Craziness of the Business

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JGinIndy said:
When I retired 2 years ago from Washington DC the GC’s had their labor crews out doing pre work morning exercise / stretching just like in that movie “Gung Ho” Granted it did look a bit odd but never heard anyone complaining as they were getting paid anyway.
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if it reduces injuries, what is wrong with doing some stretching?
 
petersonra said:
if it reduces injuries, what is wrong with doing some stretching?
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I don’t believe I did. I said it looked odd and no one was complaining. Yes I am sure it did reduce some injuries before humping up 20 flights of stairs.
 
kwired said:
Sounds great, until whoever does get injured or even killed tries to sue anyone and everyone possible because they did nothing to prevent the accident. That is why there is seemingly ridiculous safety policies. If you were working at a Walmart, the greed kicks in in the courtroom, lets go after the employer, the GC, other trades that may have any connection to this, and of course Walmart as well. Even though the individual may have done something stupid entirely on his own that was the primary cause of whatever happened.
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Anybody that has deep pockets, the lawyers will go after first. One of the big box hardware stores that is colored orange had to pay for the stupidity of a customer. The customer was looking at doors, had a bunch pulled out and sitting haphazardly against the racks. One fell over and killed his twin daughters. Courts found big orange 50% at blame because they didn’t have the bays barricaded with a cable.
 
jmellc said:
I know the EC business will not die because the world cannot manage today without it. But I have serious concerns

I now work in facility maintenance & do only a few side jobs here & there. I have long loved electrical work but I am glad to be out of construction & service. The headaches never end.

I worked several jobs the last few years where we had to fill out safety papers each morning & take them to the GC. Same jobs often had rules about using platform ladders instead of standard. 1 GC had the “belt buckle rule”. If your belt buckle goes above the top of the ladder, you get a taller ladder. Then you might have to poke it through ceiling grids. So what if you bend a few? Permits were often required for ladders.

The last construction job I worked was an insane asylum. Major pharmaceutical plant. Meet each morning at 7:00. Each crew leader fills out papers for their assigned job. Each crew member reads & signs. Project manager takes papers to GC and/or customer’s safety officers. Papers reviewed & signed. He returns & we go to our sites. Then someone has to approve beginning work at each site. May be 8:30 or later when we start work. Scaffolds preferred over ladders so we had to build them where we could. 2 or more trades in a room competing for space. If customer’s reps came into an area to talk, we had to stop work, to not disturb them.

I’ll skip other details but we then go to afternoon meeting & get scolded for being lazy & sloppy. Then have a general safety meeting every Tuesday morning and get reminded that we can’t start work until our site is approved.

Add in the other issues we all discuss here. I think a lot of good people will be leaving the business and make it that much harder for those who remain.

Of course no business is trouble free but electrical work seems to have more than should be necessary IMHO.
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Sounds like the large hospital/ research center that I retired from. Would take longer to fill out forms and wait for approvals then it took for a 2 hour job. Then they wonder why union sparky charges $800 for a simple receptacle install.Safety department insisted that everyone use a safety harness on all step ladders above 6' . Asked them where to hook onto on a cramped drop ceiling.
 
DuPont/Merk was super safety conscious, cones and barricade tape around 6’ laddders when working in the offices, even hard hats! They had an employee at the gate recording who was wearing a seatbelt when they arrived. Whenever we worked in the drug vault, a security officer would be beside you the whole time.
 
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