• (cs) in reply to Mel
    Mel:
    Oh, and it is possible to sneeze with your eyes open - I've done it.
    Superman has flown faster than the speed of light, too.
  • Neal (unregistered)

    I have to love this stuff. I work at a company that takes ESD !!!!VERY!!!! seriously (you must have ESD protection on to handle sheet metal). They failed to follow their own guidelines in the safety of Heel Straps by making those of us in the test dept to wear them when working with high voltage/current. They told us to remove the straps when working with said voltage.... then would chastise you for failing to wear them! Also fun..... the ESD smocks we had been wearing.... exposed metal next to exposed voltage.... one of my coworkers almost got named Sparkie.

  • CJ (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    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.

    So, I'd just like to point out there there are many industrial settings where the safety officer isn't a pointless job. Making sure someone isn't doing something that might get someone else killed is a good thing.

  • Cooksey (unregistered)

    After that sad tale of woe I think its time for a safety meeting in the back parking lot.

  • Joel (unregistered)

    The Event:

    An office employee was reading one of several dozen flyers on office safety provided him by Safety, Health, and Environment.

    While flipping through the flyers, he allowed his finger to pass directly along the edge of one of them.

    He received a severe paper cut that required first aid attention.

    The Learning:

    The dangers associated with handling paper carelessly in an office environment should not be underestimated.

    Paper documents have extremely sharp edges which should always be treated with extreme caution.

    The Recommendations:

    Always be aware of the edges of any documents you are handling.

    Use a finger guard if your job requires you to handle a large number of paper documents.

    On no account should the number of safety flyers read be reduced. These are of vital importance and necessary for all job safety.

  • (cs)

    gosh! AM I happy to work over in the ancient world of Europe (w/o UK ;) - here it's mostly everything just up to you. We got a concept for this: do something - be responsible for it's result. fall down the stairs and enjoy people who add insult to injury by laughing at you.

    operate some device in an unsafely manner and get blamed for all results. Where I live, it's almost completely impossible to blame anything to a manufacturer or provider. If you're 18 or over, it's just your fault and you take the credits. If your under 18 your parents are responsible. And if it's about some pet or things like cars, etc. it's the owner.

    no one else. advantage? people tend to think before they do something. and to avoid the presence of people who don't...

    no canadiens here to blame ;-)))

  • ESD vicitim (unregistered) in reply to Neal

    Alternate ESD Danger 1:

    My management decided to rename our division ESD (Engineering and Systems Division). I explained to them beforehand that our clients had signs all over their facilities that "This Device May be damaged by ESD!" but they did it anyway.

    Alternate ESD danger 2: My most interesting encounter with the Environment Safety and Health Folks however involved rolling a rental car 5 times in a classified restricted area on company business. Got lectured by the range safety officer, the base police, the base fire department, client management, my management, and corporate Environment Safety and Health. . . I'm taking this as a sign not to do that again. Never mind the fact that I conscientiously rolled the car into the ditch instead of over the cliff on the other side of the road.

  • m0ffx (unregistered) 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.

    Would have been better if the object had been a BOOK.

  • Jaco (unregistered)

    We had a OHASA lady do a safety oudit at our offices a while back. One of the questions she asked, was what our procedure is for locking out a circuit breaker that tripped until an electrician can be called out to reset it. She also asked if we have a written document instructing warehouse workers on how to properly lift boxes...

  • Pine Scented (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    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.

    Similar circumstance, except there was no railing on the stairs leading from the family room to the garage in my home. Since the garage and family room are on the same level, the "stair" was in fact the 1/2" piece of threshold between the two.

  • (cs) in reply to IronFist
    IronFist:
    gosh! AM I happy to work over in the ancient world of Europe (w/o UK ;) - here it's mostly everything just up to you. We got a concept for this: do something - be responsible for it's result. fall down the stairs and enjoy people who add insult to injury by laughing at you.
    The event: After stapling a piece of paper to my finger, several employees fell over laughing, hitting their heads, or laughed so hard they experienced hernias.

    The Learning: That hurt them a lot more than sticking a staple in my finger hurt me.

    The Recommendations: DO WHAT I SAY! I'VE GOT A DISC SANDER AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT ON MYSELF!

  • (cs) in reply to St Mary's Hospital for the Severed Limbs
    St Mary's Hospital for the Severed Limbs:
    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.

