[Closed] STUPID RULES at your workplace for the terminally thick

Scarfolk right?

If only we'd had a 'no defecating in the photo booth at Edinburgh bus station'
Yes, that really happened, a few years ago, a guy got off the overnight bus from London and refused to pay 30p to use the bathroom.
At my employer 'no banter'

I worked in a building that used to be a university engineering department where laser beams and all sorts were developed and tested.

Presumably it had been built and fitted out be engineers and academics rather than architects. Every single frikken lightswitch in the whole building was on the wrong side of the door.

One of the offices had a tiny little door in the corner of the room. Assuming it was a cupboard I thought I'd have a look if there were any older laser beams inside - pulled the door - it didn't open. Pushed it and it moved a bit - gave it a good shove and it swung open - light poured in illuminating a little hand-drawn skull and cross bones pinned to the door. And I nearly fell through the opening as the door swung out over a 14 ft sheer drop. The opening was at the top of a gigantic electrical distribution board that had been used to power the lasers. This was the only thing to grab on to to prevent my fall and was labelled 'Danger! Stupid Bare Live Wires'

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Goggles must be worn to fuel vehicles
Goggles and gloves must be work to clean vehicles
FFS

Not quite stupid rules, but this sign went up at my place of work about 3 years ago, and none of the "risk assessment" inspections have noticed yet....

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'No sit downers'

On a toilet door.

A disabled toilet door.

(Designed to discourage delivery drivers from stinking out the loos by taking mammoth shits they've been saving up all day, but still...)

A disciplinary offence to park your own car in the company park park (or any car par in company time) front first. Also a disciplinary to walk up or down a stairwell without having one hand on the rail either in an SSE building or any other building on work time.

We've done the parking one before, makes sense.

I recall the year I did my offshore survival, they told us a stat that over 600 people were killed in England and Wales in the previous year, falling down stairs. I found it hard to believe, but it had a HSE source.

So I'd agree with both.

Don't steal the fridge thermometer.

According to an email today, 7 have gone missing in the last 18 months...

loads of places have a "reverse park only" rule.

Worked for Severn Trent for a short time, had to attend a course at another company venue and i failed to reverse park even though they had no signs etc , i ended up on report with a written warning for parking my car the wrong way round ??
when i asked about the signs etc , i got told i should know , its company policy etc ?
handed in my notice 6 weeks later 🙂

There used to be a sign in our toilets

'Please do not wash feet in the sinks'

I don't know either.

they told us a stat that over 600 people were killed in England and Wales in the previous year, falling down stairs

We were recently issued forms by our information officer for any overtime - not for payment, you understand, but for sign off by a manager to authorise us staying late and so someone knows we're there.

I'm information officer now, and those forms can do one. 😀

Laminated on A4 and issued to all staff at induction our office rules were written by my previous boss many moons ago - he had rather meticulous tendencies so the rules have stayed

They include -

Not carrying more than one cup at a time (to avoid spillages)

No hot food (to avoid smells)

Leaving the venetian blinds down with the slats horizontal

Nothing to be left on desks at the end of the day, other than your phone keyboard and mouse

I really don't know where a lot of these stats and studies they hit you with at HSE courses come from.

Last time I did a manual handling course they told me that the strongest fingers for lifting were the ring and pinky fingers. There had been a study done on golfers apparently.

I'm generally supportive, the chemical industry isn't one to be freeforming H&S practices in.

But I did s**** slightly at one meeting - company policy was that all meetings would kick off with a safety moment at which someone would do a short piece of advice - and the advice of the day was to store guns and ammunition in separate locations.... that way if you accidentally leave your gun cabinet unlocked your kids can't shoot their siblings.

Good advice - but not honestly that useful to a mainly EU audience.

not really a stupid rule, but we do have instructions explaining how to wash your hands

loads of places have a "reverse park only" rule

Return to work interviews required after one day of absence.

Thankfully it doesn't amount to more than 'feeling better?' 'yep' 'good'

Parking is a genuine problem for us, but the penalties are quite draconian and there is no appeal - first offence, warning, second offence no parking on site for 3 months, third no parking for six months.. fourth no parking on site ever again. I'm not quite sure who that helps!

^ What if you came on your bike?

Some overweight BMW driver who can't run fast is going to be bloody disappointed. 😆

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See this quite often in toilets in Germany.

One of the unwritten rules in one of the workshops I work at (bear in mind this workshop was once an underground car park);

only hash to be smoked in the workshop... If you smoke grass you must sit on the sofa which has been enclosed in all sides with an extraction unit placed over it.

To be fair, it works really effectively. Smoke disappears straight up.

The reason being that despite the fact the bosses smoke shit/hash all day long (which they don't pick up on) they think that grass stinks. The reality is that hash stinks but they are oblivious.

Another workshop is "kein Bier vor vier".... Doesn't always work, but the intention is good. Only real problem with that is the boss who likes a beer after lunch.

