[Closed] Probably the best h&s b.s I've heard today

How about you say.... no.

We've had to complete a training program telling you what height you're meant to have your chair at... It also informs you that when using a computer monitor it is a good idea to blink.

This country employs people to think up 5hit like that. 👿
Why don't we become a country that invents and creates things like we used to instead of becoming a country full of companies that don't actually make things, just paper work and daft H/S stuff! 😥
Let's stop the manufacturing of ladders, knives and forks,cookers and just about everything else because potentially they are all dangerous to our health IF USED WRONG!
Thanks for the rant, I've now finished my pointless paper work and I'm now ready to go to work to make something useful. 😉

[i]the commute is the most dangerous part of a working day[/i]

*feels smug about beign a home worker*

I did trip over the cat earlier though 🙁

Had you not done a risk assessment on the cat?

That's not H&S.
That's probably some middle manager trying to save money from the company fuel bill and using H&S as an excuse.

the commute is the most dangerous part of a working day.

H&S gets a bad rep from the likes of the Daily Fail, but it is mostly people banning things on the grounds of insurance costs or just because it might be a little bit difficult to do, and then blaming H&S.

Your commute is not part of the working day in any case. Your commute is you travelling from home (or digs) to work.

If you're travelling to a site which is not your normal site, it is a part of your working day, and you can charge for it (in our place anyway)

EDIT: sorry i misread the OP, i thought it was for people travelling to a site that is not their 'home' site. That is madness, total madness.

Has the person at the other end got business insurance? If not they may not be covered for collecting someone whilst "on duty"...

Couple of decades ago I went on a half day inhouse fire safety course as a British Rail employee. I was taught about everything to do with finding and dealing with fires, the law, the kit in the building, evacuations, etc.

At the end of the training the instructor said, "Unfortunately you're not insured to fight fires in this building, so hit the alarm, close doors between you and the fire, contact someone on one of the phones to pass the message on when you reach safety, then GTFO to your rally point!"

Seemed a waste of half a day to me really. Could have been done in 20mins.

That's probably some middle manager trying to save money from the company fuel bill and using H&S as an excuse.

Given the increased cost of mileage on the pickup and the public transport costs, probably not much saving.

H&S is there for the number of f'wits out there

That's alright, we had a 15 minute meeting for about 800 people telling us that we should floss out teath. WTF! Unless my teath are so bad I'm eithe rtaking sick for them or it's making the person next to me turn their nose away that was the most monumental waste of time ever!

Was there any advice about running in cowboy boots?

I'm self employed, with my own van and amazingly got to site (170 miles each way) safe and sound this morning.

a friend of mine works at a hospital, he's a services engineer/maintenance manager, he cannot let anyone use a ladder on his site until they have completed a 'ladder training' course.

If you're travelling to a site which is not your normal site, it is a part of your working day, and you can charge for it (in our place anyway)

Has the person at the other end got business insurance? If not they may not be covered for collecting someone whilst "on duty"...

H&S is there for the number of f'wits out there

well, trains aren't exactly the safest mode of transport! and what about the journey to and from the station. I suspect Mr Rugbydick is correct on this one and someone is trying to make savings though trains aren't exactly the cheapest mode of transport!

Safety first 😀

Damn right commutes are dangerous though, in the last year:

Crippled myself crashing on some ice.
And again, tearing my leg open. Spent a fun 30mins in the shower at work cleaning that one out, still got the scars/bottles of tcp in the desk drawer.
Stung in the eye by a bee (didn't even get to work cos of that one, spent the day sitting in the dark listening to podcasts as I couldn't see out the eye till 3pm)
Crashed on a mass of oil on the road, looked like a stranded seagul and had to take a pan scourer and fairy into the shower, bad times.

I realised it had all gone to far when I found an A4 sheet with "instructions for use" in a pack of safety gloves which included the immortal words "try on to make sure they fit". It makes you weep.

H&S gets a bad rep from the likes of the Daily Fail, but it is mostly people banning things on the grounds of insurance costs or just because it might be a little bit difficult to do, and then blaming H&S.

Lots of myths about H&S, when in fact H&S has done great thing for you in your work place. Fancy working with machine and no guards, and so risking your finger/arm/life everytime the machine runs? You still would be without H&S, so think yourselves lucky

I realised it had all gone to far when I found an A4 sheet with "instructions for use" in a pack of safety gloves which included the immortal words "try on to make sure they fit". It makes you weep.

This isn't H&S though is it, it's idiot suing companies when they've been stupid. So instructions have to be made idiot proof for insurance purposes, not H&S purposes.

I had a 3hr course once which covered such gems as how to walk up and down stairs (you must never take steps two at a time, you must have a hand on the handrail - if you're carrying things in both hands you have to use the lift) and also how to wash our hands.