    The one I posted is also live, as it happens. And isn't really 95TB either. But it is German.

  • stokessd (unregistered)

    Lucky bastards get herman miller aeron chairs!

    I would be willing to risk almost falling backwards to have an "actually comfortable"(TM) desk chair at work.

    Sheldon

  • Anon (unregistered)

    Maybe you should count yourself lucky that you live and work in an environment where the biggest thing that EH&S has to worry about is sneezing and falling off chairs. I'm sure many Victorian era factory workers would be quite happy to swap jobs with you and spend half an hour every year being told how not to fall off their chairs. It's a sign of progress that stupidity is the only thing the safety people have left to worry about in most workplaces.

  • Norman Wibbleflop (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Maybe you should count yourself lucky that you live and work in an environment where the biggest thing that EH&S has to worry about is sneezing and falling off chairs. I'm sure many Victorian era factory workers would be quite happy to swap jobs with you and spend half an hour every year being told how not to fall off their chairs. It's a sign of progress that stupidity is the only thing the safety people have left to worry about in most workplaces.
    That's nonsense. It's established FACT that the only reason the people during the industrial revolution era had so many accidents was because they didn't have health and safety officers.

    They just didn't didn't have enough anal jerks with clipboards to stop them hurting themselves.

  • (cs)

    Stop - stop - my sides hurt from laughing so hard. Please...

  • Spook (unregistered)

    In all fairness, if you've got people so dumb or clumsy that they bang their heads into walls when sneezing, fall off perfectly good chairs and lean on flimsy keyboard trays then by God, let Safety Officers do their job.

    I'm all for the "let's take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself" idea, but unfortunately in the real world one day one of those idiots might decide to start a lawsuit because he got injured during work in some stupid way. I've seen dumber lawsuites being filed.

  • Mr A (unregistered)
  • Frank (unregistered)

    At my last job, a fellow was walking down the hall and drinking coffee from a gi-normous coffee mug. He turned the corner with the mug up to his face and walked into another employee. The collision with the mug in between resulted in six front teeth being replaced. True story.

  • Mr G (unregistered)

    We once received a notice informing us to not drink the blue coffee pot cleaning fluid. To give them some credit though, they have yet to send a memo out warning us not to eat the mints found at the bottom of the urinals.

  • ZZamboni (unregistered)

    My all-time favorite safety-absurdity story: http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/073bea1aa44c9396

    Vacuum pockets!

  • (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.

    - "Hey you can't place that over there, because it might fall on someone's head and cause an injury."

    • "Well, I thought about putting my hat on the floor, but then someone could trip on it and fall forward, injuring his face when it hit the floor. Because, you know, a felt hat can be a real danger... I don't even let my children near it"
  • Office Safety Officer (unregistered) in reply to DaveK

    That Sharebee link tried to hit me with a javascript trojan.

  • RTProf (unregistered)

    Here in the Great White North it is mandatory to have Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) training even though we work in an educational institution with a)no chemicals anywhere near our office/classes b)all chemicals are in locked rooms c)if we don't comply we can be fired. DUH!!

  • (cs) in reply to Don't get it
    Don't get it:
    That's nothing. At our office we were sat down to watch a safety film. [...] It was 22 minutes of about how it WAS A GOOD IDEA TO BE SAFE.
    Somehow I prefer 9 minutes about the dangers of driving a forklift... :D

    np: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts IV (Ghosts I-IV)

    Addendum (2009-03-11 17:36): Okay, it's a dupe - but this time with English subtitles for those of you that aren't sufficiently skilled in German! ;)

  • JBB (unregistered)

    Event:

    I received a support request.

    Contributing Factor:

    Bad application design.

    Incident causes:

    Fire and panic when it (more often than not) does not work.

    Preventative Action:

    Change job.

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    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.

    Ik haat jou.

  • EndlessWaves (unregistered) in reply to Peter
    Peter:
    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.

    You weren't tempted to attach a seismometer instead?

  • Herby (unregistered)

    Yes, there are safety nazis all around. They all seem to lack one thing "common sense". It seems that the job description must say they MUST lack it to be in that position. They follow EVERY process/rule and there are NO exceptions. Their ancestors were WW2 Civil Defense Wardens who made sure that even people in Kansas had blackout curtains in case of an air raid. The best example is given in the classic cartoon "the cowboy after OSHA": http://www.occmedcentral.com/images/pdf/humor/cartoons/cowboy.gif

    The fear of lawsuits is SEVERE. Just look at a ladder the next time you go to a hardware store. EVERY label that is on it is a result of a dumb lawsuit. Sometimes I wonder of the human body shouldn't have warning labels as well.

