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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

health and safety!!!! grrr


welshbuddy

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Ahh here's my little rant. At the moment I'm sitting in the van due to being kicked off site. Reason? Good question! Well started off my company I work for, was kicked offsite, due to not having Mich work ! I was working ! As site boss walked passed and asked me am I wearing the right gloves to use a Stanley knife. At this point. I was abitt confused. I thought to myself it's a knife not a bloody machete (or something that can take your armoff) :). So the. He said to me straight away " get offsite.go park up!. I don't want you on Herr" I then said, "you are having a laugh ain't you. U know it's not the 1st of April yet " he then flipped! I am now awaiting my boss to come Here, pathetic I'd say!!!

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Ahh here's my little rant. At the moment I'm sitting in the van due to being kicked off site. Reason? Good question! Well started off my company I work for, was kicked offsite, due to not having Mich work ! I was working ! As site boss walked passed and asked me am I wearing the right gloves to use a Stanley knife. At this point. I was abitt confused. I thought to myself it's a knife not a bloody machete (or something that can take your armoff) :). So the. He said to me straight away " get offsite.go park up!. I don't want you on Herr" I then said, "you are having a laugh ain't you. U know it's not the 1st of April yet " he then flipped! I am now awaiting my boss to come Here, pathetic I'd say!!!

 

Make sure you don't kick off when your boss gets there as you may land yourself in a lot of trouble no matter how stupid and trivial it is..

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Yeh I'm going to be good :)!! I'm My phone, touch keypad, fat fingers! Haha. Well I'm still waiting on my boss. 1hour away! I could of been in the gym today :( or in mysupra!

 

Seems like a fair enough point to me though - if it states you're supposed to wear gloves on that particular site then can't you just wear some?

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total waste of time H&S, makes jobs overly comlicated, conversation I had last week over changing 3 light bulbs in one of the student training rooms at work, 3 normal bayonet light bulbs and probably an 8ft high ceiling:

 

So im in the room, lights off, up the ladder taking the cover off a light:

 

H&S busybody:

"Excuse me, are you meant to be using the ladder? are you aware you cant use a ladder with out the appropraite training, and your not allowed to change lightbulbs as you need to be a qualitfied electrician to touch electrics"

 

Me:

" I will be sorted in 10 mins and the room will be cleared, only a few bulbs, im quite capable of doing this myself"

 

H&S Rep

"Please come down and clear the ladder away, your not trained to use the ladder, and its a H&S Risk"

 

me: (still up the ladder)

"Ok, can you then show me the correct way to use a ladder then please? i was unaware that simply going up and down using the rungs provided whilst leaning it against the wall was the norm."

 

H&S Rep:

"im affraid i cant show you how to properly use the ladder, im not trainded to give instructions just enforce policy. You will need to go on a training course, and until then im affraid the ladder is off limits"

 

Me:

"so you want me to pay a contractor £££££ to come in with their own ladder, to change a few light bulbs and proably have to wait weeks for it to be done, in which time under health and safety this roomnow cant be used for training students due to insufficent lighting (H&S) when i could do the whole lot in 10 mins."

 

H&S Rep:

"Im affraid under health and safety i cant allow you to perform maintenance tasks without the correct training, and thats final"

 

seriously now, just ***k off and find something usefull to do.

 

Jobsworths the lot of them.

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As Gaz said, blame the compensation culture where there always has to be someone else at fault, never the individual involved. Companies are petrified of being taken to court by personal injury lawyers, and the result is lots of @rse-covering red tape.

 

Of course H&S does serve a useful purpose, but it's been corrupted into an anti-litigation department.

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total waste of time H&S, makes jobs overly comlicated, conversation I had last week over changing 3 light bulbs in one of the student training rooms at work, 3 normal bayonet light bulbs and probably an 8ft high ceiling:

 

So im in the room, lights off, up the ladder taking the cover off a light:

 

H&S busybody:

"Excuse me, are you meant to be using the ladder? are you aware you cant use a ladder with out the appropraite training, and your not allowed to change lightbulbs as you need to be a qualitfied electrician to touch electrics"

 

Me:

" I will be sorted in 10 mins and the room will be cleared, only a few bulbs, im quite capable of doing this myself"

 

H&S Rep

"Please come down and clear the ladder away, your not trained to use the ladder, and its a H&S Risk"

 

me: (still up the ladder)

"Ok, can you then show me the correct way to use a ladder then please? i was unaware that simply going up and down using the rungs provided whilst leaning it against the wall was the norm."

