23rd July 2010, 09:51 AM
What's really silly is when we geophysicts have to jump through the same hoops (mainly on roads and pipelines) and attend the same inductions etc - even though we'll be working in ordinary fields weeks or months ahead of any construction activity. Naturally we have to explain that we won't be wearing steelies..... sometimes they still insist that we wear hi-vis, which you can't see under a Barty harness, and worse still hard hats! We also get given ID badges - on little metal chains to hang round our necks. Someone once forbade us from climbing over a gate, so we had to walk up a narrow lane with high hedges (no footpaths) to an open gate, then back again, carrying the kit.