    It has been mentioned that we might remove ALL warning labels and let the Darwin awards run their due course. It might make for a better class of people.

  • Asdf (unregistered) in reply to ZZamboni
    ZZamboni:
    My all-time favorite safety-absurdity story: http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/073bea1aa44c9396

    Vacuum pockets!

    That left me speechless...

    "OMFG, could the vacuum get out and kill people?"

  • iToad (unregistered)

    The Event: Playing tag using forklifts.

    The Learning: It is easy to become distracted and accidentally drive the forklift off the end of a loading dock.

    The Recommendation: Don't do that.

    (Is there a Statute of Limitations for this type of youthful misconduct?)

  • iToad (unregistered) in reply to RTProf
    RTProf:
    Here in the Great White North it is mandatory to have Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) training even though we work in an educational institution with a)no chemicals anywhere near our office/classes b)all chemicals are in locked rooms c)if we don't comply we can be fired. DUH!!

    The US equivalent is the MSDS. If you look around, you can find an MSDS for water.

  • (cs) in reply to Office Safety Officer
    Office Safety Officer:
    That Sharebee link tried to hit me with a javascript trojan.
    Didn't give me any problems. False positive?
  • duckInferno (unregistered)

    I'm a H&S rep for my floor of a 13-floor office building. Thus I'm a rep for about 100 people, reporting to a "head rep" that is supposed to "get things done". It's a well maintained office building so the most I need to address is something like glare from the water in the harbour, inadequate curtain coverage, or the FA kit running out of panadol. Occasionally something larger comes up such as a coffee spill in the kitchen, but it's pretty damn quiet.

    Unfortunately the guy I report to takes it a little more seriously... or at least, he pretends to. He confided in me when I first met him that he felt empowered after taking his H&S rep course. Unfortunately that power appears to have gone straight to his head. His concerns are about small coat racks and dustbins falling over in the event of an earthquake, temporarily inconveniencing people or perhaps giving them a slight bruise, or tripping up panicking folks. I don't think they are issues but he doesn't actually do anything about it. Anything I bring up -- including the slightly-serious issues like people getting migraines from glare -- are instantly replied back with "Could you please raise this with XYZ". The eternal delegation type of cow-orker.

    I just don't care about little things like people standing on chairs to reach the roof or "hazards" like pot plants placed to the sides of major walkways. Nor do I care about the recycling bin being repeatedly filled to capacity or a piece of aesthetic linoleum peeling down an inaccessible piece of the stairwell wall. But every so often some well-meaning soul reports a depressingly minor issue to me, which I subsequently investigate then try to tactfuly dismiss without making it seem like I don't care.

    I guess my apathy has something to do with the H&S rep training itself, which focuses on things like safety gear while bench grinding, unshielded heavy machinery, operating vehicles in crowded places, shifting heavy loads and resolving employer disputes... and all I have to add is "yeah this one time an extension cord was lying across a minor walk path which a guy tripped on. He corrected himself, but spilled his coffee".

    This could well be the source of the stereotype of the office H&S rep who takes his job too seriously... they're just trying to justify the stringent practices formulated for dangerous work environments being applied in docile environments where the worst that could happen is somebody scalding themselves with coffee or getting a paper cut.

    Sigh.

  • dc (unregistered) in reply to Progeek
    Progeek:
    If one senses any sort of debilitating condition come on while driving a heavy chunk of metal, apply left foot to brake.

    Someone has obviously never driven a clutch before...

    Catcha: augue - sound I make as I go thru the windshield after hitting brake with left foot.

  • (cs) in reply to 5|i(3_x
    5|i(3_x:
    Sashlik:
    Safety comment (and first btw)
    We can comment if we want to. We can leave your friends behind...

    Sure it doesn't scan, but you're my new hero, 5|i3(_x!

    Sashlik, how did you resist the temptation to write "Safety, First?"

  • aoeu (unregistered) in reply to iToad
    iToad:

    The US equivalent is the MSDS. If you look around, you can find an MSDS for water.

    http://www.hsegroup.com/hse/text/water.htm
  • Stychokiller (unregistered) in reply to aoeu

    In the words of the immortal Homer Simpson: "Hey you guys, SAFE'EN UP!"

