Safety - say it like it is...

[wrsni]

Sounds like a dodgy outfit.

 

Really?

 

Well it was actually two brothers who took over a disused production facility (a shirt factory actually) and decided to make a go of building up a modern day manufacturing facility in the UK.

 

Exactly just the sort of place that everybody (quite rightly) claims the country needs, offering proper jobs that used UK raw materials to produce an exportable product. But the economic viability of the place depended on fine, fine, margins and would be a serious eye opener to most of those cruising through on deficit funded public money in some form or another.

 

It was real world, something that worryingly few in this country have ANY concept of.

[skyhuck]

I know where youre coming from, but I disagree,

Those who like to sit on their botties are a waste of time..

But are things really that much worse now?

Depends who you listen to.

 

It was great when kids worked down the mines, and miners had to buy their own tools. Go to the slate mine museum in Llanberis and see how they used to slave (sorry, work) - ahhh bring back those good old days.

16 hours a day never killed anyone - or did it.

 

Your being silly now.

[Shane]

I've said my bit,Sky, maybe discuss over some beers at an Arb Show somewhere.

Keep sane, keep different.

[Mr. Squirrel]

Gotta agree with Scotspine. Safety is obviously important in this industry but I think a great deal of that comes from common sense and practical/logical risk assessment. Without that ability most of us would be dead or horribly disfigured, regardless of how much advice hse boffins had provided.

That's not to say I'm against health and safety, on the contrary, but I think that most H&S guidelines and especially monitoring are pretty superficial and basically irrelevant.

Ultimately I think if you lack that aptitude to look after yourself then you're in the wrong job. Climbing dead trees covered in wasps in a thunderstorm might be pretty dangerous, but it's also pretty cool. Next thing you know those bureaucratic boobys will be telling us we shouldn't be doing that! Pah!

[scotspine1]

The UK 'safety industry' works using techniques very similar to the US Military's Psychological Operations or PSYOP for short.

 

Like PSYOP the UK H&S mafia conspires to exploit people's insecurity about safety.

 

They operate by manipulating the business owner's objective reasoning in an attempt to create a perpetual atmosphere of worry. They'll often attempt to strike terror into your mind about the possible outcomes of non compliance with H&S. This approach helps reinforce a behaviour that is favourable to their bank balance. It basically justifies their existence and allows them to sell safety programs etc.

 

In-house safety reps within big companies fall for this hook line and sinker. For them it's nothing more than an arse covering exercise and why wouldn't they? they're not spending their own money afterall. The con then gets transferred to the end line client who works on the assumption the large company is 'safer' than the small business owner down the road. The whole thing is a clever confidence trick.

 

The small business owner and self employed person should be very wary of the con being attempted on them and do his/her best to limit the impact of the H&S person's unhealthy interest in the minutiae of legislation and industry guidelines.

 

Remember, the more the 'safety industry' can manipulate business owners and the self employed into believing their work practices are inherently unsafe the more money they make.

[difflock]

One simply CANNOT "fix stupid".

But stupid MUST be employed.

Simply because the comprise such a significent proportion of the population.

Working Life has also become very very mechanised, due to H & S, but the employment of powerful machinery makes significent injury much "easier" to incur.

In the old days there was much more room to safely employ the cognatively challenged.

PS

A disproportinate of the cognatively challenged prob are employed by L A's (not not work for, ho ho ho!)

Simply because they are the ones who will stay(being virtually unsackable) while the better guys move on and upward.(Am i an example of this hypothis?, hmmm?)

Anyway, in the best example of "reducing to the absurb" the hypothsis put forward by Jermey Clarkson is entirely logically infallible.

If, instead of air bags and seat belts and ESP etc etc.

Each car was fitted with a titanium spike mounted in the dead centre of the steering wheel.

Everyone would drive a LOT more carefully and defensively.

My particular "beef" with our current H & S culture is that it absolutly prohibits anyone THINKING, cos, jeeze thats a proper dangerous pastime.

One MUST follow these proscribed steps/processes ONLY.

Do NOT think.

Bah, bah, bah!(thats meant to be sheep noises btw.)

Edited January 29, 2015 by difflock

[Shane]

It all goes to show that you can't trust anyone, not even yourself.

 

And I thought my business was doing really well and we have a really good safety record because we are careful. I had no idea all this terrifying political stuff was wafting around in the ether.

What were we talking about again?

[difflock]

I noted during a conversation with a J Deere rep yesterday evening, that JD now fit load moniters to their grass cutting equipment, probably "driven" by the higher current being drawn by the more heavily loaded cutting cylinders when entering a stretch of heavier lusher grass.

The machine now slows the forward pace down.

Because JD "larned" they could not trust the modern operator to "listen" to the machine and instinctively/intuitively back off the "go" pedal(hydrostatic drive) as the engine note changed.

In days a gone by an employye who refused to "larn" ud ave bin sacked.

Now they get sent for pointless training and also councilling because the Supervisor used "rude and intemperate" language.

Due to such behavouir being endlessly repeated.

But! It can apparently never be the employees fault (from hard and repeated personal experiences)

Dumb and dumber ad infinitum.

regards.

Marcus

[Shane]

Because John Deere are applying technology to make the use of their machines easier, it must be the case that all Health and safety consultants are overpaid, timewasting parasites?

 

And a bloke down the pub said he read an article in the Sun that said.'blah'..

 

Whatever is happening in terms of pandering to the dick-'eads - I see no reason not to encourage the occasional questioning of MY working methods to help me and my guys keep safe. I am free to do so AND I WILL.

 

To use heresay as an excuse for complacency seems foolish.

How many people who died, or were maimed at work felt it would happen to them that day, long before the event?

 

Apologies to all those who work perfectly already and will NEVER suffer any problems, you are of course exempt, good luck

[difflock]

Well I have "broken things", and had "adverse" results from "risky" undertakings, but only when i knew I was pushing my luck, and had appropriate control measures in place to prevent injury.

Other than repeatly, and badly, "going over" on my ankle, always unexpectedly.

My control measure for that is to simply always wear Lowa high leg combat boots.

Near fell below a bus once in Belfast as a result, before I larned i had flat feet/weak ankles.

As they do say.

"Ships will be lost whilst in Harbour, but that is not what ships are designed for."