• (cs) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    I was once written up during a "safety inspection" because I had placed an object on top of a book case. The safety officer explained to me that it was against the rules to put anything on top of a bookcase because it might fall on someone's head and cause injury. In this case, the object I had put on top of the bookcase was my felt hat. I told the safety officer that, (a) if a felt hat plummeted the one or two feet from the top of the bookcase and landed on someone's head, it was unlikely to cause injury, and (b) as the bookcase was in my cubicle, the most likely head for the hat to fall on was my own, and if my hat fell onto my head, I might as well take that as a sign that I should just leave it there, put on my coat to match it, and go home.

    She was, of course, not amused by my response. Safety officers take their jobs very seriously. Which leads me to the corollary: People who have the most pointless jobs always seem to take them the most seriously.

    I'm afraid I'm running out of Internets to give away as prizes, so I'm going to have to start rationing. Will half an Internet do?

  • Jay (unregistered)

    About ten years ago I bought a house. The government inspector said that before the current owner could sell it to me, they had to repair a serious safety violation: there was no railing on the steps going down to the basement. Someone might fall off the steps and be injured.

    So the owners installed a railing. The inspector approved and we were able to close the sale. As I was moving in, I discovered that I couldn't get my washer and dryer into the basement with the railing there: it made it impossible for me to maneuver the applicances around the corner at the bottom of the steps. So I took the railing off. It sits there to this day, leaning against the wall of the basement at the bottom of the steps.

  • (cs)

    I was going to post a link to the legendary "Klaus the fork-lift driver" safety video, but I think maybe I should try and find a shorter version first:

    [image]

    Addendum (2009-03-11 12:57): Link is live, BTW, see it now before it gets pulled for copyright violations again.

    Warning: contains moderate violence.

    Also extreme violence.

    Also very extreme violence.

    Also graphic comedy.

  • (cs) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    I was once written up during a "safety inspection" because I had placed an object on top of a book case... In this case, the object I had put on top of the bookcase was my felt hat.

    The Process says no objects on top of bookcases. If you disagree with the Procress, follow the documented Process for changing the Procress. You can't buck the Process willy-nilly just because you feel like it- No Process is in place for that!

    What kind of Anarchy are you trying to sow! Imagine the Chaos if people felt they could ignore rules merely because they disagreed with them!

  • Fedaykin (unregistered) in reply to werecougar
    werecougar:
    Quite amusing, especially since I now work for a company OBSESSED with safety. Obsessed well beyond the point of silliness.

    At a previous job, I got an email that went something like this:

    Subject: Please wear shoes in the breakroom

    All: Someone dropped a coffee pot in the break room, and we've swept up most of the glass we could find. But, just to be safe, please don't go barefoot into the breakroom.

    Kinda shows how casual we were with the dress code. :)

    How, exactly, is this a silly or unreasonable notice? As you say, it was common for people to not wear shoes in the breakroom, so a notice that there may be broken glass in there seems completely reasonable.

  • (cs) in reply to pjt33
    pjt33:
    At a previous job I somehow managed to cut myself while moving desk - probably a sharp edge on my computer's case, although I didn't notice when I did it and I didnt try to repeat the trick. I duly went off to the first aid box, but while I could find plasters there was no antiseptic of any kind. When I enquired about this I was told that some people are allergic to it.
    Someone is allergic to everything. To not include something as basic as alcohol in a FIRST AID KIT because two people in the world may be unknowingly allergic to it is ridiculous.
  • Karl (unregistered)

    I remember watching one of my toddler kids sitting in front of the TV cabinet and doing the sneezing thing over and over, then looking around not badly hurt enough even to cry, but with a puzzled expression, like "why does sneezing suddenly hurt my forehead?" We couldn't stop cracking up, which only made her wonder what was so funny. We would pull her away, then she would move back a while later and do it again. One danger of sitting too close to the TV, I suppose.

  • Lego (unregistered) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK:
    I was going to post a link to the legendary "Klaus the fork-lift driver" safety video, but I think maybe I should try and find a shorter version first:

    [image]

    Wow, nested WTFs! You win.

  • (cs) in reply to Fedaykin
    Fedaykin:
    werecougar:
    especially since I now work for a company OBSESSED with safety.
    werecougar:
    At a previous job, I got an email that went something like
    How, exactly, is this a silly or unreasonable notice?
    It's not. Read WC's post again.
  • wakko (unregistered)
  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to Studley

    I once worked in a building that had diagonal I-beam braces in the middle of the main corridor. If you weren't paying attention as you walked down the corridor, you would get a memorable demonstration of the fact that a steel I-beam does not budge when hit with a head.

