At six o'clock in the morning, the roller shutter doors of the hardware store's warehouse slowly rise, and the smell of rust-smelling metal comes to the face. Lao Wang put on his reading glasses and began to check the day's shipping list. On the shelves, wrenches, screws, and water pipe fittings are neatly arranged, glowing with a cold and hard luster in the morning light.
At eight o'clock, the courier arrived on time on a tricycle. In front of the packing table, Xiao Zhang had already sorted and placed the goods that had been sorted out the night before. The trickiest of all are power tools, which have to be wrapped in three layers of bubble wrap and then stuffed into a custom-made cardboard box, which is filled with pearl cotton around the void. "This angle grinder has to be taken very carefully, and the customer is buying it for the construction site." As he spoke, Wang pasted a fragile label on the box, and a black marker drew an eye-catching arrow on the tape paper.
At ten o'clock, the system prompts that new orders keep popping up. There are both regular replenishment of old customers and scattered orders from e-commerce platforms. Xiao Li was responsible for processing online orders, and repeatedly confirmed the model picture sent by the customer on his mobile phone: "Is this Allen wrench you want imperial or metric?" The sound of keyboard tapping mingles with the hum of the printer into the rhythm of the everyday.
At noon, the temperature in the warehouse climbs. Lao Zhang pushed a flatbed truck full of goods and shuttled between the shelves, his sweat-soaked overalls clinging to his back. He needs to complete all the urgent orders in the same city before 12 o'clock, the drill bits that the decorator is waiting for, and the pipe fittings that the plumber urgently needs, each of which is related to the customer's construction period.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, the logistics vehicle entered the station on time. The loading and unloading of bulky goods is the most tacit test, and the three people work together to lift bundles of angle iron onto the truck, and the sound of metal collision echoes in the warehouse. Occasionally, when encountering return packages, the quality inspectors must carefully check whether the goods are in good condition, and the worn screwdrivers and unsealed seals must be reclassified after taking pictures and keeping files.
When the twilight is getting thicker, the day's delivery task is basically completed. Lao Wang opened the computer to check the inventory, and found that there was only the last half of the box of expansion screws of a certain specification. He took out his mobile phone and sent a message to the supplier: "Lao Chen, you must make up two boxes tomorrow, and several customers are urging." Outside the window, the street lights are on, and the hardware store is still brightly lit, ready for the next day's busyness.
