Now THAT’S a lot to think about! At least for me it is…

Anyway, as the safety cavalcade continues at the new place of employment (I’m still not done reading through the binder. In fact, I’d estimate I have about 2 pounds of paper still to go), I’ve found myself thinking about previous jobs and the downright stupid shit that has been done at them.

For any of you who have never really worked in a warehouse/industrial environment, you probably don’t really understand just how frequently colossally dumb things are done in the process of ‘getting the job done’. Not just stupid, dangerous shit done by employees when the boss isn’t around…I’m talking dumb things suggested by the top dog as the proper way to do things.

Stuff up on that shelf 45 feet in the air? Well, just climb up there! Do your best Spiderman impression and shimmy up the racking. Hey, why are you taking your time? We need that part number now! Pretend you’re a ninja and get this done! and if you could clamber back down while carrying that 65 pound box, that’d be great.

Need to get up on top of something? Here, hop up on those bare forks that are covered in grease and we’ll lift you up there at the approximate speed of sound. Hold on to that back plate…but don’t get your fingers stuck in all those chains and shit, okay?

We need to dump out these 130 pound waste buckets of fibreglass resin in to that enormous waste bin out back. Hop on a beat to shit pallet with 4 of them, then lean over the edge while dumping the goop in! Whattya mean this might not exactly be kosher to be included in a standard garbage dump? Oh, did you get it on your hands? Dip em in that massive open vat of acetone over there. Yeah, you’ll soon know about all those little micro-cuts on your hands from handling fibreglass without gloves because we don’t provide them! HAHA! And I see nothing wrong with having a gigantic drum of acetone next to a major heat source…moving it would take time!

All of this is pretty par for the course, and that’s really just the start. I could fill pages with examples like that that are common, everyday occurrences…or at least used to be. So while I may complain about this goddamn binder (seriously, 20+ pages on safe use of a utility knife? Maybe just don’t hire complete and total fucking morons), I certainly understand the need for it. Warehouse work used to be The Wild West : there were no rules, and you did whatever the fuck you had to do to get the job done.  No wonder Safety has become such a massive growth industry when it comes to industrial work : IT HAD TO. I guarantee you that every single person who has ever worked that sort of a job has multiple examples of absolutely stupid things they did at that job on a regular basis, often at the suggestion of the higher ups. It’s like we were all living in an episode of Jackass on a massive scale (though hopefully less obnoxious that anyone associated with that fucking program).

I’ve worked with a lot of people who really set a very special standard for stupid. But if I really honestly think about it, were any of us standing around laughing at these idiots REALLY any smarter? Okay, we were a LITTLE smarter…none of us sewed our hand to a bag or rammed a piece of machinery through a window…but we weren’t exactly candidates for any sort of genius grant. And while I do think things have gone a bit too far the other way (I seriously expect a future chapter to be entitled ‘Why power tools aren’t for scratching an itch’), it’s pretty much a self inflicted wound of annoyance. So I may not like it, and it may annoy the fuck out of me, but I get why it’s there.