    Since no one else chose to do anything, I obtained some yellow and black diagonally striped warning tape and wrapped the beams with it at eye level. It seemed to help. My cube was close to one of the beams, and I could count the collisions.

  • EmperorOfCanada (unregistered)

    While I read this I look out my window on a construction site where the workers dance like monkeys around backhoes that could squish them into goo. I also am looking at some guys standing in the bottom of a trench that looks ready to crumble any second now. There are some real safety issues. If the government really cared about safety they would never give DUI drivers their licenses back until they had a car fitted with a booze detector.

  • K&T (unregistered) in reply to EmperorOfCanada
    If the government really cared about safety they would never give DUI drivers their licenses back until they had a car fitted with a booze detector.

    no, they wouldn't let you drive cars. It's dangerous.

    captcha = gravis - indeed.

  • (cs) in reply to pitchingchris
    pitchingchris:
    Anon:
    While they are quite amusing, I don't think the safety scans are particularly WTFy. Walking into a door is a bit of a silly example (although I'm sure it was hilarious to see), but sneezing while operating, say, a table saw could result in a serious injury. So if you feel like you need to sneeze, you should probably stop the table saw or at least step away from it. The irony of people being injured by the first aid box though is just beautiful.

    Note: I've smoothed the sharp edges off this post for everybody's safety - You're welcome!

    This is the office that we're talking about - I don't think we'd be encouraged to use a table saw in the office.

    No, but some injuries did seem to be caused by stupidity - as in the keyboard one.

    Oh, and try sneezing while monkeying around with servers...

    ATCHOO! Oh sh!t, I just kicked the Big Red Button!

  • (cs)

    I assume most of this sh1t is for litagory reasons? Maybe if people weren't so ready to sue we wouldn't have to put up with most of it?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants

  • garlicknitter (unregistered)

    I worked with a guy who cut his thumb in a paper cutter, badly enough to need medical attention, through his own stupidity. (He was holding the paper down and didn't look at where his thumb was when he lowered the blade.) He'd meant to get it quietly taken care of on his own, but the head of HR came in while he was trying to stop the bleeding and made him see a doctor, since he'd apparently hit a small artery. This meant filling out a workman's compensation form, which he found amusing. Q: How could this accident have been prevented? A: "Get new brain for employee." Actually, they did install a safety device on the paper cutter which made it harder to commit that particular stupidity, so the office did become a little safer.

  • St Mary's Hospital for the Severed Limbs (unregistered) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK:
    I was going to post a link to the legendary "Klaus the fork-lift driver" safety video, but I think maybe I should try and find a shorter version first:

    It's here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgqeBcdbFJ4

    In German though.

  • NakedJaybird (unregistered)

    I think I will print these out post them on all the wood tables in the office.

  • (cs) in reply to RayS
    RayS:
    To cut a long story short, the H&S people ended up doing a presentation including such helpful information "how not to die when opening a door", "top 10 safety tips when ascending stairs" and "the myriad dangers of the shared fridge".
    Don't laugh. I'll see if I can post (censored) pictures of my company's myriad stairway safety posters (both in stairways and in hallways near them), placards, and other warning devices tomorrow.
  • Adriano (unregistered) in reply to werecougar
    werecougar:
    Quite amusing, especially since I now work for a company OBSESSED with safety. Obsessed well beyond the point of silliness.

    At a previous job, I got an email that went something like this:

    Subject: Please wear shoes in the breakroom

    All: Someone dropped a coffee pot in the break room, and we've swept up most of the glass we could find. But, just to be safe, please don't go barefoot into the breakroom.

    Kinda shows how casual we were with the dress code. :)

    So they actually left behind some glass they found? Doesn't sound so safe to me

  • (cs) in reply to Someone You Know

    It's Microspeak. We're slowly developing a new monopoly on obtuse business language, and nobody has noticed yet.

  • * (unregistered) in reply to Osno
    Osno:
    *sexual harrasment video

    You can get videos of that?

  • forte (unregistered)

    I don't know about you guys, but safety meeting has a different meaning where I come from.

  • (cs) in reply to Pol
    Pol:
    Procedural:
    SAFETY ALERT ...On April 11, 2009...
    Isn't today 11th March...not April?!
    Apparently somebody forgot to set their calendar forward for Daylight Saving Time. Last weekend we sprang forward from March to April so that we could get winter over with and enjoy some nice spring weather. In September we'll fall back to August so everybody can go on another summer vacation to help stimulate the economy.
  • al042077 (unregistered)

    My cat sneezed in the hallway one day. The sneeze forced his head from side-to-side, where it rumbled against the wall. Do I need to fill out an incident report for that?