We have the stupid reverse parking policy too.

The only time there has been an incident was when I reversed into a space........to find that some other inconsiderate bar steward had already parked there.

I may or may not have been slightly distracted by a young blonde colleague in a short skirt who waved at me.

We've done the parking one before, makes sense.

I recall the year I did my offshore survival, they told us a stat that over 600 people were killed in England and Wales in the previous year, falling down stairs. I found it hard to believe, but it had a HSE source.

So I'd agree with both.

Makes sense.....but worthy of a note on your employment record? Only to a bellend.

The 600 killed stat - this is why you don't allow morons anywhere near statistics if you can avoid it. They are capable of drawing vacuous conclusions with little bearing on common sense.

"Please put cigarette ends in the bucket once the floor is full"

"The 600 killed stat - this is why you don't allow morons anywhere near statistics if you can avoid it. They are capable of drawing vacuous conclusions with little bearing on common sense."
That's what I was trying to say, but nowhere near as well!

cbike - Member

I like handrail signs. I love toolbox talks.

Usually means the company is taking H&S seriously with management leading as they wish others to follow. If it prevents falls on an oil rig then it should apply in the offices onshore too.

While toolbox talks holding the handrail and all that are a part of everyday life the HSE at my location just pulled a blinder...

We are no longer allowed to lift the empty or full propane tanks off the back of the forklift so they have purchased a hand crane and fixed it to the ground by the propane tank. Ok so the 1 hour long training class is a bit of a pain but the sign on the tank saying all engines and ignition sources must be 40 ft away means we cannot drive to the crane to unload or load the tank...

Those complaining about handrail signs - exactly how much trouble is it for you to hold the handrail? It's an easy win - might not prevent many accidents and injuries (though probably more than you think), but it's cost free.

Not a sign, but at a health and safety induction at a new job I was told to always keep 3 points of contact when climbing stairs.

The guy presenting wasn't impressed when I went up the stairs later holding on with both hands. Not my fault they worded it so that I wasn't allowed to lift a foot...

Those complaining about HSE statistics - they come from actual accidents reported by workplaces in England and Wales.

So all of those 600 falls down stairs will have been work related and will therefore exclude the (presumably many more) falls down stairs outside of work.

That said, 600 seemed high to me so I took a quick look:

For non-domestic stairs, it is estimated that each year in the UK, there are over 100,000 injuries
(DTI, 1999 cited in Roys & Wright, 2003) and around 100 fatalities (Office of National
Statistics, 1996/7/8 cited in Roys & Wright, 2003).
During 2001/2002 there were 500 RIDDOR reported accidents involving low falls (below two
metres) from stairs. For this time period, this made stairs the second most significant agent in
low falls behind ladders. The majority of these falls result in over 3 day injuries although a
significant portion involves major injuries.

From the UK

The provisional figure for the number of workers fatally injured in 2015/16 is 144, and corresponds to a
rate of fatal injury of 0.46 deaths per 100,000 workers.

? The overall rate of fatal work injury for workers in 2015, at 3.38 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE)
workers, was lower than the 2014 rate of 3.43.

In 2015, there were 195 worker fatalities, equating to a fatality rate of 1.6 fatalities per 100,000 workers—the lowest rate since the series began in 2003 (Figure 1).

Those complaining about handrail signs - exactly how much trouble is it for you to hold the handrail? It's an easy win - might not prevent many accidents and injuries (though probably more than you think), but it's cost free.

Don't agree. It is cost free in so much as it costs nothing to implement and very little to enforce. What it costs is goodwill and further education on more important issues. The overall attitude to H&S is pretty good at the centre in question but the rule is considered petty and 'big brother' like by the majority of employees. A feeling of being treated like children. This then spills over into a general scepticism of most other edicts that come out of 'rules central'. It also empowers the wrong kind of people who get off on reporting others.

My other big bugbear with H&S rules that drop to that level of minutia is that they have the ability to demean/trivialise the really big ticket issues that either get buried amongst the chaff or demeaned by association.

As an aside the handrail rule is taken advantage of by the residents of the less salubrious communities SSE serve. It is known that SSE debt collectors (I'm sure they have a more fluffy name but in essence that's what they are) are required to hold the hand rails as they make house visits in blocks of flats etc. They have to because SSE are know to put folk out to watch them at work and discipline them if they spotted not doing so. Scrotes after a bit of payback have got into the habit of taping razor blades to the underside of handrails when they know the SSE employees are coming.The control measure was not to let go of the rail but to issue butcher style gloves. Nice.

I have no issue with a strong workplace H&S culture however I do have an issue with stupidities that bring it into disrepute - usually caused by folk who do not understand. Hence the stupid and they are stupid signs to hold onto the banisters at my workplace.