 

H&S Rep:

"im affraid i cant show you how to properly use the ladder, im not trainded to give instructions just enforce policy. You will need to go on a training course, and until then im affraid the ladder is off limits"

 

Me:

"so you want me to pay a contractor £££££ to come in with their own ladder, to change a few light bulbs and proably have to wait weeks for it to be done, in which time under health and safety this roomnow cant be used for training students due to insufficent lighting (H&S) when i could do the whole lot in 10 mins."

 

H&S Rep:

"Im affraid under health and safety i cant allow you to perform maintenance tasks without the correct training, and thats final"

 

seriously now, just ***k off and find something usefull to do.

 

Jobsworths the lot of them.

 

Its towards a valid goal tho - my UK refineries have a zero harm policy and very good safety rate, neither possible without guidelines that are there to protect the individual as much as the business. Yes its a PITA to get anything done, but compare our record to the some of our sites in Brazil or Africa and you can clearly see the impact. Yes you felt you could do the job, but what if someone came running round the corner into your ladder - did you have someone holding the ladder? did you have signs up? Did you isolate electrics? I doubt it.

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Its towards a valid goal tho - my UK refineries have a zero harm policy and very good safety rate, neither possible without guidelines that are there to protect the individual as much as the business. Yes its a PITA to get anything done, but compare our record to the some of our sites in Brazil or Africa and you can clearly see the impact. Yes you felt you could do the job, but what if someone came running round the corner into your ladder - did you have someone holding the ladder? did you have signs up? Did you isolate electrics? I doubt it.

 

its a screw in light bulb.....Im hardly going to hunt out the mains board and turn the ring off. It was a small aluminium ladder, its hardly going to kill someone, the door was open, people could clearly see me. Its a class room not a building site otherwise i would understand, At a refinery I can understand, in an office however I cant.

 

I give up with this country i really do.

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Most people don't realise but the law on health and safety states that the precautions taken must be "reasonably practicable". This means is it reasonable to the average person for such precautions to take place.

 

In the case of the using the knife to do the job you were doing, would you say it's reasonable to have to wear the correct gloves?

 

In the case of the changing the light bulbs, is it reasonable for you to have had training on the precautions you need to take with regards to the electricity? Also the "Working at heights" directive is pretty comprehensive so that would stipulate what training is / isn't required.

 

The problem comes when the Health and Safety officer doesn't understand their responsibilities and their liabilities should an accident occur, so they become overzealous in their roles.

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its a screw in light bulb.....Im hardly going to hunt out the mains board and turn the ring off. It was a small aluminium ladder, its hardly going to kill someone, the door was open, people could clearly see me. Its a class room not a building site otherwise i would understand, At a refinery I can understand, in an office however I cant.

 

I give up with this country i really do.

 

Changing your bulb at home if you fall off the ladder it's an accident - A&E and it's over. At work you'd be able to claim from the company for not giving you training and not checking the ladder was safe.

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Most people don't realise but the law on health and safety states that the precautions taken must be "reasonably practicable". This means is it reasonable to the average person for such precautions to take place.

 

In the case of the using the knife to do the job you were doing, would you say it's reasonable to have to wear the correct gloves?

 

In the case of the changing the light bulbs, is it reasonable for you to have had training on the precautions you need to take with regards to the electricity? Also the "Working at heights" directive is pretty comprehensive so that would stipulate what training is / isn't required.

 

The problem comes when the Health and Safety officer doesn't understand their responsibilities and their liabilities should an accident occur, so they become overzealous in their roles.

 

Exactly and this is the problem with ours. Is it practical to send an emplyee on a course on which electrics to touch and which not to? Or to work out what a safe high to work up to is?

 

Personally this is all common sense to me.

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