"CAUTION! HOT WATER!".

Those signs are such an expression of failing to grasp risk assessments. If the hot water in the hot water tap is sufficiently hot to cause an injury the answer isn't to slap a sticker on it, the answer is to adjust the heater so that the water is hot enough, not too hot. You need to stick your own sticker asking "When is this going to be fixed?"

I work in lots of disused buildings as film locations and we once used a old university engineering department building where they used to test massive sci-fi lasers and the like. It was the most boggling assembly of high risk architecture and fit out I've ever seen. Aside from the main engineering space with its enourmous assembly of unshielded high power electrical installation, there was a warren of gerry-built labs and offices, with no natural light and with the light switch somewhere you had to hunt for. In one room we couldn't find the light switch so had a look around in the gloom. The was a small cupboard door in the corner that looked like the door to the 12 1/2th floor in Being John Markovich. I crouched down to have a look inside, pulled the door, didn't open. Leaned against the door as got back up and it opened outwards, the daylight illuminated a little pencil-drawn skull and cross bones on a postit note on the door and I nearly took a header off a 15 foot drop.

Why not keep the coffee jar – just remove all the spoons!

problem solved 😀

shouldn't ALL kettles have one of these on the side?

We have so many signs that people occasionally add joke ones to see if anyone notices. We ended up with the lyrics to "Never going to give you up" on the aforementioned water boiler…

I'd be careful with that – I got a verbal for adding to warning signs at work a while back. My alterations were against health and safety. Anyway here is how the shower room wall looks at the moment thanks to the health and safety aware work facilites team:

Headfirst – I might need to use that label suggestion – weirdly just before you posted it a member of my staff complained that our kettle is a H&S Hazard as the steam scalded her hand while she was using it

not the hand holding the kettle – the one holding a spoon in the cup while she poured boiling water towards it !

I hope the **** i work with dont read this post, they have a monthly competion for the best H and S general safety comment here in the Tripoli office and i have to bite my lip and grip my thighs with some of the twaddle we get. Last month someone wanted mirrors (the rounded see round bends things) on the corridors so you could see someone coming from around the corner and it would prevent you bumping into them, even more of a hazard if they have a cup of coffee, FFS so we all got given those insulated coffee mug things with lids on, now if you are seen walking without a lid on your cup you are issued with a near miss letter. !!!! The fact is they are all happy to drive their cars without seatbelts / childseats and use the mobile phones when doing so and that is deemed okay around here.

All for companies and Individuals having to take responsibility for H and S but sometimes the whole thing is laughable, what happened to common sense, i mean a kettle is hot by nature, i dont need a sticker on it to tell me that !!

By the way i have the NEBOSH International Certificate and will complete the International Diploma in March so i appreciate why, but i despair at things like dmillers 4 signs in a shower room. Do these half wits and pond life need these in their homes as well?

Goes to remove large nescafe coffee jar just in case and orders a 1000 plastic spoons. !!!!!!!!!!!!! and thermal protective waterproof gloves in various colours so as not to offend anyone so they dont scold themselves when making a brew. Arrrgh

My dad got told off at work for walking down some stairs without holding the hand rail.

the answer is to adjust the heater so that the water is hot enough, not too hot.

What if you need boiling water?

There's no spoon/coffee issue here, every single staff member has their own coffee, sugar and milk in the kitchenette (its 1mx1.5m with some shelving). No problems reported here. But we don't tend to do the whole "would you like a cuppa" thing and we're all in our own offices (maybe 2-3 in some).

Isn't the solution to have a trained operative for the tea and coffee making equipment?

If the equipment were mounted on, say, a trolley it could be wheeled around the building and people could have hot drinks dispensed at their desks. You coudl even publish a schedule of when they would be coming round so people knew in advance.

This would avoid any issues with numpty staff scalding themselves using kettles, throwing coffee over their co-workers in corridors and using coffee jars innapropriately.

Can I suggest that, on the assumption that such a person would be female, they could be called a 'tea lady'?

If a man were doing it then they would clearly be 'Tea Man' and have to wear tight fitting lycra with a big red 'T' on the front and have a cape.

wwaswas – Speaks sense but in this PC World you would be burnt at the stake for suggestion such common sense, shame on you. Their job title would in fact be something like "drinks facillitator" or 'hydration specalist"

In the office here we have two drinks facillitators, their true title i jest you not i manage them, both from Algeria and camp as Christmas, i make my own brews !!

If its so important to H&S why dont the company subsidise a proper coffee / tea making machine for the office and put a task sheet / cleaning schedule up so it is tended to on a regular basis for cleasing and refilling – you could always have that lovely ground coffee instead of the freeze dried stuff..

not the hand holding the kettle – the one holding a spoon in the cup while she poured boiling water towards it !

Serves her right – everyone knows, "cafe bouillu, cafe foutu"

wwaswas – Speaks sense but in this PC World you would be burnt at the stake for suggestion such common sense, shame on you. Their job title would in fact be something like "drinks facillitator" or 'hydration specalist"

In the office here we have two drinks facillitators, their true title i jest you not i manage them, both from Algeria and camp as Christmas, i make my own brews !!

It's only in reading this back that I've realised you don't work for a large computer retailer 🙂