  • AntiQuercus (unregistered) in reply to DaveK

    I use a pad sander on my feet.

  • sota (unregistered)

    From: ********************** Sent: 16 December 2008 11:29 To: ******* Staff Subject: Please alert your managers to your allergies

    Hi all,

    We have had an incident of someone sneezing as a result of a severe allergy to the plant we placed in front of the first aid kit. The sneeze caused them to hit their head on the first aid box.

    Please watch where you are sneezing.

    To try to prevent injury to people sneezing due to a plant allergy and striking their head against the first aid box, we have placed both the plant and the first aid box inside a protective airtight bubble.

    If you still sneeze as a result of an allergy to the plant or walk into the first aid box then please send in your resignation.

    Thank you and regards,

  • (cs) in reply to JamesQMurphy
    JamesQMurphy:
    That's even more impressive than photographing lightning.
    Photographing lightning isn't hard. Just leave the shutter open for a long time.
  • (cs) in reply to Herby
    Herby:
    Their ancestors were WW2 Civil Defense Wardens who made sure that even people in Kansas had blackout curtains in case of an air raid.
    *nods* Uh-huh. Sure thing buddy, laugh it up while you can. The guys in Pearl Harbour /used/ to laugh, too ...

    [ See also: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-" ]

  • (cs) in reply to dc
    dc:
    Progeek:
    If one senses any sort of debilitating condition come on while driving a heavy chunk of metal, apply left foot to brake.

    Someone has obviously never driven a clutch before...

    Some of us just brake that way for laughs!
    dc:
    Catcha: augue - sound I make as I go thru the windshield after hitting brake with left foot.
    But we *do* try and remember to use seatbelts when we're trying it...
  • (cs)

    http://www.petting-zoo.net/~deadbeef/archive/554.html

    On a roll of Life Savers: Not for use as a flotation device.

    On a cup of McDonald's coffee: Allow to cool before applying to groin area.

    On a cardboard windshield sun shade: Warning: Do Not Drive With Sun Shield in Place.

    On a refrigerator: Refrigerate after opening.

    On a disposable razor: Do not use this product during an earthquake.

    On a wet suit: Capacity, 1.

    (and my personal favorite...)

    On a piano: Harmful or fatal if swallowed.

  • (cs) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK:
    dc:
    Progeek:
    If one senses any sort of debilitating condition come on while driving a heavy chunk of metal, apply left foot to brake.

    Someone has obviously never driven a clutch before...

    Some of us just brake that way for laughs!
    dc:
    Catcha: augue - sound I make as I go thru the windshield after hitting brake with left foot.
    But we *do* try and remember to use seatbelts when we're trying it...
    Oh, what the hell, just one more, then I'll call it a night. [image]
  • db (unregistered) in reply to pjt33
    pjt33:
    At a previous job I somehow managed to cut myself while moving desk ..... ..... first aiders keep it under lock and key and administer it - it's not likely that someone could reach adulthood without discovering an allergy to TCP, is it?

    I don't know about you, but I didn't even get exposed to TCP or even UDP for that matter until I was over twenty years old. NetBEUI on the other hand brought on a strong feeling of nausea.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    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.

    [image]
  • mpbk (unregistered)

    We had a Safety Guy who would write weekly emails about how to be safe. One weekend, some random guy in the next town over was killed by a train while walking his dog. The following Monday, Safety Guy wrote an email to all employees about how to be safe around trains.

  • Jay (unregistered)

    Life is filled with one-in-a-million risks. I'm sure it's POSSIBLE for someone to strangle himself with a rubber band or gouge out his eye with drinking straw. Every now and then one of these bizarre accidents actually happens. People reading about it in the news laugh at the absurdity, people who actually know the person who was injured or killed cry at the tragedy ... and lawyers sue all the rubber band manufacturers in the country and make millions and safety experts write up warning labels to be put on all boxes of rubber bands and make everyone's life a little more annoying.

  • Watson (unregistered)

    http://www.police.govt.nz/safety/suspiciousmail-bomb.pdf

    Working in dispatch I was given the above link by a friend "as a reference" of "mail bomb recognition points". One of the bits of the wall I had to look at all day was kind of boring, so now I had something to liven it up with. Joy! Management approved. Joy Joy! They mandated that all departments that dealt with incoming mail have a copy.

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