Spectacularly unproductive 3hrs that...

trains aren't exactly the safest mode of transport

Trains are safer per passenger mile than cars though/

Our H&S monkeys had everyone come in for a 2 hr keyboard usage course

I had a 580 miles round trip drive to get there, lots of others had 2-300 mile trips

Visited Scottish and Southern Electric recently.

The car park is full of signs to 'reverse park only' because its safer. Especially in vans with limited rear view and no parking sensors?
The corridors are full of signs to 'hold the handrail' on stairs (I still tripped on the stairs because I was reading the sign).

This was a site visit for future construction works, we all had to wear full PPE (hard hat, boots, gloves, glasses) to inspect a LIVE CALL CENTRE! Got some funny looks from the kids on phones!

And best of all, out in the car park, their maintenance man was trimming a high hedge BALANCED ON TWO TRAFFIC CONES! Really made my day, that, after I'd pointed out the risks to his health if he continued.

I'm all for H&S but a bit of common sense training would often be more useful.

Was there any advice about running in cowboy boots?

I'm listening......

DrP

I had to do a health and safety course so that I could ride 25m down an access road to the bike racks at work. The instructer made no.bones about the fact that she didn't care about our safety but that this was all so the companys back was covered in case of an accident.

using the handrails on stairs is compulsory for all employees in our building. Failure to do so may lead to disciplinary action. We've all had to sign to this as part of our H&S training pack.

I work in a single storey building.

My favourite is "Warning: This product may contain traces of nuts"

(On a packet of salted peanuts).

Our H&S monkeys had everyone come in for a 2 hr keyboard usage course

I had a 580 miles round trip drive to get there, lots of others had 2-300 mile trips

I think that would have resulted in an experiment to see if its possible to beat someone to death with their own keyboard, or whether it would break into unusable pieces before they drew their last

What conan said.
Also, if comuting has become part of the working day then there will be a substantial overtime claim going in any time now.

My favourite is "Warning: This product may contain traces of nuts"

(On a packet of salted peanuts).

That, I believe, is because peanuts aren't actually nuts. I think they may be legumes, or something like that. ( I watch too much QI, apparently)

Training on how to use a ladder has some sense to it having seen people balancing double extension ladders on unstable ground resting on small tree branches.
My favourite one was years ago in a warehouse where I was sent on a 2 hour course on how to use a sweeping brush. Pull it towards you, don't push it away, then we had to do a test!

Did you pass?

.......and then blaming H&S.

Pull it towards you, don't push it away

Some supposedly clever person who works at our place was doing some DIY ladder was a couple feet too short so put it on top of a table. H&S is there at work for idiots like that.

Having said that our H&S guy is rather accident prone.

My favourite one was years ago in a warehouse where I was sent on a 2 hour course on how to use a sweeping brush.

Before we moved into a new building once I was told I could visit the almost completed area my teams would take over but I needed H&S training. For 2 hours. The only work being undertaken was carpet tiles in the back of the building, the rest was complete. Bearing in mind I could move in 2 days later it seemed a bit stupid so I told the nice chap from the building company I couldn't be bothered.

Which may have been the point.

[url= http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3503/3762943550_a248c9769f_z.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3503/3762943550_a248c9769f_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/cycleologist/3762943550/ ]All these years I've been using them wrong...[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/cycleologist/ ]Ben Cooper[/url], on Flickr

My two recent favourites.

A mate works at a large food factory..
There is a smell of gas.
Factory evacuated. They ring the nice man form the gas board and ask he attend, most urgently.
Gas man arrives - only to be turned away because he'd not had the safety training required of anyone visiting site....

Another mate fell off ladders, breaking his arm in the process.
Much training in the correct use of ladders follows for all staff involved with use of ladders. Mate attends.
Mate does some DIY.
Leans ladders against wall. Being a tidy worker he rests ladders on a dust sheet..... on a polished wood floor. Breaks other arm.....

MM awesome 🙂

There is a big risk of cancer and asthma from kicked up dust particles

marsdenman - you're mate better hope Darwin was wrong. Otherwise, I suspect his days are numbered 😉

still can't see the reason

Pushing, the bristles are angled up and you tend to flick it at the end, pulling, the bristles are angled down and there is no flick. It's probably less strain on your back too. All very dull but most work injuries and illnesses are from dull things like not sitting properly or tripping on the stairs, not from getting squashed by a 100T press.

When i worked in the NHS, we had to go on a visually sighted awareness course, wearing diffeent glasses and finally blindfolds, one of the ladies escorting another lady, forgot to tell the blindfolded one about a set of stairs going down, they both fell down them.

Result the course was cancelled.

