Sounds like that scene in "Chernobyl" when the miners were asking about fans.
I had a summer job in 1979 where I unloaded trucks and stowed item on the shelves. "Picking" for orders was a union job. I could only do it when there was nobody in the union available.
Trailer trucks would back up to the warehouse, the items were packed in tight from the factory across town. Nothing was on pallets. Every item had to be inventoried. Breakage recorded. Everything came out and then onto pallets. From the pallets driven to the shelves for stacking.
Nothing in the warehouse was in order by part number. All of one type of item were together, but similar part numbers could be on the other side the building. The full time guys knew where everything was.