I Learn Too Much About File Cabinets

Ordered to vacate an office (translation: get all your junk out of the office) I started hauling out all my accumulated shelving and cabinets.

Now I use "my" to indicate stuff the school discarded and I salvaged.  "Discard" means that someone wrote "Discard" or "Trash" on a note and stuck the note on the object and I, always cautious of running afoul of  regulations, would ask the janitor or an administrator if I could have it.

The usual justification for allowing an individual to take an unwanted piece of furniture stems from the fact that the school doesn't have an office of surplus equipment to recover some of the costs.  If furniture is actually discarded the school incurs additional costs assigning workers from Facilities to take a truck to pick up the stuff, bring it to a compactor, and then pay a carter to haul the trash away.  Letting an employee haul it away is far cheaper.

I performed my usual feats of strength and leverage getting the stuff down the school stairs (ramps are for sissies), into and out of a van, up and down my stairs.  That would seem to be end of it, but the fact that I'm writing this tells you otherwise.

My modus operandi for getting file cabinets down the stairs involves removing the draws to reduce the weight, align a pair of long 2x4's to serve as rails, and then with the file cabinet on its back, gradually slide the cabinet down the stairs.

All went well until I had difficulty putting the draws back in.  Three went in with no problem, but the fourth was a real problem.  I though that I might have put them in the wrong position.  (The file cabinet frame can get deformed slightly, but just enough to make it difficult to get the draw in it's original position.)

I tried swapping draws and then something happened.  I pushed too hard or pulled at the wrong angle or something, because I heard little pinging sounds as ball bearings popped out of their races and dropped into the draw below or flew against the side and fell to the floor.

Yes dear friends, I faced the mechanical equivalent of forcing toothpaste back in the tube.  The lighting wasn't good so it was time to find the trouble light and an outlet and a way to hang the trouble light so I could find the bearings.  It took a few minutes of searching to find all but 5 of the 60 missing ball bearings.  I don't have images, but the ball bearings were held in place by very thin lips of metal so it wasn't too difficult to pry up the metal, put the bearings back, and then, carefully bend the races back to hold the bearings.

The next file cabinet I moved used rollers instead of ball bearings.  Even better, the rollers were on a frame which could also be removed to make the file cabinet even lighter. 

The take home message is to be careful when sliding the file cabinet draws.