The offshore industry has successfully managed to offset the dangers posed by not maintaining facilities and safety equipment by making everyone put a lid on their coffee cup.

Fair enough, that's why there is training

*not like really, really interested just you know, wondered. I don't have a broom fetish or anything, not a subscriber to sweepers world or owt, honest

There is a big risk of cancer and asthma from kicked up dust particles
still can't see the reason for pull rather than push technology

Almost there ....

The guidelines now issued by HSE are to AVOID DRY SWEEPING where ever posssible, this can be done either ( among other things ) by wet sweeping - wash the surface and sweep while wet or by vacuuming the area.

If dry sweeping cannot be avoided for any reason then suffecient PPE should be available for the task and be used, this would be some sort of respiratory protection in this case

'hot water may be dispensed at high temperatures'

stuck above every hot water tap in my employers substantial number of buildings across the uk.

I shit you not.

As others have said, H&S is often used by poor managers/advisers as an excuse to support their own ideas and defend their poor decisions; these are then rich pickings for the tabloids and some STWers.

The truth is, if you work in a potentially dangerous industry like construction, many of these rules and processes however awkward and daft seeming, have prevented injury and health problems. The statistics prove that.

The company "covering their arse" line gets wheeled out a lot as well, and while I don't doubt that's many people's prime motivation; in my case I don't want to see people I work with hurt or worse.

The situation in the OPs initial post seemed absolutely ridiculous mind...

I have a theory that there is a right wing media conspiracy to discredit health and safety at work so that we can get back to profitable third world/Victorian conditions. After all, why would anyone want to go to work and go home the same day [i]without[/i] a life-changing injury or illness?

At our place it's mandatory to "Hold The Handrail" when going up or down stairs 😯

I've seen that on a client's site, Dibbs. They also require that everyone reverse parks in their car park. Apparently it's also unethical to let a contractor buy them a drink in the pub. 🙂

I fell over the 'Caution wet floor' sign.
Carrying a tray of hot tea too, could have been nasty.

It's actually a big problem. There is a big risk of cancer and asthma from kicked up dust particles

Could you define 'big' as in 'big risk of cancer'?

We also have the reverse parking only. Apparently I am less lightly to look in my mirror to see if anybody is walking behind me at the end of the day than I am at the beginning.

I know alot of this isn't set by h&s but we do have h&s advisors on site dreaming up these ideas full time.

The flush on one of our toilets at work was broken called building services as the pot was getting rather full

Told that it would be up to 4 days and that it wasn't an emergency that there was dirty water & other stuff about to overflow , best bit was they wouldn't call the plumber as hes not allowed to get his tools wet with dirty water
Ffs - what do plumbers do then ???

Visited a local fire station on Sat, for an open day. Great event, kids obviously loved it. Upstairs they had a table set up for serving tea / coffee & pop, manned by a staff member. So up goes my 4 yr old & casually leans on the table. Now consider how much force a four yr old can exert on a table...you guessed it...two urns of boiling water, cups, the lot, on top of him. Transpires they hadn't locked the table top in place. Quite how he escaped 20ltrs of boiling water all over him I'll never know, but it took a personal tour by the station manager to calm him down.

Trying to not think of what could have happened. Nasty.

Which company OP, or shouldn't you say?

With regard to the reverse parking thing, I actually agree with it. To reverse in, you've already passed the parking space slowly, eye'd it up to check there's nothing in it and will have seen anyone getting out of their car in the next space or pedestrians approaching. You then reverse into a gap, at worst bordered by other stationary vehicles.

When you reverse out, (especially in a van) you rearward vision is impaired and potentially other vehicles or pedestrians have arrived while you get in and faff a bit. You'll reverse quicker into a road that you would into a gap as well.

Plus your car/van looks better from the front than the back, another good reason to reverse in.

The company is Jacobs. I don't work for them though, they just supply some h&s people and some management.
I work on national grid sites for a utilities company.
The reverse parking is now second nature, as iv been working for them for almost five years, but it was strange to start with.

Parking in reverse is better (or less bad) environmentally than driving in. You are doing all your manouvering with a warm engine, and then just driving off with a cold one, rather than driving in with a warm one and then manouvering with a cold one.
Drops in the ocean but it all helps.

My main issue with H&S are the idiots who don't understand what they are doing but make 'rules' regardless, or the rules that are created for good reason, but not communicated properly.

I personally hate the over reliance on PPE (which should be the last line of defense and not the first). I work in construction on the Gas and Electricity transmission network where H&S rules are undoubtedly saving lives although there are some idiot managers who are banning things for fun!

Back to the original post my employer also identified that driving is the most dangerous part of our working day and so everyone with a company car spends a couple of hours with an ex-police driving instructor who gives some quite useful tips and a half day on a racetrack / skid pan learning how to control the car properly and safely -if nothing else it's great fun!

