Are you pro-active and accountable with safety?

[Stark]

I'm not sure if SLAM is the place for this, so if it isn't feel free to move it.

In a venting thread earlier (and in scattered posts elsewhere) various people have talked about safety issues in the workplace, and I'm curious about how people actually behave around this issue. The company I work for does a lot of development and recruitment with resource corps in Australia, and so not only safety but safety implementation is very important for employees. It's one thing to be safe yourself; but it's another to be outgoing and pro-active with safety of others around you (or the workplace itself).

As an example, some workers are very safe and have a great attention to detail around their own work, but have little consideration for others. Dangerous tools can be left at sites, sites can be poorly signed or poorly managed, and bad safety habits spread throughout any team very quickly. While it's generally pretty easy to train someone to not touch a sawblade, it's often much harder training people to keep others away from it, mark the area of operation, and leave it in a safe state when un-used.

I'm interested to read any anecdotes people have either of good or bad safety behaviours in the workplace. I'm sure engineers and technical professionals will have lots, but I work in an office and even simple things like getting people to use stepladders or carry heavy things properly are often ignored unless someone brings it to people's attention.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Voulnteering rather than work, but I live not far away from the workshop that produces most of the group's reenactment gear, so at times of particular crisis I get roped in on an unpaid amateur basis, and, well, most of the really good stories possibly could get somebody into trouble and definitely could damage the firm's reputation. No names will be mentioned.

I'd say the attitude to health and safety was cavalier, but it isn't, it's from much further back- right out of the dark ages; if you don't have the common sense to take reasonable precautions you're going to injure yourself sooner or later anyway, so there's no point telling some people. On the other hand, if you do you should be able to work it out for yourself.

Minor injuries are common and usually treated with absorbent paper and electrical tape, safety tips are after the fact- 'you should have done X'- I learned how to work a belt sander by trial and error, and got a two minute course on oxyacetylene before being turned loose unsupervised.

Tidiness is a foreign concept, the particulate density's high enough the air may have scrap metal value and the dust may also date back to the dark ages, the heating works most of the time, working hours are "as long as it takes", we've done eighteen hour days before- basically, in terms of what goes in and what comes out, it is the mud from which roses grow.

Legally compliant it may be, but objectively and rationally, it's a health and safety disaster waiting to happen. It is, however, immense fun and I love the place. Where else are you going to hear the line, delivered by the owner after a backflash from the oxyacetylene, "So that's what I taste like."

[RedImperator]

I did summer work in the oil industry a few years ago, and the company I was with was pretty good on safety; eye and ear protection, steel-toed boots, dust masks, proper chemical gear when necessary, tidiness, all of that was a big deal. All of our air, oxyacetylene hoses, and extension cords were mounted on self-recoiling reels to keep them off the floor. We regularly replaced bad lifting straps, kept up on fire extinguisher inspections, forklift training, all of it. We actually had a surprise OSHA inspection once, and the inspector actually said it was one of the safest small businesses she'd ever seen.

Inside the refineries, they were even more maniacal about it. Minimum safety equipment at all times was fireproof coveralls, steel-toed boots, goggles, hard hat, earplugs, and leather gloves. I also had to carry a hazardous gas monitor at all times, and it had to be replaced every year. Sometimes it got absurd--I had to wear a fall line to work on a four foot platform, and you were required to produce a written safety plan for every job, even if all you were doing was tightening down a few bolts. For actual hazardous work, there was even more red-tape (usually site-specific safety training at minimum). And I never dealt with the really dangerous shit, like benzene or HF, or confined space work.

I've been told, though, that at least in America, industrial safety practices are a generation ahead of commercial safety practices. Going by some of the stunts I've seen building contractors pull, I believe it.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

I've been told, though, that at least in America, industrial safety practices are a generation ahead of commercial safety practices. Going by some of the stunts I've seen building contractors pull, I believe it.

That agrees with my observations as well. Living and working in the Canada's Oil Central (Alberta), the industrial practices seem to be years ahead of commercial practises. I credit this largely due to the big multinationals such as ExxonMobil and Shell that forced their suppliers to adopt very stringent safety standards as a condition for doing business (I'm curious though whether these same companies are as stringent in thrid-world oil developments).

