So yesterday, as a requirement of our Health and Safety audit at my school, I had to attend a training course on Moving and Handling of Objects and Loads. Basically - how to lift stuff without the need for suing your employer.
Nobody bothered to ask if I had ever been taught good lifting technique. The important part was that I hadn't got a certificate to say I'd been on a course so on a course I had to go.
It was three hours long. Two and a half hours of health and safety legislation, knowing your responsibilities, risk assessments and back health; a 10 minute coffee break; a 10 minute DVD on safe lifting and movement techniques; five minutes on writing a risk assessment for moving a small practically weightless box from the floor, walking with it across the floor and putting it down on a chair. Then lifting it off the chair, walking with it across the floor and putting it back down on the floor again. After which I was observed taking said terrible risk.
At no point was there even an object in the room that was big, heavy or awkward. So therefore we had no discernible risk to assess. There was a 2-bullet point slide on team lifting and we did not have a practical. When I did injure my back 17 years ago it was lifting a heavy object with an over-zealous prick that caused it so I have a personal reason for thinking that it should have been tackled properly.
I have no problem with Health and Safety really (although it does seem to impede work or give lazy people the excuse not to do their jobs sometimes) but if you are going to make a firm pay to have their employee off work then at least make it work their while. This ass covering waste of time benefited nobody.
Still I now know the correct way to lift an small empty box. That should be an enormous help lifting 30-40lb children!
9 comments:
Well I have to disagree here. I am totally relieved that you now know how to lift small, empty boxes safely.
I hope they taught you about the dangers of papercuts too.
LOL! You are tooo funny!
I, too, have attended such a course.
All nonsense — and generally speaking, most people ignore even the best advice anyway.
Like so many things, it's just a way for people to cover their tracks.
Wow, I didn't know such a course existed...and I think what bugs me the most is that it was THREE hours! Sounds like they could have accomplished what they came for in about 30 mins.
Well, I tell you what, when I move over there, I'll call you and you can come and help me schlepping boxes around - now that you know how to do it!
By the way, I've tagged you for a meme...
Ah, but now you cannot sue. Makes three hours seem cheap, I suppose.
But... why couldn't you sue? If you hurt your back doing something your employer told you to do after taking this course, why could you not still sue the employer anyway, for making you do it? Or for not giving you the proper tools, time, or whatever if that turned out to be the case? And if you sue the employer and win, then the employer would sue the training company, right?
This can't possibly be a guarantee against lawsuits. I imagine a really good ambulance chaser could get a jury to award damages, if only on principal.
No, this is simply a checkbox on an audit. All employees must complete required training. If some boxes aren't ticked, then by God those boxes must get ticked.
FairyH those papercuts are the worst aren't they?
Sabrae is there such a thing as being too funny?????
Whirl I imagine that the big 6'4" technology and art technician who spends his day with heavy machinery and moving large sheets of MDF everywhere, found it riveting.
Ah but Natalie most of that time was spent talking about legislation and employer/employee responsibilities. I think most of the group slept through it!
AV I will be here to help whenever you require it. I'm a roughty-toughty ol' bird!
McKoala I expect people will still do or be asked to do stupid things - I suppose this way both employer and employee have something to refer to if they are not happy.
Pete you are absolutely right - it does not absolve an employer if the as an employee to do something which puts them at risk. One of the aims of the course was to educate and empower the employee so that they know they have the right to refuse to do something that puts them at risk and that was the good part. However it was also supposed to show us how to lift safely and how to assess whether or not it is safe to do so. On this it failed miserably because it was deemed too risky.
Ah, the US is rife with ass-covering stuff like this. The pile of paperwork I had to sign and the classes I had to take as a newly-employed-nurse were staggering.
And I must say, these classes absolutely DO help protect your employer from suits (by you). They have GIVEN you the education, it is now on YOUR shoulders to not only make the decision, but to excute properly. If you don't then it is YOUR fault. Oh, there's workman's comp, disability, blah blah blah. But it would be very difficult to sue your employer after they have armed you with this impressive arsenal of decision-making and execution skill.
Why don't we get these classes when we birth our children, I say? That's what has undoubtedly ruined MY back!!
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