My main issue with H&S are the idiots who don't understand what they are doing but make 'rules' regardless, or the rules that are created for good reason, but not communicated properly.

I would say that your problem is with idiots then, not H & S.

As a safety practioner it never fails to amuse me when i read stuff and hear stuff about excessive regulation and restrictive work practices. Its about 99% bollocks that stems from employer reluctance to take genuine responsibility by addressing the real hazards that face their employees and others. There's a macho thing going on too, whats really funny is that when you question the realmen (tm)that reckon its all a load of crap, you'll nearly always find that either they, or someone they know, has had a serious accident at work that could have been prevented.

I would say that your problem is with idiots then, not H & S

All problems tend to boil down to idiots!

[i]Lots of myths about H&S, when in fact H&S has done great thing for you in your work place. Fancy working with machine and no guards, and so risking your finger/arm/life everytime the machine runs? You still would be without H&S, so think yourselves lucky[/i]

Got to agree, about 'proper' H&S having worked for a couple of companies that had never (at the time) had a working-time death-free year..., and then we did, and got a bonus 😯

I was delivering to our engineers on project a few years ago. The deliveries should have happened on a daily basis over over a two week period however due to the H&S officer on site constantly stopping the job the project took a shade under four months! The engineers were close to suicide in the end.

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As the proud owner of an RTITB reach truck license, this is a classic!!

The guidelines now issued by HSE are to AVOID DRY BUMMING where ever possible

I once saw a Health and Safety Executive presentation with a piechart breakdown of the most common cause of accidents. About 15% were attributable to "struck by a stationary object".

I now ignore all health and safety presentations.

Of course if the rules allow more dumb people to survive, eventually were gonna have even more accidents.

The cycle parking at work is in the loading bay under the building, to go down there we have to be escorted by one of the facilities team in hi-viz because of the vehicles that may be manouvering. When I pointed out that if the drivers couldn't see a cyclist then they had no right to be on the road let alone in out loading bay it didn't go down well 🙂

Irony is we're allowed to leave alone we just can't go in by ourselves!

Having said that our H&S guy is rather accident prone.

maybe they are taught during H&S training to spot potential accidents and highlight how they could cause an accident 😀

Reverse parking - tbh it is a lot safer and is a lot easier with less chance of hitting cars in spaces next to you. The cold engine thing is new to me but makes sense I guess. It is very easy for people to get hit walking behind cars reversing out and it reduces all the agro with peoples cars getting hit so I can see why companies ban it. Stand in a supermarket carpark for 10 minutes and see how many people nearly get hit as they decide to nip across behind a car instead of waiting for 20 seconds or because drivers are busy on the phone or telling the kids off etc etc.

Ladders - also makes sense to have training. Very easy to break your wrists because of a silly accident that could have been avoided.

Yes a lot of it is to prevent the company being sued but it's also there to make people think. It's not always the idiot who gets hurt or killed.

The forklift video is an old favourite, we watched it during German class at school 😀

Hmmm.....all good stuff here.

I was recently asked to make a special trip to the main office with all the power supplies/mains leads from my home office. Around a 500 mile trip, plus a night in a hotel, plus the messing around under my desk.

I pointed out that the driving bit was way more dangerous than the risk of an exploding mains lead, and I could get a local man in to do the job for less than the cost of a tank of diesel. To be fair, office H&S person did actually see the sense in this.

Most H&S is to "legislate" for a lack of common sense. I'd get rid of the lot and also take down those "danger of death" signs - if you're out to prove Darwin right, I think you should be given every oppo.

Isn't reversing on a site 'less dangerous' because when you return to leave you drive forwards with better visibility?

Always thought this was why people are told to reverse into their driveways and how, if this isn't an urban myth, if you reverse onto a more major road and hit someone then the fault is more leant towards you, and the sentencing is higher. The obvious risk of children/oap's/disabled being unaware of you reversing and/or being unable to get out of the way fast enough. Visibility through the rear windscreen means shorter people get hidden from a drivers view.

I've had two GF's in the past where I've had to ask them, as driver, to gtfo in shopping centres and allow me to reverse their car into a space. Now, this isn't a sexist thing and I'd assure you I'd do it with any driver I was sat next to, female/male/alien, because I don't feel right when the driver I am with drives forwards into a space with the intention of, on returning to the car reversing out, without the skills to reverse in, where the danger is a lot higher, so I just move in and take over for safeties sake.

Ironically, driving a fork lift you're pretty much reversing round everywhere, so I'm willing to bet that any other qualified fork lift drivers here will agree with me that we're damn good at reversing.

My riding buddy has a Lappie x-control and it says DO NOT IRON on it!!!!