Stock ‘n’ Roll! : Order Pullers at Lakeshore Warehouse in Carson Are Whizzes When It Comes to Skating Through the Day

When 22-year-old Mark Hill reports to work each morning, his goal is simple. He just wants to skate by.

And that’s the way his boss likes it: The more Hill skates by--and around, through and up and down--the more he gets paid.

So it goes in the slightly wacky world of Lakeshore Curriculum Materials Co., located in Carson. The distributor of educational toys and children’s books employs six “roller-skating order pullers,” issues them a pair of company skates and turns them loose in its 60,000-square-foot warehouse to pump legs, swivel hips and snatch items off the shelves for packing and shipping.

“How often have you heard of people roller skating for a living?” asked Hill, who has skated for Lakeshore for a year and a half. “A lot of my friends find it hard to believe and they think it is almost ridiculous.”

Lakeshore is one of the few businesses in the country that hires people to skate, said Dennis Burnside, promotion coordinator for the Roller Skating Rink Operators Assn. in Lincoln, Neb.

Workers at a pharmaceutical warehouse in San Diego have garnered some publicity for taking to wheels. Burnside said he knows of only one other non-rink business, a Chevrolet dealership in Kansas City, Mo., where stock clerks are on skates.

At Lakeshore, the skating clerks help set the pace for the rest of the warehouse, and the effect is like a cross between “Top Gun” and “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”

The skaters, their faces flushed and sleek with sweat, take a fighter pilot’s pride in the determination and skill that is required to make the 45-degree turns or tear down aisles at speeds estimated to reach 30 m.p.h.

But there is also something slightly, well, offbeat and fanciful about drawing a paycheck to skate around toys and children’s books. “They (people) think it’s very odd that you can roller skate and make $7, $8 an hour,” Hill said.

Lakeshore first began using skaters when it moved its operations in 1978 from a 10,000-square-foot facility in La Mirada into the larger Carson warehouse, said Jan Bowler, the company’s director of human resources.

“A person who was pulling orders (in the warehouse) at that point in time thought that was a little absurd, and he was the person who suggested we let him wear roller skates,” she said.

Since many of the items Lakeshore handles--packages of reading flash cards, small wooden toys--are light enough, it was no problem for the inspired employee to glide by, pluck the items off of shelves, put them into a shopping cart and wheel them over to the people who packed them in boxes. A company tradition was born.

6 Entry-Level Positions

Efficiency increased. An order clerk in tennis shoes could gather enough merchandise to keep one packer busy, but an order clerk on wheels did enough work to keep three packers hopping.

Bowler estimated that since then, the company has hired about 150 skaters to fill the six entry-level positions. Most were young, in their early 20s, and they generally put in six to eight months on skates before moving on to other positions in the firm.

Applicants have included minor league ice hockey and roller hockey players, plus a few roller derby pros. Occasionally, a non-skater will fake his way onto the warehouse floor, but once the polyurethane hits the road, there’s no fooling the company.

“There was a guy who made all sorts of claims during the interview, but when he started, 45 minutes later, the supervisor came back and said, ‘Get the guy out of here. He’s a hazard,’ ” Bowler said.

Exercise a Bonus

Those who make the cut are employed full-time at $6 an hour and have the option of using company-owned speed skates or bringing their own. They must pull all the merchandise listed on a 150-line order form each hour, and anything over that is rewarded with 7.5 cents a line.

The good skaters, Lakeshore officials said, can earn an average of $75 and $100 a week, in addition to their base salary of $240. It’s enough to keep the skaters hustling.

“One of the main reasons I enjoy it is the exercise of skating,” said Heather Hastings, a 21-year-old student at Long Beach City College. “Some days when I’m not skating--they call it being ‘off your wheels’--I get nervous and edgy.”

Said Hill: “I would compare an eight-hour day at Lakeshore to playing four hockey games. Somebody told me that in an eight-hour day, we skate 40 to 50 miles.”

An exaggeration, perhaps, but there’s no doubt that the clerks run up the mileage. Despite that, company officials said, accidents are infrequent because skaters are careful to shout warnings to each other and the 55 other warehouse employees who are more slow-moving because they wear shoes.

Sweeping Enhances Safety

Bowler said the worst injury a skater has sustained was a broken wrist; once a year, an order-puller will sprain an ankle, she said.

To enhance safety, warehouse supervisors have the concrete warehouse floor swept constantly. Sometimes, however, a large staple from a cardboard box will go unnoticed.

“A skater’s worst enemy is a staple,” Hill said. “You hit it, it gets stuck in your wheel and you stop. It’s like locking the brakes on a car.”

There’s nothing else to do, he said, except get up and keep on going.

Skating on the job “is only logical,” Hill reflected. “For you to walk . . . to the back and grab one book and come back to the front, it may take you three to five minutes.”

“I can do it in 20 seconds. I would say that six people on skates could do what maybe 20 or 30 people could do walking.”