If you have ever wondered why this country is stuffed consider this little incident from the weekend. Yesterday was the mid point meeting of our Mentor Program, during the lunch break LB and I are busy doing stuff in the room and dont have time to go down to the restaurant for lunch. To fix this little problem I went down to the restaurant with the intention of grabbing some food and taking it back to the room on a tray.
However, I was foiled in this cunning plan because the hotel couldnt accept responsibility for me carrying a tray down a corridor – I obviously had not done the requisite course in tray carrying.
To solve this problem the hotel got one of their room service staff who had obviously done the weekend course in tray carrying to follow me back to the room with the tray. That’s right – I loaded the food on the tray and he picked it up and he followed me back to the room……
I knew workplace health & safety was beyond a joke but that’s a new one. That sign picture sums it all up very well.
Yes, alas, it’s all to no avail…
Confronted by warning signs and disclaimers at every turn, people just go home and do it there. The majority of accidents happen at home, where there is not usually anyone to sue.
I looked on the ‘Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents’ website and discovered that a total of 2220 people were injured, at home, in accidents involving cotton wool, in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002. Plenty of other examples on there to prove just how lethal our home environment can be.
H&S is an industry – signs, training courses, risk assessment contractors, inspectors et al. In it’s overblown form, it erodes our common sense and innate sense of self preservation that seems to have got us through the last few thousand years of our evolution.
I had dinner a little while ago with someone who works at a major educational institution where you cannot use a step ladder unless you have done a course in how to use a step ladder. At first I thought he was having us on but sadly not…….