Health & Safety gone ... just gone

[DRM]

Biggest load of cobblers in my experience is the site induction, now some places are are definitely sensible and well done, some are just complete overkill, one site I went to I had to watch the video and answer the questions on a sheet, they couldn’t get the video player to co-operate so I set to answering the questions while they wrestled with the video player, I asked them where’s your fire evacuation point, the guy says where it is so I put it down on the sheet, then give him the filled in sheet, he was quite gobsmacked at a 100% score despite not seeing the video, to me it wasn’t as that video would have been the sixteenth that week alone, all full of the same generic cobblers, and people wonder why nothing gets done in the workplace these days

 

[Domus]

Took my newest grandchild for a push in her pram the other day, I walked past the local primary school that has a steel fence all around and a padlocked steel gate. It was break time and all the children playing were wearing Hi-Viz vests.

 

[Levo-Lon]

I do the H&S risk assessment for work.

I still think its easier TO READ THE FOOKING LABLE in fact i have to go on an all day course in a week or so to do a refresher, waste of money, and then an asbestos course again even tho we have a shiney new building...

I had to listen to an ex soldier trainer in Manchester when i started H&S Capita... Compound arsole.. Total jobsworth, i gess its in the breed with long time services personnel

 

[Proto]

Can you imagine the problems George Stephenson would have today if he was trying to sell the concept of rail travel.

“So, Mr Stephenson, the passengers await the train, standing on the platform. Can you please tell us what there is in place to prevent one of these passengers tripping and falling onto the line and being run over. Come back to us when you can guarantee that such an event can never occur!”

 

[Profpointy]

Can you imagine the problems George Stephenson would have today if he was trying to sell the concept of rail travel.

“So, Mr Stephenson, the passengers await the train, standing on the platform. Can you please tell us what there is in place to prevent one of these passengers tripping and falling onto the line and being run over. Come back to us when you can guarantee that such an event can never occur!”

Interesting choice of example as Stephenson could have done with a bit more h&s. On the official opening run of Stephenson's Rocket, MP William Huskisson was run over and killed (I had to google the name). It seems he refused to believe it was travelling as fast as it was and didn't get out of the way in time

 

[Andy in Germany]

... You're also going to need to have the room wired up with a dedicated supply to give you that much juice.

A point so often forgotten when battery powered vehicles are discussed: the load on the grid to charge them all will be immense.

 

[Venod]

The thing I could never get my head round was the insistance that helmets and glasses must be worn, even in situations that they clearly were not needed and by being worn they made people uncomfortable and unable to work effectively, of course if you were sensble you removed them, but I can recall one incident of a jobsworth reporting someone.

 

[captain nemo1701]

One of my sons was a H&S manager for a while and claimed that a lot of the apparent nonsense rules in fact were dictated by insurance companies. He worked for a sub contractor and was warned by a friend in the parent company that they were suspicious of him as he did not have enough recorded accidents.

I did a NEBOSH H&S course in 2010 and heard the same thing. Risk-averse firms & local Govt are under pressure. It's the litigation-mad culture we live in now (seen all the ads for compensation on cable telly etc).

 

[Dave7]

Myself and another guy started our own Height Safety company early 80s. To get the gear (guard rails & ladders etc) to the roof we would book eg Ainscough Cranes. We would get the crane + driver. We learned slinger/handling as we went along. We had never heard of let alone been asked for RA or MS.
By mid 90s the paperwork was massive. By the time I sold up I was sooo glad to get out of it.

 

[Globalti]

The same culture of blame-avoidance has infiltrated the office in the form of Due Diligence. I'm already calling it "sales prevention" because I've had three interesting enquiries from potential customers who stopped emailing when I told them the documents I needed them to supply. If this had existed during my last 32 years of exporting to Africa we would have almost no customers and one of my most reliable and profitable customers, in Sudan, would not be buying from us. It was he who once said to me: "You know, I sometimes consider you like a brother Sudanese and Muslim, because you trust us and we trust you!" A great compliment and having to conduct due diligence would have destroyed my assessment of him as trustworthy and ruined the rapport I have built up over the years. .He regularly owes us up to £300,000 on open terms and has never let us down.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

I think one of the problems with my H&S guy in the OP (actually titled Continuous Improvement Officer) was the way he went about things. Very authoritarian and brooking no argument. With the MDF incident, he immediately stopped work in that section and told everyone the dust was carcinogenic and they had been exposed. That went around the benches like wildfire and almost caused a walk-out. To my mind a good H&S officer identifies an issue, assesses the risks, investigates mitigation procedures and then conducts an impact assessment with the people involved. One of the things he insisted on was full face visors with integrated air filters for one task. Unfortunately, these masks impaired peripheral vision and made the operative's job more difficult/dangerous.

 

[Globalti]

In all waks of life, trust in the person to make the right decisions has disappeared. There have been numerous well-publicised failures by figures in authority in Police, social services, banking and finance, education and medical care and quite rightly, rules have been introduced to try to ensure they don't happen again. The rules take away freedom of thought and fear of litigation enforces the rules so ex-military people are well-suited to the rigidity of thought and ideas required. The old idea of making a judgement has been thrown out. Unfortunately it's our trust in figures in authority that allows fraud to happen because, as has been discussed elsewhere on CC, you only need to speak with authority or wear a flouro jacket and a lanyard and a lot of people are still prepared to believe you. Older people who grew up in a world based on trust are especially vulnerable to this.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

When I was a copper we were banned from placing any items atop our lockers. They might fall off and land on someone's head, you see. Quite by what mechanism they would suddenly fall off was never explained.

Twice a year our H&S person does a walk round of the offices, noting any hazards and advising staff of proper practice.

Last year she told me to remove a small, empty cardboard box from the top of my cupboard as it was an injury hazard. I complied and she whispered to me that I could put it back up after she'd gone.

When she asked if there had been any incidents I told her that I'd bruised my head on a coat stand in a painful comedy moment, not unlike stepping on a garden fork and getting hit in the face. The coat stand has four arms at its base and one of these had become bent slightly upwards. I stood on it, causing the top of it to swing towards me rather rapidly, with one of the coat hooks hitting me straight in the head. What did she do about that? Sweet FA.

I think some people just like to be able to tell others what not to do but don't want to exercise any responsibility for stuff when it happens.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I knew someone who drove big tractors on a building site. One of the H&S people insisted that he was required to carry a spare wheel in the tractor. The driver invited him into the cab and said "where do you propose I carry this spare wheel; there's barely enough room to fit my lunchbox behind the seat?". The H&S man looked very embarrassed and left him to get on with his work!

 

[palinurus]

what if I dont see a risk someone else might, what if I overdo it ?...but I the end, you realise you have to just get on with it, the company is seen to fulfill its obligations with the minimum of effort. This relates to my company and may not be widespread and equally, maybe I just lack confidence at first
The conclusion I might come to on a coshh or risk assessment may be quite different to how a colleague might see the same job, theres another anomaly. And so on and so on, it's never a fixed process everyone might agree with.

The way we do it is we review our risk assessments annually and everyone in the department (it's a smallish department) reviews them together, alternatively they can be done with a selected small team. COSHH is done by the person bringing the material into the department but has to be checked and countersigned, everyone gets to see the COSHH assessment (it is circulated) so potentially they can 'recycle' it if they have additional concerns.