On the other hand, the construction industry (for example) seems to pay lip service to safety practices but winds up getting into shape only when the government prosecutes them for unsafe work practises. This is a little dated now, but the tragic death of 14-year-old Shane Stecyk in 2000 is a prime example of this (he fell 5 storeys through an open stair case that had no safety railing--this happened on the second day after being hired by his uncle who had been cited repeatedly for such unsafe practises before). Hopefully, things are improving, but carpenters that I know tend to view things like railings as being for sissies.

[phongn]

The office portions where I work are fairly 'normal' in terms of safety but the accelerator guys take things very seriously. There's a tremendous amount of energy in the system when operating and there's radiation issues as well.

I took a tour of some of the detectors and the tour guide had a personal dosimeter and another one for the group as a whole. We were required to wear closed-toe shoes, long pants, etc. as well as a hard-hat while within the accelerator; at the end we were then swept with a Geiger counter. There are also numerous safety interlocks to ensure that someone isn't inside the tunnel when the system is active.

[RedImperator]

I've been told, though, that at least in America, industrial safety practices are a generation ahead of commercial safety practices. Going by some of the stunts I've seen building contractors pull, I believe it.

That agrees with my observations as well. Living and working in the Canada's Oil Central (Alberta), the industrial practices seem to be years ahead of commercial practises. I credit this largely due to the big multinationals such as ExxonMobil and Shell that forced their suppliers to adopt very stringent safety standards as a condition for doing business (I'm curious though whether these same companies are as stringent in thrid-world oil developments).

On the other hand, the construction industry (for example) seems to pay lip service to safety practices but winds up getting into shape only when the government prosecutes them for unsafe work practises. This is a little dated now, but the tragic death of 14-year-old Shane Stecyk in 2000 is a prime example of this (he fell 5 storeys through an open stair case that had no safety railing--this happened on the second day after being hired by his uncle who had been cited repeatedly for such unsafe practises before). Hopefully, things are improving, but carpenters that I know tend to view things like railings as being for sissies.

The old guys in the refineries are like that, too. "Look, we can't isolate this valve without shutting the whole unit down. Just go ahead and repack it live." Note: the "packing" in a valve is a graphite-based material which keeps product from leaking out through the stem channel (the stem connects the wedge inside the valve which blocks the flow of product with the hand-wheel which raises and lowers it). So when you re-pack a valve, you necessarily open part of it up and remove material which is preventing the product inside from leaking out. You're not supposed to do this when the valve is live, ever, because even though there's a "back seat" which in theory will prevent the valve from leaking through the packing area when the valve is fully open, in practice it's never a fluid-tight seal, let alone gastight. Repack a live valve when it's full of #6 oil or diesel at ambient/100PSI and you risk making a huge mess. Repack a live valve full of NAPHTHA at 800 degrees F/600 PSI and you risk...well, better make sure your life insurance is paid up. There's a lot of nostalgia in the business about the "good old days" when you could get work done without jumping through a bunch of hoops, and to an extent, it's true that there's a lot of bullshit nowadays that's more about avoiding lawsuits than improving safety, but back in the "good old days", workers died a hell of a lot more often than they do now.

[Korto]

We have CO2 gas cylinders parked under the emergency shower. We shifted them when we had an OH&S day (Occupational Health and Safety for anyone who doesn't use that acronym), and then shifted them straight back again afterwards.

[tim31]

A mate of mine worked for a few years in a factory making doors and windows/frames. Obviously working with sheet glass is going to require some common sense straight up, but when making framework using timber he would sometimes feel silly wearing a mask. The older guys didn't bother with them, although they would wear eye protection. My friend was fully aware of what particulate wood matter does to the lungs, yet sometimes he'd skip out of the face mask just to avoid a heckling. That brand of crap is alive and well in Australian building industries.

[aerius]

To be honest, no. Back when I worked in the electronics assembly industry, I was damn good and absolutely anal about my own safety and the safety of those in my team. Everyone else could go suck dick for all I care since as a contract worker, anyone else other than my team or myself screwing up safety procedures means job security for me. The company was pretty harsh on safety so if someone else gets fired for breaking regulations while I maintain a perfect record, they're going to look at this and keep renewing my contract and giving me better terms. It's selfish and pretty dickish, but if someone's gonna eat it better be me.

