Pffssssst! Especially when you are miles from your destination.
Yup, I went out with soft tires yesterday; and I really had the time to put the needed air in the tires; and I really shoulda put the air in the tires; but I'm little Lance junior; and I'm too bullet-proof for all that non-sense-pinch-flat-road-on-trail-downhill-at-25-mph to happen; but at least I had a spare and CO2 catridge.
Sound like any guys on job sites - I'm too smart to get hit in the head with a girder; I won't get a fleck in my eye, I've been doing this for 20 years; hearing protection? what? humph!
Stuff happens to all of us - even little lance juniors - so be pre-prepared.
"No one is safe!!!"
Sounds like a line from a 1950s horror flick about a giant slime ball that was created as a result of a laboratory nuclear reaction gone awry, but it seems to be more of a truism about workplaces in this area - at my sons indoor soccer practice.
In yet another stunning unsafe act, Billy Bob was on top of a 3-story high movable platform being push around the gym by Jimmy Bob as he was leaning out of the platform to change lights and raise/lower basketball hoops. And, you've probably guessed by now - absolutely no fall protect. Eek.
Employer? Employee? Who would be responsible for Billy Bob, Jimmy Bob or my 8-year-old sons in an accident? Me? Nope. We left the gym - I couldn't stand to watch.
Dude, they're following me, they're after me, on the way to school, riding my bike, out golfing ... now they're in my front yard!!! Really, I am not making this stuff up - they a in my frickin' front yard - It's the death-by-construction safety idiots. Look for yourself:
This is not a doctored image for the purposes on making GCs looks bad - this is the real deal. Yes, the guy is sitting this scopp of the bobcat, ready to fall back on his head. And here's another - pick in hand, no helmets, eye protection, orange vests, yada-yada-yada:
One more (in my frickin front yard!!) - no PPE of any kind:
Ok, my golf games sucks, but I'd still rather go out and shoot a 110 on a 40-degree day (with a stiff 15 mph breeze - that's why my drives were so off - really) than get killed on a construction job site.
You may ask: 'Safety Blog Man, you're stretching the limits of trying to post safety stuff: how would you possibly come up with that juxtaposition - golf / death-by-construction?' Well, look at the picture. At the golf clubhouse -it's a little hard to see - I took the picturewith my phone - the lone guy in the red shirt on the second story - less than 2 feet from the edge - no fall protection - using a power drill and walking around like he could fly if he tripped over the cord.
Construction safety stupidity seems to follow me around - I don't make it. When will owners, GCs, subs, and individuals get the message?
This kind of blew me away - look at the most commonly cited OSHA items (and I'm not making this up, here's the link:
http://www.osha.gov/Publications/100most/100most.html). 5 of the top 6 items have nothing to do with actual conditions in the field ...
1) WRITTTEN HAZ. COMM. PROGRAM
2) EMPLOYEE TRAINING HAZ. COMM.
3) MSDS FOR HAZ. CHEMICALS (actual labeling of chemicals in the field)
4) OSHA POSTER
5) ACCESSIBLE COPIES OF MSDS
6) SAFETY TRAINING/RECOGNITION OF UNSAFE CONDITIONS
The rest of the top 15:
7) GUARDING OPEN SIDED FLOORS
8) HEAD PROTECTION
9) GROUND FAULT PROTECTION
10) ELECTRICAL GROUNDING
11) ACCIDENT PREVENTION PROGRAM
12) PROTECTIVE SYSTEMS FOR TRENCH/EXCAV.
13) GUARDRAIL SPEC. FOR TUBULAR WELDED SCAFFOLDS
14) OSHA 200 LOG
15) PPE USED FOR SPECIFIC OPERATION
Whoosh, ugghh, ahhh, Daaaaaaddddy, ohhhh, SPLASH! The sounds of the latest inductee joining the ranks of the polar bear club.
I felt so good - not walking up the sledding track like the other over-the-hill 40-something dads -- I was running up the sledding track, time after time after time. I could feel that sweet burn in my quads and lithesome tautness in my hammies. The hours spent with Bianchi in the trainer and Chris Charmichael in the VCR were paying off.
Then, in a flash, Son #2 is flying down the hill ... too far to the right for me to catch him ... got past ... get him before the lake ... got the sled ... not the boy ... SPLASH! Waist deep in Cattail Branch.
There are safety nerds; there are coding nerds; here in the DC area, we have politics nerds (lots of them). But now, at the ripe old age that I am at, I am firmly convinced that you will never be successful at anything unless you are a nerd at something. I mean deeply devoted to something(be it safety, writing software, or being a wonk) to the point at which some one else doesn't understand a) what in the heck you are talking about, or b) your motivation for diving so deeply into a topic that you read it, you think it and speak more than anything else, or c) you.
There's another type of nerd that I am trying to become - a bike nerd. Setting up a team for the local MS Ride in May, on the stationary training for hours, even reading Lance Armstrong's War, gift from my bro - the Lance of bros.
"ahh, I've run billion dollar wrap ups with paper and video tapes"
Really, that's what a guy said to me the other day -- he ran all the safety training for a 7-year, billion dollar wrap up with using a paper-based tracking system and videotapes. AND, he is about to kick-off 5 more multi-hundred million dollars projects the same way next year. Wow, the old-dog construction industry really has a hard time learning new tricks.
