some sort). Make sure there is at least one other person with you -- after all someone has to tip the fridge slightly to place the cardboard/blanket/dolly underneath and one person can't easily do both. Plus it allows you to complain to the other person about having to move the fridge.

Don't forget to empty it before attempting this and, if it contains a freezer, unplugging it and letting it sit for an hour or so before. If the fridge gets shaked up in the process of moving don't plug it back in because freon would love nothing more than to explode all over like a seal eating ice cream. Similarly, always attempt to plan ahead where and when you'll be moving the fridge.

The biggest problem concerning the relocation of fridges is not what you'd think. The actual movement itself is not a matter of any great strength as it is of leverage, balance, and a little know-how. No, the greatest problem is lack of communication. Pushing one way instead of the other often results in someone's crushed hand, foot, or, yes, even head. Let me give you an example of classic U of T miscommunication.

Today I had to move a fridge. Our new incompetent boss Reno handed us a piece of paper with the address of where it was, where it was going, and when we had to start (3:00, no sooner). So we loaded up our truck with the necessary tools: two 2-wheel dollys and two 4-wheels. There was three of us. Upon arriving at the location, we discovered that it was a house. Ordinarily this would be a problem if it was an internal move because it would mean putting the fridge onto the 2-wheeler with one guy pulling and two guys pushing up the stairs to wherever. However, this was an external move, which is slightly more difficult when there isn't any handicap ramps or automatic doors. Going down with a 2-wheeler means that there is the chance of the fridge toppling over and crushing the two guys beneath it and has to proceed much more slowly.

To further complicate things, the building in question was a child care center and 3:00 is, of course, nap time, the perfect time for large applicances to be pushed, pulled, tilted, lifted, and moved out of a house by two slackers and your truly. Time management is an important thing to remember.

Of course, all of this was rendered moot when we entered the kitchen. It was not a small, lighter than air bar fridge, of course. However, nor was it typical kitchen fridge. Instead, it was, as our contact said, a "big fridge." (recall that the work order did not say "big fridge," only "fridge"). Big can mean many things to many people, so it is understandable that someone might say "big fridge" and mean your usual size simply because their field of employment is, say the study of hydrodynamic quantum singularities of Mexican fjords, or teaching six-year-olds to finger paint. To someone who is ultimately responsible for moving the entire contents of buildings from one end of the earth to the other, big might mean something entirely different. Of course, the logical thing to do would be to follow up that statement with a question, i.e. "how big is it?" This was not done.

The fridge in question was in fact an industrial fridge. Imagine, if you will, a top of the line domestic fridge with a large door with a built-in icemaker, a freezer, and conveniently enough, four large wheels to move it around should you decide to redecorate. Industrial fridges are like those, only there's two of them welded together and a cement mixer accidently dumped its load inside the framework when no one was looking. It's a good thing it had wheels!

Until we tried to wheel it out of the kitchen. It was then that our contact mentioned that when it was first placed in the kitchen, it had come in with it's wheels off and the kitchen-door had to be removed to clear the doorframe. "Huh," I said, looking at it.

So we had to go back to the yard and get a toolbox to remove the wheels. In addition to this, because of it's immense weight and size, we needed to get two special dollies. Unfortunately, we couldn't just tip it back and slip the 4-wheeler underneath and anyone trying to tip it back onto the 2-wheeler would have had a hernia. So the special pump dollies are what we needed. (As luck would have it, cardboard and a towel would not of worked in this case, either, because of the floor material and the aforementioned weight).

So we proceeded to attach the pump dollies. These are basically a pair of L's that slip under the fridge, are strapped to each other very tightly, and then pumped to raise it. Simple enough, except that the straps holding the dollies together made the fridge too wide to fit through the door and even raising it the half-inch required for the wheels to turn meant that it still was an inch too tall to fit. This meant that we were left with only one option: brute force.

Brute force is almost always a last resort because it's so physically demanding. You can't finesse it with clever angles or twists and instead have to rely on pure physical power. Again, our contact mentioned that six guys had brought it in originally. Calling our boss to inform him of this turn of events led him to tell us to handle the situation since we were adequetaly staffed with four able-bodied hands. A quick headcount confirmed that yes, 1 + 1 + 1 still equaled three.

So we (eventually) managed to get Reno himself to come down and give us a hand. It took some doing. Regardlessly, the four of us managed to push and pull the wheel-less fridge through the door way, turn it 90 degrees, down the hallway, turn it another 90 degrees, through a door that kept slamming shut, and outside to the staircase. Having realised our predicament early on, we had set out sights on the rear enterance to the building that had only eleven steps down instead of the main enterance that had twenty-five and two landings. It was at this point that Reno left with our truck, taking our tools and all our dollies. By this point, it was now 3:30, our unofficial quitting time. Anything after 4:00 would be considered overtime, something that Reno is reluctant to give out. Remember that time management is an important element. A "big" job like this should not be scheduled at the end of the day simply because it means you either rush or run out of time. Instead, it should be scheduled either first thing in the morning.

Of course, this is all moot since I had misheard and it was actually 3:45. Reinforcements arrived ten minutes later. We managed to use some two-by-fours from a nearby construction site and create a makeshift ramp to slide the fridge down. At the bottom we placed a new 4-wheel dolly that we hoped we could place under the fridge because of the steep angle of the ramp. Myself and another were at the top making sure that the fridge did not tip and flatten the four at the bottom who were guiding it down. Slowly but surely we inched our way down and got the dolly underneatth, somewhat stable.

It was then that we proceeded to the construction site to deliver this fridge. Ordinarily we'd back the truck up, lower the liftgate, place the fridge on and strap it in securely but sadly the replacement truck's liftgate did not work. So we went down the street, pushing the dolly instead. When we got to the construction site another wrinkle devoloped. There was no sidewalk, only a half-foot drop down to a field mud between us and the unfinished staircase we had to go up. Several borrowed two-by-fours and near fatalities later (such as when the fridge reached the top of the staircase and the "ramp" became a "see saw" and nearly emasculated one of the boys), we arrived at the top of staircase no worse for the trip other than our dolly snapping in half. How were we going to get it anywhere now?

Improvisation is an important asset. I like to think that if there was one and He wasn't a fictional character, MacGuyver would be the patron saint of furniture movers. We found three metal rods and used them in series to move the fridge. When one rod would roll out from underneath at the back we'd place it at the front. By doing this we were able to move the fridge to where it had to go. Of course, things would have been easier if we could have put the wheels back on but, again, it would have been too large for the doorframes.

Of course, don't forget that at anytime there is at least one slacker standing around doing nothing while the rest of us are struggling with this thing. As you can see, it was a problem from the word "go." By the time we finished it was 4:45.