The violation that got most people in trouble was proper handling & disposal of solvents & lead contaminated materials. Lots of people would simply toss solvent soaked paper towels into the regular garbage cans instead of the ones for hazardous materials or lead contaminated wastes. For instance, if we've been handling the solder paste screen printers, everything that's touched the machine is going to be contaminated with lead. Your gloves are going to be contaminated along with all the tools, the things used to clean those tools after use, and so on. When you wash your hands afterwards, the paper towels you use to dry them should also go in the lead contaminated waste bucket, but not too many people do that.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I quit a job once over OSHA violations; and I was just an $8.50/hr salaried worker, though they wanted to promote me to supervisor, so I had some more justification for it. It was actually at a glorified dog kennel, but they had a contract for caring for US Customs Dogs, which are legally police officers and so I was understandably concerned as well about what would happen if one if the blistering incompetent ex-felons who made up all of my co-workers (literally all of the dog maintenance personnel were convicted felons except for me) forgot to give one its meds.

But the breaking point was being ordered to run an elderly, leaking pressure washer across poorly taped electrical wire with no other insulation that was being used to power some equipment to make do-it-yourself repairs to the build, by the screaming wife of the owner who couldn't allow her own precious dogs (they weren't even a customer's) to frolic in their own shit for another fifteen minutes while me and one of my co-workers moved the wiring aside. I wasn't going to risk getting electrocuted for eight fifty an hour, so I refused to do it under OSHA. The response was systematic abuse and discrimination against me for the rest of the week, like scheduling me for double-shifts as the only person taking care of every single animal in the entire facility for the entire day, such that everyone I knew was begging me to quit from how depressed I'd gotten and I finally just walked off one day and never came back. This older guy who'd been around the block a couple times heard that story from me at the community college I then started going to and told me I'd done the right thing because I could never put work at a place like that on my resume, anyway, what with the rather stellar nature of my co-workers (ex-teenage pyromaniacs and endless-juvie-lockup thiefs and this one guy who endlessly boasted about how he'd done time for robbery in Texas).

They had fired their last supervisor and they had wanted to promote me to the position, even though I'd only worked in the kennel business for weeks when it happened, and the certification to be a regular employee normally takes eight weeks minimum... But the longest working of their people after they fired her had only been there for a month, so NONE of us were qualified to be doing the job. They offered me something like 11.50 an hour to be the supervisor.... But I had to be on-call 24/7. They wanted me to live in a house on the property, too, the house that they'd just kicked the old supervisor out of on 24 hours notice (which they'd gamed into being legal), but I'd just signed a year-long lease on an apartment with Amy... And they weren't willing to pay my transportation costs to drive the 60 miles each way to get there in an emergency when they needed me. Anyway, these raging incompetents were running their business into the ground chasing all the money they could before the city closed the street it was located on for three or four months to completely repave it, so they were desperate as well as completely unable to run a business:

The guy was an old computer programmer, and had divided the entire work day into 1-minute task intervals, which you could not deviate from. This mean that on any given shift we'd have two to three hours of insanely intense activity followed by three hours of sitting around talking shit in the back room, followed by three hours frantic effort to get things done, as we couldn't start preparing dog food in advance of the time we were supposed to [lest it spoil!!!!! *snicker* DOGS EAT ROTTEN MEAT, jesus people, leaving food out for an hour won't kill precious. But giving her her meds late because that's done at feeding time and feeding is delayed by the time it takes to prepare the food just damn might.], guaranteeing we always finished and left an hour late and got overtime, as the schedule was never modified but had no connection whatsoever with reality.

So it was a relatively minor violation, but a serious one, and I wasn't about to take it from these bozos.

[RedImperator]

Broken insulation is actually a fairly serious violation. I got in shit once for running a portable grinder with a just a crack in the insulation. Of course, when you're working around petrochemicals, people are going to get jumpy about possible sparks and short circuits...but on the other hand, it was a fucking grinder--if there's enough fumes in the air that a short circuit in the cord will blow the building up, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be grinding metal.

[Ghostcat]

Hey, I work in a deli. We're usually pretty good about the safety stuff but...

The cut resistant gloves the company supplies for cleaning the slicers are too small for anyone with medium to large sized hands to wear. I have average hands and even the XLs don't fit. So we're stuck cleaning the slicers with our bare hands and risking nasty cuts from the lightest touch. If we do get cut, then we're forced to sign a paper saying it was our fault and we get a warning for it.