Our health & safety looney's latest

She's announced she's organising a two-hour training course on how to
pick up heavy objects.

Two hours? To learn how to pick something up? But, best of all, in
case you've forgotten, she's added this:

"If you have already attended any previous training then please
include yourself and use the session as a refresher."

(One of our lot has enquired if there's an 'advanced' course)

 

Bad form post:

I asked "How heavy". Apparently: "From a small box of paper up to 11kg
maximum".

I'm weeping laughing. A two hour course on how to pick up small boxes
of paper.....

 

<TOG@toil>; <>; <>
wrote in message

I say give in and go along with it...

1) Bring in some bathroom scales. Weigh *everything* in the office, then
demand that anything weighing 11.001kg or above is labelled "Caution -
Lifting Hazard".
2) Refuse to handle anything over 11kg without recruiting assistance.
3) Requisition weightlifting belts, "for when you just *have* to move a 12kg
weight".
4) Point out that the petrol can under your desk is ok, as it only weighs
about 5kg

 

How will you know if something's greater than 11kg without picking it
up to weigh it, which you can't do just in case it *is* greater than
11kg, meaning you're not trained to lift it? I think this needs
clarifying soonest.



--
Krusty
www.MuddyStuff.co.uk
Off-Road Classifieds

'02 MV Senna '03 Tiger 955i '96 Tiger '79 Fantic Hiro 250

 

Dan White () gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying :

5) Change the 5l plastic can for a 20l metal jerrycan, then ask for help
moving it.

 

In-office hoist with strain gauge. It's the only way to be sure...

 

*Nice*

 

Get an angle grinder, cut the object into lots of small little pieces,
take one of the little pieces and weigh that, multiply that amount by
the number of little pieces you have and that should give you the
weight.

HTH.

 

Bryan of typed:

What about the weights of the little pieces that were ground off?

Lots of small pieces means even more cuts, so the weight in the 'grounds'
may, or may not, be considerable.

 

That weight is no longer important since you won't be having to lift
the parts of the object that have been turned to dust. It might be
worth factoring in the likely weight of the epoxy that you'll need to
put the thing back together, but personally I'd do the re-assembly in
situ once the thing has been moved.

 

<Advocate mode>

Two hours is a bit much. I'll teach the course, do it in an hour but claim
the two hours. You lot can go do something productive with the second hour
( or reproductive if a partner can be found ) thus saving your company
money.

Daft though it might sound, some folk do -need- to be shown how to pick up a
box of paper. With the litigious society threatening to become a reality, I
can see the benefit to your company of this.

Scenario ( contrived ).

Someone is going to the cupboard to get a fresh pen. You are at the
photocopier and notice the paper bins are nearly empty and the paper stock
is low.

You ask the cupboard person to bring a box of paper over, and they twist
their back lifting it because Darwinism has yet to expel them from the gene
pool.

The company is now a member of staff down, and this member[1] is of a
litigious bent.

They sue for the injury and the fact they were never shown how to lift a box
of paper weighing 10.99Kg

Wether they win or not is irrelevant. It still costs the company to defend
itself.

Never misunderestimate[2] the stupidity of others.

<Am>

<Advocaat mode>

Fucking hells beans. Does your company employ people so thick they'd lose an
argument with mildy sentient string?

What is so difficult about lifting things that they'd be blinded by the
complexity of the concept?

Actually, scrub that. I have been on H&S courses. Some of the stuff is so
dazzling in its degree of obviosity[2] that I have been aghast when
colleagues have piped up with 'Run through that again will you'.

<Am>

[1]Insert joke, or member here.
[2]Words used H&S snorefests

 

A lot of this bollocks is nothing to do with training; it's in case anyone
should hurt themselves doing... anything. If a company's shown you how to do
the anything 'properly' and you didn't then you won't be able to sue them.

Or is that so obvious that it's not usually said?

 

Oh yes. But as it seems you've missed the idiocy of this particular
case, it's a course on lifting objects from "small boxes of paper" up
to 11kg. In other words, not heavy objects *at all*.

And as has been pointed out by others, there is a lovely Catch-22 in
that you don't know the weight of an object before you lift it, and if
you lift it onto a set of scales.....

 

TOG works for them, there is your first clue.

You don't have back problems caused by improper lifting do you? It
costs the firm and the NHS a fortune for something that simple
demonstration of the proper technique can prevent absolutely.

Of note:
As a lad on my induction course at the GPO I, along with a big fat kid,
was asked to show how we would pick up a large bag of nails. The fat
kid just leaned over sideways and grabbed it. Seeing I was going to
have to struggle with the load I let my legs take the load and did it
right. The instructor said after that he picked on us two deliberately
because skinny weaklings like me tend to lift properly because properly
is the easy way to get a relatively large mass to move upwards whereas
stronger fat people tend not to. A lesson was learnt and despite doing
a lot of heavy lifting over the years I have no back problems, apart
from not being able to get it of the bed in the morning.

 

Yes.

HTH

--
Krusty
www.MuddyStuff.co.uk
Off-Road Classifieds

'02 MV Senna '03 Tiger 955i '96 Tiger '79 Fantic Hiro 250

 

Oh. I won't bother then.

 

It isn't only that. There's a duty on the employer to ensure that
anybody who may ever have to lift anything heavier than a pencil has
had training in how to lift it. This is covered in the H&S Policy
document which has to be prepared, maintained and updated by the
employer. The policy and therefore the training is mandated by the HSW
Act and Workplace Regs made thereunder.

It isn't fatuous in the respect that TOG is fulminating about, it is a
matter of complying with the law.

 

To be fair to her, a) sh'e been told to do it, and b) the company isn't
doing it so that people can learn a new skill that they didn't know before,
it's to prevent someone lifting an object, then going on the sick, faking a
serious back injury and claiming huge compo because no-one had "trained"
them how to do it. It's all an arse-covering exercise. As Mungo has said
elsewhere, it's not that they would necessarily win a claim (although these
days some of the things people get away with are frightening) but that the
costs of long-term absence along with the management time and resources to
fight it would be unacceptable.

Be nice to the girl - she probably thinks much the same way you do, but it's
her job to do this stuff, and she'll carry the can if anything goes tits-up.
AMHIK. Enjoy it as a bit of brain-disengaged time off.

 

No, my back problems were not caused by lifting, but by falling off a bike
and hitting a tree. Ouchy McFuckthathurt, but nothing below it did for
hours. That was scary.

If it helps, I used to work as a coalman. Bagged not hopper delivery, so I'd
fill the bags, carry them the length of the truck bed and stack them, then
deliver them. Improper technique there is not something to risk as 50Kg is
not trivial.

Dang right. I am fully aware of the issues.

Yup, no clue, no self discipline either. See?, Darwinism.

I can lift stuff no problems. I have to be able to lift fallen motorbikes,
which is again technique. The look on the Goldwing owners face after I
lifted it for him, then plopped it onto its centrestand was one of 'How the
f*** did he do that?'[1]. The schadenfreude filled crowd could have helped
him, but preferred to giggle. GL1800?, doddle. I tried to suggest he let me
teach him low speed control techniques so it didn't happen again, but to no
avail.


[1] Trying to turn round in a supermarket car park in the lane between the
bays. An easy U-Turn. Drop the throttle?, drop the bike.

 

"How to put stuff down".