Safety Police

[Lil Foot]

I didn't want to hijack the Death of Common sense thread, so I thought I'd start a new one to regale you with a couple of Safety Police (Safety Nazis?) incidents.
Background:
The research group I worked for needed a small but capable machine shop to do prototyping, fixturing, repair work & the like, most of which was done at an accuracy level far beyond the capabilities of most shops. We also had incredible restrictions on heat, vibration, dust, electrostatic, and physical shocking when doing repairs/machining on some very sensitive, delicate, & classified equipment. Corporate, in their infinite wisdom, had eliminated all machine shops in the company and wanted us to go outside & contract the work with local job shops. The shops were in no way qualified or capable of doing the work, even if they had the security clearances, but we could not remove the items from our secure facility due to US government security policies. So I was tasked to put together a small shop by gathering surplus, (read old) equipment, calling in favors, trading, and working some under the table. I put together a really nice little shop that served us (and continues to) very well for many years

Enter the Safety Police.
They did an inspection and decided all 7pcs of equipment needed big red mushroom stop buttons. Great, I'm all for safety. After the first three installations at $1500 each, they decided that it was too expensive to put buttons on all machines, so they wired all the other machines & wall outlets together & put one big stop button on the wall. This button was not within reach of the machines it stopped, so anyone unlucky enough to get caught could not reach the shut down button anyway, defeating the whole purpose of the buttons in the first place. When I pointed this out, a snot-nosed punk fresh out of college said that if I continued to "fight the spirit of safety with my bad attitude" a written termination warning would be placed in my file.
I shut up.
Sometime later, I spent about 4 days setting up & indicating in a very complex machining job. I was in the middle of that very complex rework machining job on a "sensing unit" worth in excess of $550,000 when my .00005 3 axis digital readout went blank. WTF? I had lost all positioning, and maybe the unit. Turns out that someone leaning against the wall had accidentally bumped the wall stop button, powering down the outlets, & my readout. It took a week to recover, but I was able to save the unit. When I complained again, I was threatened with another termination warning.

 

[Lil Foot]

Chapter two:
The same snotnose mentioned above did another inspection and decided we needed a gage to set the gap between the tool rest & grinding wheel on our pedestal grinder. Great, I'm all for it. A contractor comes out & installs a GO-NOGO gage on the grinder. (a simple handle with a thin blade for the minimum gap, & a thick blade for the maximum gap) He bolts the gage to a chain, and the chain the the grinder, and leaves. Only problem is that the chain is too short to reach the gap it is supposed to check, rendering it useless. I call Safety snotnose, and explain the problem… he says he will come over & "train me" in it's use. He screws around for 5 minutes, & can't use the gage…. he then tells me "The installation is done to federal specifications" & walks out. I explain all this to my boss, who tells me to fix the problem. I move the chain & everything is peachy, until our hero does another inspection. He writes me a written termination warning for "defeating safety equipment" & recommends I be fired. The contractor comes back & puts the chain back where it was, where it remains today, totally useless. My boss threw out the warning, and said this punk was being paid $185,000/year. (this was almost 10 years ago)

We finally solved the problem by closing our facility to anyone without proper security clearance.

 

[Daren Todd]

We just had to get non locking box cutters to use at the shop they seem more dangerous then a regular box cutter since they are awkward to use. All because some idiot forgot the basics of knife safety.

We had to have a mandatory safety meeting because the dude was stripping wire while holding the wire on his knee. Knife slipped and he needed 15 stitches. The topic of the meeting was be stupid, filet yourself and your job hunting. Two days later some other idiot did the same thing


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[Diydave]

A Short Story For Engineers...

Money well spent??

A Short Story for Engineers
You don’t have to be an engineer to appreciate this story.

A toothpaste factory had a problem: Due to the way the production line was set up, sometimes empty boxes were shipped without the tube inside. People with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming off of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which cannot be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean quality assurance checks must be smartly distributed across the production line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket won’t get frustrated and purchase another product instead.

Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory gathered the top people in the company together. Since their own engineering department was already stretched too thin, they decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP (request for proposal), third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later a fantastic solution was delivered — on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. The problem was solved by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box off the line, then press another button to re-start the line.

A short time later, the CEO decided to have a look at the ROI (return on investment) of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. There were very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That was some money well spent!” he said, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.

The number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. How could that be? It should have been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers indicated the statistics were indeed correct. The scales were NOT picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Perplexed, the CEO traveled down to the factory and walked up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before the scale, a $20 desk fan was blowing any empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. Puzzled, the CEO turned to one of the workers who stated, “Oh, that…One of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang!”

$8 million vs $20 Hmmm! Money well spent?

 

[hodge]

I am SO GLAD that I work for myself, at home, with no trespassing signs on the property.
"The more I learn about people, the more I like my truck and my dog". Slightly edited, but applicable.

 

[coachgeo]

I am SO GLAD that I work for myself, at home, with no trespassing signs on the property.
"The more I learn about people, the more I like my truck and my dog". Slightly edited, but applicable.

Slightly off topic.... but it is about a dweeb too.

Nice theory on your signs maybe protecting you from dweebs but there is a DWEB with power issues everywhere. the signs trying to protect you just shifts the dewb problem or makes it worse.

For example the No Trespassing signs can be a red flag that while it may protect you a little bit..... a dweb will use it to FAWK up something/someone else.

I nearly lost my house cause new neighbor (DWEEB #1) decided to no longer share like the previous folk. There is a Lane- deeded Right of Way/Easement on his property that intersects with the lane- deeded Right of Way/Easement that feeds my property. For 20+ years 4 folk had shared the two lanes with no issues. Well Dweeb #1 gated his lane at the intersection now and put up no trespassing signs everywhere.

