Once upon a time, as a lowly student, I had a job that solely consisted of lifting 25kg sheep food blocks off a conveyor belt and onto a nearby pallet until there was 1000 kg, then a fork-lift would come to take it away for wrapping (a far better job), and repeat. I think I topped out at 60-70 pallets in a twelve-hour shift. Australians, of course, are not as strong as Brits.
When I worked in the brewing industry, I regularly measured my days in tons. My record was shifting 11 tons of beer across two 8 hour shifts. I was really starting to go crazy by the end of that one. Lifting 300kg of grain into the hopper, then an hour or so later, digging it all out when it was at about 65°C. Was a great work out.
I was getting quite fit by the end of it, and could easily carry a 30l keg one in each hand (It was better balanced than carrying just one).
But it's bloody stupid. Sure we can lift 25kg blocks of sheep food, or toss around 50kg casks of beer. But we really really shouldn't. The amount of people who injure their backs due to manual handling accidents every year is costing the economy way too much.
It's also worth noting that picking up a 15kg bucket from the floor to the table, is very different, than say picking it up from the table and holding it up at head level to pour into some mixing machinery.
That was sort of my point, I was only moving them from conveyor to pallet, so pick and turn, put down. I wasn't advising it, I'm sure (and I hope) it would be frowned on these days, since I'm sure it would be crippling if you did it for more than a few weeks. That said, there was a bloke and that's all he did and had been doing it for decades. He wasn't renowned as a great thinker. It was mind-numbing and you'd lose track of time in odd ways, sometimes you'd be doing it for hours and you'd ask the time (I was told upfront: don't wear a watch) and find out it was 7.12 am, other times, it would just stop and then you'd realise that it was lunch or time to clock off. The best bit of any day was when the machine broke or got blocked. I assume these days the entire process is automated.
I moved onwards and upwards to be a 'blockage cleaning expert' which meant I went around with a big mallet and hit pipes and on special occasions (once a day) I'd put on a respirator and be lowered on a rope into a silo with a shovel to dig out the bottom. I'm pretty sure that hadn't passed a health and safety audit, but I was a money-hungry student with little commonsense and no wish to go back to the infernal sheep block conveyor. Hitting that one with a hammer was immensely satisfying. It really was the peak of my career in percussive maintenance.
On the night shift, we'd turn all the machines up so we could finish the shift in 8 hours and then go sleep in the warehouse.
But anyway, the story was a bit weak, three entire people had hurt themselves lifting something. Sub-optimal, I'm sure, but not exactly corporate evil.