Stairs are not a hazard that is unusual or needs to be controlled unless you have to carry stuff up and down them, they are steep and awkward or there are other factors at play such as noise, fatigue, bad lighting etc

Producing stupid documents like this and stupid directions merely brings the whole H&S of the workplace into disrepute and actually makes it more likely that other hazards will be ignored as once you start ignoring one H&S control measure as everyone does when its stupid makes it easier to ignore others.

So certainly in my workplace the daft signs on the stairs actually increases risk as it gets people in the habit of ignoring control measures

This is why you should only control for real hazards not imaginary ones

in my student days worked in research in a large steelworks and recall that the daily bulletin once included a reminder that went something like:

Reminder: "Drivers of the Operations Van must radio ahead and give way to the hot metal transporter when using roadway B"

"The external appearance of the Operations Van suggests that it has failed to give way to pretty much every piece of mobile and fixed equipment operating on site.
The transporter operating in roadway B carries 200 tonnes of molten metal, the locomotive and car weigh 150 tonnes, it is painted bright red and has flashing lights, people are impressed by how fast it moves, the night shift driver is known as Vlad the Impaler - why wouldn't you give way?"

This is why you should only control for real hazards not imaginary ones

At my previous employer the cleaner used to assiduously put the 'caution - wet floor' yellow fold-out warning sign......at the top of the stairs right next to the door.

The cleaner in my area leaves them in doorways and at tops of stairs then goes home just leaving them there all day. I've taken to hiding them behind vending machines and in other rooms 😈

I look after a busy workshop full of people all week and so much as I hate to put little notes up, unfortunately much of the human race are seemingly terminally thick... 😀
Mind you, the notes still don't eliminate knob****teryness.

So all of those 600 falls down stairs will have been work related and will therefore exclude the (presumably many more) falls down stairs outside of work.

How many were caused by not holding onto the handrail?

The previous occupants of my workshop used it as a venue for mud wrestling and lady fighting. There were two signs high up on the wall when I moved in and I've kept them.
One says ' Make your slaps count' the other is ' Never turn your back on your opponent'.

I forget about them and sometimes see customers gazing at them wondering what they have to do with the design and manafacture of furniture.

Is there a subset of statistics to show how many of those stairs related injuries occurred whilst holding the handrail? That would then enable us to better judge whether it's a silly rule or not. I've witnessed people falling whilst holding on to one. That's why I always slide down them. Avoid using the stairs entirely 😉

Edit - beaten to it by Drac

Nick - one that is not faced and dealt with safely by virtually everyone every day. Do you put in control measures for walking along a corridor? so why do it for stairs [i]where there is no other factor involved[/i]

Read my post and the one above it to try to understand why putting in place control measures for imaginary or petty hazards actually reduces safety by bringing the systems into disrepute

Did you read billytinkle's post a few above this?

Firstly the 100,000 to 500 riddor stat indicats that most non domestic falls are not in the workplace.

2ndly as TJ stated the suitable control measure is often related to the architecture of the building not the behaviour. Stair design, lighting etc. Lobbing a user related control measure in is just blame passing.

So is it stupid to remind people to use the handrail?

Or is it just stupid to use the handrail?

If you take the signs away should you take the handrails away too?

Don't agree. It is cost free in so much as it costs nothing to implement and very little to enforce. What it costs is goodwill and further education on more important issues. The overall attitude to H&S is pretty good at the centre in question but the rule is considered petty and 'big brother' like by the majority of employees. A feeling of being treated like children. This then spills over into a general scepticism of most other edicts that come out of 'rules central'. It also empowers the wrong kind of people who get off on reporting others.

From experience the majority of people in large organisations appear to behave like children a lot of the time. I'm sure the figures above on fatality rates are not a coincidence with the stronger H&S rules.

On reporting I've worked in a culture where challenging of anyone is actively encouraged to the level where the new apprentice should be comfortable challenging the MD. If your outside of the rules,not holding the hand rail, having a meeting on the stairs or walking outside of the pedestrian areas then you were not paying attention and not being safe. No clever come backs, no there was nothing coming. Learn from it.

A good H&S Department (and everyone there) will be looking at all things, the big hitters may be the once in a 10000 occurrence, stairs are used every day by most people so the usage hrs is massive.

Stairs are not a hazard that is unusual or needs to be controlled unless you have to carry stuff up and down them, they are steep and awkward or there are other factors at play such as noise, fatigue, bad lighting etc

How many were caused by not holding onto the handrail?

How about just leave it up to the individual to decided their own handrail related fate?

It's second nature now, I laughed when told in '99 out H&S guy felt out of place in a large airport where the stairs were so wide there were no hand rails, feels the same now.

And yet you go mountain biking. You must literally be crying inside on every pedal stroke. How do you square the risk in your head of going for a bike ride if you can't walk up a set of stairs in your own time without feeling weirded out by not having a rail to cling to?

How many were prevented by holding the hand rails? I certainly know of a lot of times a foot has slipped etc. and handrails have done their job.

I certainly know of many that haven't. The point being as you've also demonstrated is that those figures show reported accidents not the cause or prevented ones.