19th August 2012, 03:23 PM
Sorry to be a bit off-topic (love the debate on whether evil exists...clearly it does, there are arse nal and leeds utd...) but the hard hat sub-topic interests me. Much of this is down to mis-use and/or misunderstanding of the concept of Risk Assessments and H&S Plans, as you will all appreciate. Itis common to have a blanket all-purpose generic RA and policy, ostensibly to cover the posterior (but could easily have the opposite effect if an incidient occurs due to inadequate assessment).
As geophysicists we are often put in even dafter positions than you lot - usually on road or pipeline jobs. We are there in an open field, cows and sheep grazing peacefully around us, skylarks singing, all well with the world, months before the big yellow machines arrive, and they make us attend an induction where we are told we must not smoke (none of us do anyway), we must wear hard hats (to protect against skylark pooh?), high-vis vests (so the skylarks can aim at us?) which are likely to be covered up by the Barty harness, gloves (well yes, sometimes) and steelies (errrrr...). One bunch told us we are not to climb over the gate where the vehicle was parked, we had to walk 100s of meters up a narrow lane with high banks and blind corners, carrying the instruments, to a gap in the hedge... Of course we never have site huts, toilets, etc, rarely is any effort made to check that the ground cover is safe to walk on....
As geophysicists we are often put in even dafter positions than you lot - usually on road or pipeline jobs. We are there in an open field, cows and sheep grazing peacefully around us, skylarks singing, all well with the world, months before the big yellow machines arrive, and they make us attend an induction where we are told we must not smoke (none of us do anyway), we must wear hard hats (to protect against skylark pooh?), high-vis vests (so the skylarks can aim at us?) which are likely to be covered up by the Barty harness, gloves (well yes, sometimes) and steelies (errrrr...). One bunch told us we are not to climb over the gate where the vehicle was parked, we had to walk 100s of meters up a narrow lane with high banks and blind corners, carrying the instruments, to a gap in the hedge... Of course we never have site huts, toilets, etc, rarely is any effort made to check that the ground cover is safe to walk on....