My home is dead end of lane attached to a Deed of a home up the road from me and that intersection by Dweeb #1's place. This home was for sell at same time was to convert my land contract to a conventional loan and pay off the folks I was buying from. But nooooo BANKS/MORTGAGE LENDERS (DWEEB's #2) now refuse to loan on my home because of DWEEB#1 No trespassing signs and gate; even though they did not affect my actual lane at all. They figured if one neighbor was a dweeb that the new buyer (Guy); who my lane is actually deeded with, might become dweeb #3 and gate this lane too, Thus closing off the only access to three houses on the lane (including mine). Even though that is illegal. Now if Dweeb #1 had not blocked off the intersection.. there would be no problem cause access would still be available.

Here is the catch dweb #2 at the banks could not fathom. The very lane they were afraid Guy might illegally gate.... is his only access too. No idiot is going to block access to their own home. Guy I'd met when he pre-viewed the home the lane is deeded to before purchasing it. He had already expressed to me he understood the deeded Right of Way/Easement had to remain open. All the bank had to do was confirm this with him. He closed the deal on the home and lane within a day of the banks refusing to finance on my home. So far Guy seems grateful for my keeping the lane maintained and plowed of snow with my KUBOTA (see the OTT content)

Luckily the owners I'm buying from agreed to extend the Land Contract instead of trying to resell it. Guess that makes them Anti-Dweebs??? Granted I now pay twice the morgage amount I use to AND have to cover other expenses use to not have to cover on top of that. Thank god got a renter now too or I could not have been able to afford the price change and and would have still lost my home. If I can keep up with the payments though I'll be paid off in two years. Me and Romen Noodle like meals are now Besties. As to the Dweebs.. they are enemy #1.

 

[D2Cat]

Coach, I'm so backwards I must be a Bweeb. Didn't know what it was. Never seen or heard the expression before.

Every dictionary I looked in had a different definition. Here's one: "noun

(slang, mainly US) a stupid or uninteresting person"


If you have a land contract, contract for deed, or by definition personally paying an individual for real property, to receive clear title after agreed payment made in full..... you can protect yourself from the current owner of the property using that property as collateral for a loan by going to your local court house and recording you written transaction.

 

[Daren Todd]

Coach, it seems that if it's a deeded right of way, then the person that bought the property you crossed can't do anything about it. And has to allow access to your property.

We had a similar issue on my street. Didnt effect me, but effected the guy who owns the field behind me. Jerk (insert stronger expletive) at the end of the road sunk posts and put up a fence down the dead center of a deeded right of way/road that went through the center of a lot he bought. Put up no trespassing signs and the works. Road was access to the field behind me. Farmer that owned the field had to sick a lawyer on him to get the fence moved to allow access to the field. By the time it was all said and done, the jerk had to pay the farmer for lost hay, court costs, and lawyers fees. The kicker is now the farmer is building a house right by where the right of way ties into in his field. Now the jerk is losing his prime spot do to the house going in and rules against hunting to close to someone else's house

 

[Diydave]

Had some neighbors, in the same situation, in MD, at least, it is illegal to put a gat across a deeded ROW. Best advice I can give, is to hire a lawyer early, and document everything the dweeb does, as he does it. Good luck...

 

[ShaunRH]

You can usually put a gate but it must remain open or accessible to all parties that have legal easement (Right of Way in this thread) to the road or entrance. As long as all parties with legal access are agreed in how it is handled, it is legal. Easement does not make it Public Access.

The easement access point belongs to the property owner and that owner is required to meet the easement rules as stipulated in the easement contract. The contract is only valid as long as the signatories on the contract are still living or in possession of the property needing the easement. Upon sale or loss of the accessing property signators, the contract should be either renegotiated or formally voided so there is no lack of understanding where things stand. It avoids court action.

Why do I know all this? I bought property and it had 2 easements on it and I had to get schooled on Texas law regarding it. Other states may vary but I have been told that most states are similar.

I know here in California, you HAVE to gate all easements and close the gates for 24 hours each year (the easing signatories all have to be in on it) or the easement becomes PUBLIC ACCESS. It is understood that if a back road crosses a private property, that the owner, even if they have an easement with the STATE or County or City, is allowed to close the gate for 24 hours without public notice but on a schedule kept with the government entity so the property owner does not lose property control rights due to the easement with the public entity. Complicated, eh? I understand it's only used when the government doesn't want to declare eminent domain and pay for the public roadway. Go figure.

So, check your state laws, but gates are allowed on most easements as long as there is agreement from the parties involved. In CA's case, do it or lose it.

 

[85Hokie]

We just had to get non locking box cutters to use at the shop they seem more dangerous then a regular box cutter since they are awkward to use. All because some idiot forgot the basics of knife safety.

We had to have a mandatory safety meeting because the dude was stripping wire while holding the wire on his knee. Knife slipped and he needed 15 stitches. The topic of the meeting was be stupid, filet yourself and your job hunting. Two days later some other idiot did the same thing


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you ever wonder why Preparation H has a warning on the label?

EXTERNAL USE only !!!!! Imagine that .......

 

[Daren Todd]

you ever wonder why Preparation H has a warning on the label?



EXTERNAL USE only !!!!! Imagine that .......

Helps you whistle better


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[85Hokie]

Helps you whistle better


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more importantly .....it makes you fart better too - when used correctly!

 

[Diydave]

more importantly .....it makes you fart better too - when used correctly!

This guy swears by it:

Warning, fart video, click on it at your own risk...

https://youtu.be/XCpPEnwQe3Q