OSHA training

[Ranger Kip]

was it boring for you too?

 

[Dugan]

friend of mine will not go near my bench grinder since going through that training hahaha, supposedly there was pictures of failed grinders

 

[det107]

was it boring for you too?

I have attended so many programs but the point is mostly focused on "safety". What bothers me the most is that after all that time wasted on training, some goofoff manages to get hurt, resulting downtime & more $$ thrown out the window-

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

There is nothing wrong with training new workers in safety. Where I find fault is the officers on site that have never done a day of real work in their life. An example;
I was told to wear gloves when operating a hammer to drive a pin into the ground. The pin is held by a fixture so that I don't have to hold it with my other hand. So there is no chance of me striking myself with the hammer. It didn't matter!!!! I looked at the safety manual given to me and it said that the wearing of gloves was job dependent and an option as long as there was no chance of IIRC "abrasion or cuts". My interpretation would be that all office workers should be wearing gloves to prevent paper cuts! Don't laugh, I'm sure that will come to be. This safety "enviroment" is being used to justify the safety officers job rather than the workers life.
I've been in construction working for myself for 30 years and there is a need for safety but there is a limit. You cannot force a person to be responsible, it has to be learned. And sometimes the hard way.

Richard

 

[97RangerXLT]

The absurd safety requirements is basically to cover the company in the event something happens. In AlwaysFloored case example, if the person running the hammer gets a splinter/ blister/ callus or even swings and misses the pin but hits himself in the leg causing an unknown splinter that was lodged into his pants to go through and jab him in the leg, thus requiring a tetanus shot and a trip to the doctors office, the company/ OSHA can then blame the whole problem on the fact that he was not using proper PPE.

And yes, it is all bull crap. we need more common sense enforcement than bullcrap rule enforcement

And the situation for paper cuts that he mentions, I sadly see that coming true.

And yes, common sense/ responsibility is sometimes learned through stupidity or not paying attention to what you are doing. But that is the best kind of learning, a personal experience will teach you much more quickly and thoroughly than watching a video or having someone tell you what can happen.

Just my thoughts...

AJ

 

[ab_slack]

There is a point to it, for the newbies, and even for the vets if there is some new concern, but it certainly can go overboard.

I've noted that for every attempt to idiot proof a process to get a better yield there is an equal and opposite reaction by management to find better idiots to defeat the idiot proofing and return the yield back to the original.

I think when it comes to stuff that may hurt but isn't serious does go overboard.

Conversely, there are times it is needed. I got roped into doing HV safety training for our service people, test people and customer's service people when I worked at a company that made equipment that produced very high power high voltages internally (20kV). There had been five fatalities in the past with the equipment. So it was pretty serious and somewhat grim to review with the class the circumstances of each case to underscore why things needed to be done the way they were. There were also a half dozen less than lethal instances to draw upon as well which, fortunately, could be laughed at cause no permanent harm and they were funny because it was cases of smart intent that went wrong when the unexpected caused a momentary lapse in judgment. That made the info stick. Nobody ever called that class boring and we never found need to put anyone back thru it. Funny thing though is that we had OSHA come in every so often to inspect and they never questioned or raised concerns about the high voltage. I guess they just saw pretty lights and had no idea of the danger that lurked or just decided a few high voltage signs were sufficient. They were more concerned about the guy who was lifted up on a forklift to change light bulbs.

 

[ab_slack]

My favorite example of what not to do in that class is the guy who wanted to measure a signal at that 20kV. He hooked up the voltmeter and ran the wires outside the safety cover cause it was easier than finding a spot to set it inside the cover. He knew when the high voltage came on the whole meter would be at 20kV potential. He had no intention of touching it, just seeing the reading.....but when he turned on the high voltage the meter went out of range and before his brain kicked into gear he reached for the meter to adjust the range....and got a shocking surprise.

 

[naford]

Wait till you have to do the online click it safety classes. I did driving, ladder, safety, and sexual harassment. Talk about cover the companies butt.

 

[adsm08]

OSHA = horseshit. I hate them, I can't stand them, I want anyone who works for them to die a horrible death involving squirrels on crack.



On a side note, our owners and upper management sit down with a rep from our insurance company and a rep from OSHA once a quarter and go over our worker's comp claims, just to see if there is any room for genuine improvement. I have been told by the OSHA compliance rep that I regularly make the WTF list. Basically it's the list of of accidents that they genuinely can't even figure out how it was possible, let alone how it happened.

Or rather, when she came to talk to us about some of the more obscure rules, she went over a few items from that list and I owned up to at least being involved in quite a few of them since names aren't attached to the reports.

 

[LearjetMinako]

I'm a walking OSHA violator. So many things I did were considered questionable when I was automotive tech. Oh how I miss those great days. Now I get paid to destroy merchandise with a sludge hammer.

 

[ZMan]

A former co-worker decided when he quit to call OSHA and tell them we were not compliant...his main goal of pissing my boss off definitely worked, I don't know if he intended to piss the rest of us off but he sure as hell succeeded. I'm with adsm08, those m-fers can suck a big one.

 

[adsm08]

I put OSHA in a class with a number of other groups like labor unions, teacher's unions, Congress, and Ed Rendell.

They might have served some useful purpose sometime around 1900, but their work is done and now they just need to die.

 

[country0001]

My degree is in Industrial Safety. However, I am not a safety manager, because it is a joke.

Half the people that are Safety people, never really worked and have no idea how they hinder peoples work.

My degree did come in handy though, and it helped me get my current job.

 

[FritzTKatt]

The places I've worked at have always had the safety regs, and occasional inspections, but the rules were never enforced. You were responsible for your safety as an individual, and sometimes other people being idiots ruined those plans. The Corps is pretty much the same, and most of the things that need to be done, can't be done safely anyway. So it's pretty much an accepted risk working in industry.

I was not a gruntled employee when a guy passed a ~5ton load over my head without warning. Should I have noticed it? Maybe, but it's a bit dark inside a welding hood with ear-pro in and all the background noise. I've had brand new lift straps break on the first lift (not nearly maxed out, either), but never got injured because of taking the proper precautions. Common sense goes a long way.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Common sense goes a long way.

This is the crux of the matter. Common sense isn't common until you learn it. And I don't believe that the new industry built around "safety" is doing it's job, rather there seems to be a culture of enforcing rules regardless of practicality. Out of 4 safety officers I saw on my last job, 3 were assholes. The last was someone that truly cared about safety and would work with laborers to come up with a solution acceptable to both parties. He was the only one that probably had experience in the field, in that he had done the job before moving into safety.

Richard