  • (cs)
  • (cs) in reply to Corion
    Corion:
    These flyers would provide for an excellent image editing contest base.

    "Make up your own Safety PSA"

    [image]

  • (cs) in reply to *
    *:
    Osno:
    *sexual harrasment video

    You can get videos of that?

    I was very amused at my orientation for a contracting company. A high-level manager came in after about twenty minutes to talk to us about something or other. She was a hot redhead. Our eyes met; minute nonverbal signals were sent and received; and we proceeded to flirt outrageously with each other throughout her segment of the orientation. Then the original instructor came back and said - with clear annoyance - "this seems like a really good time to watch the sexual harassment video".

    I guess the flirting was a little TOO outrageous. But when the manager passed out her business card to the group, she had circled her cell number on mine.

  • suv (unregistered) in reply to Procedural

    SAFETY ALERT

    The Event

    Some day in the month on June, 2009, an employee callously started a game of minesweeper in his office workstation. This glaring blunder caused the PC to heat-up due to extra load on the CPU and almost started heating up the air immediate around it to at least .5 degree centigrade. This led to mild uneasy on the part of the person, however graver danger of PC overheating was avoided by choosing not to run games like CRYSIS at the full settings.

    The Learning

    Risks associated with playing games unauthorized by the company should be overestimated. Overestimation will cultivate reluctance to such behavior and can avoid a big mishap in the office, like fire, due to overheated processor.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    I was once written up during a "safety inspection" ... my felt hat...

    You wear a felt hat? What are you a pimp or something? Who wears a felt hat in this day and age.

  • (cs) in reply to derula
    derula:
    Ooh, thanks for sharing. [image]
  • (cs) in reply to pitchingchris
    pitchingchris:
    This is the office that we're talking about - I don't think we'd be encouraged to use a table saw in the office.
    Maybe not a table saw, but you certainly could sneeze and hit your head on the camera while taking a picture of a fax placed on a wooden table.
  • Yilmaz Rona (unregistered)

    When I was working at a huge steel mill, they had a requirement that any injury that drew blood had to be reported. The injured person was required to go to the health center on site and after an investigation a safety bulletin would be sent to everyone describing the incident.

    I worked in the Computer Process Control department, which maintained the systems that directed the PLC's in the mill. We had an almost non-existant injury rate, as befits people who mainly wrote FORTRAN programs.

    One day, I received a Christmas Card from a vendor, and while opening it received a nasty, deep, paper cut from a flap of paper inside the envelope. Blood was dribbling semi-spectacularly on the floor while I struggled to staunch the flow.

    I absolutely refused to go to the medical center, and humorously challenged my boss to write me up when he reminded me of the regs. There was no way my name was going to be on a safety bulletin sent to all hands, detailing how I needed medical treatment for a paper cut. In the end, I prevailed and my reputation was intact, if somewhat dented (what can I say, the story went around anyway).

  • (cs) in reply to Corion
    Corion:
    These flyers would provide for an excellent image editing contest base.

    "Make up your own Safety PSA"

    Mandatory Safety Day!

  • Pirates.argh (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    So does that mean that I should not do any work in which if I sneeze, I will cause myself harm.

  • J (unregistered) in reply to LarZ
    LarZ:
    ```(\'/)``` ``(_(.)_)```A plant has been placed in front of this ```(/|\)````post for your protection. You must deal with ``(\_,|__```the plant before you can deal with this ````_|_(\```post. If you still run into this post, ````|_| '```please complain to someone.
    murmuring "...water...water..."
  • 5|i(3_x (unregistered) in reply to Sashlik
    Sashlik:
    Safety comment (and first btw)
    We can comment if we want to. We can leave your friends behind...
  • (cs) in reply to Robo
    Robo:
    "Alright children, everyone take out a safety pencil and a circle of paper."

    PAPER?!?!?!? YOU WANT TO EXPOSE MY SWEET INNOCENT CHILDREN TO PAPER?!?!?!?!?

    Do you know how sharp the edges of paper are?!?!?!? I demand that you remove all paper from my childrens' classrooms and replace it with pieces of foam with rounded edges.

    /rob stomps off to write his congresscritter

  • (cs) in reply to CDarklock
    CDarklock:
    It's Microspeak. We're slowly developing a new monopoly on obtuse business language, and nobody has noticed yet.

    I knew I'd heard that before someplace. I like good old Redmond Raymond because his confusion over Microspeak like this proves that not everyone at Microsoft is so completely insane as to think that it's a good idea to use the word "ask" as a noun.

  • Enrico (unregistered)

    The most ridiculous one I've encountered was our H&S auditors saying that we could no longer park our pushbikes underneath the office stairs as in the even of a fire they may catch fire and impede escape

    The bikes are metal, the staircase is wood

    Apparently metal in H&S land is more flamable than wood

    We tried to point out that any inferno hot enough to set fire to the bikes would have already incinerated the stairs and most likely killed us all anyway

    I swear I could see the divide by zero error in his eyes...

  • Elija (unregistered) in reply to Procedural
    Procedural:
    Don't laugh people; office safety is nothing to sneeze at.

    Certainly not when going through a door

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Merijn

    Here is a dutch safety tip:

    The fun that can be had playing "bobbing for apples" does not translate when it comes to olie bolen.

  • (cs) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    She was, of course, not amused by my response. Safety officers take their jobs very seriously. Which leads me to the corollary: People who have the most pointless jobs always seem to take them the most seriously.

    Are you sure it's this and not just "I hate my job, so I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you also hate my job"?

  • monkeyPushButton (unregistered)

    I worked at a bindery years ago. To encourage safety they would hold safety contests for the best safety idea. I actually won twice for things that I thought were completey obvious.

    The one was so painfully obvious that I am still amazed I won (let alone was the first to come up with the idea). We ran labelling machines and occasionally some labels would get stuck on the rollers. It required solvent to remove them to get the machine going again. Safety glasses were required for using the solvent. My brilliant idea: Give us safety glasses. (Before this we had to call maintenence and then wait for 10 - 30 minutes for one of them to come over and lend us their saety glasses for less than a minute worth of spraying).

  • (cs) in reply to lamcro
    lamcro:
    Another friend crashed his car because of it.No joke.
    It's very scary sneezing while driving, because it is impossible to keep your eyes open while sneezing (fact... check it). And if you have a sneezing fit, four or five of them in rapid succession while driving in heavy traffic, you may very well miss the brake lights of the car in front of you, or the curve just ahead.
  • diaphanein (unregistered) in reply to joelkatz
    joelkatz:
    There was a great lawsuit involving a child that had fallen out of the top bunk and a claim that the manufacturer of the bed had failed to warn about the risks of falls. A jury issued an award, but an appeals court invalidated it holding that no warning would possibly have made any difference since everyone knows about gravity.

    I mean, come on. Even a one-year old fears falling.

    What the hell kind of parent puts a one year old in a bunk bed? Especially the top bunk?

  • diaphanein (unregistered) in reply to millsapian87
    millsapian87:
    "Every safety rule, no matter how stupid it sounds, is written in the blood of some poor bastard who screwed it up before."
    If Darwin worked in HR.
  • (cs) in reply to Eric
    Eric:
    Yeah... all 1500 people in the engineering division (95% desk jobs) of VLC (Very Large Company) where I work had to have a half-hour meeting with our supervisors because someone turned around too quickly and walked into a pole, requiring first aid. The meeting was supposed to address how to prevent an incident like that from occurring again... apparently their solution was to keep us in meetings so we're not walking around.

    We had something similar but it was someone jaywalking that got hit by a car. Our manager lectured us for 30 minutes about it. Both our manager and her manager were 'caught' jaywalking within hours of the meeting...what a waste of time...

  • Progeek (unregistered) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    lamcro:
    Another friend crashed his car because of it.No joke.
    It's very scary sneezing while driving, because it is impossible to keep your eyes open while sneezing (fact... check it). And if you have a sneezing fit, four or five of them in rapid succession while driving in heavy traffic, you may very well miss the brake lights of the car in front of you, or the curve just ahead.

    True.

    The learning: If one senses any sort of debilitating condition come on while driving a heavy chunk of metal, apply left foot to brake.

  • (cs) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    lamcro:
    Another friend crashed his car because of it.No joke.
    It's very scary sneezing while driving, because it is impossible to keep your eyes open while sneezing (fact... check it). And if you have a sneezing fit, four or five of them in rapid succession while driving in heavy traffic, you may very well miss the brake lights of the car in front of you, or the curve just ahead.
    My boyfriend completely put his back out by sneezing - being in Mongolia at the time made things a bit more complicate.

    I know someone who sneezed while driving - and drove into the back of a police car. (Possibly the same police car he asked for directions while his own car was full of pot smoke...)

    Oh, and it is possible to sneeze with your eyes open - I've done it.

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