USVI-On-Line

My son works in a firm, which is owned by a big American company.

Some days ago they received a mail with warnings about how to maintain a safe workplace in the Holiday season.

Here are some of the warnings:

Keep paper and other combustible materials away from electrical outlets, space heaters or other sources that could cause a fire.

Decorating our cubicles is fun, but hanging decorations from sprinklers and light fixtures can be dangerous and violate applicable fire code.

Take your time and pay attention to where you are going.

Wear appropriate footwear with non-skid soles

Remember to keep your car locked and to put valuables in the trunk or take them with you.

Do not leave valuables in your desk or cabinets. Lock all valuable items

Is it common with such warnings from the boss? Just curious!

Linne

No Linne, unfortunately the world is inhabited by a large population of idiots. That's why they need to tell cigarette smokers that smoking is hazardous to your health right on the package....like someone couldn't figure that out!

Not to hijack the thread, but remember when everyone was using those cardboard things inside their car under the windshield to block out the sun and keep the car cool?

We passed them out as promotional items one year and it actually said "Do not use while driving".

DELETED

Unfortunately some of these warnings, although seemingly silly, are necessary. I was in my dentist's waiting room and noticed that they had halloween decorations hanging from the sprinkler head. I pointed it out to the receptionists and they didn't think it was a problem.

"Failure to warn" is a lucrative source of finding legal liablity in the good ol' U.S.of A.

Plus, people get complacent and do dumb things that jeopardize the safety of themselves and others, and, the safety dept. has to justify their existence.

DELETED

djmom, thanks for the morning laugh!

linne, yes, warnings like that are pretty normal around holiday time. My office gets something similar every year. Well, not the footwear thing, but the fire code reminder.

JMQ....risk management? LOL. I was going to say the same thing! And I'd add to that, that fewer and fewer people seem to have any sense of personal responsibility to the employer, or the facility. People won't bend down to pick a candy wrapper up or put a safety cone over a spill they come across.
But your answers are the primary reason we have to tell people the obvious!

I work in a chemical lab environment where hazardous chemicals are commonplace. It is not uncommon to see female colleagues working in open toed shoes and others in athletic shoes even though lab rules requiring steel toed shoes are posted and reminded on a monthly basis. You should see the looks I get when I call someone on the violation during a safety inspection.

I know most companies regularly remind people not to use space heaters under their desks at work. I've always been real cautious with having one under my desk where allowed, but even so, I have gone home and left it on a time or two.

But no one ever reminded me about safe footwear in an office environment (other than maybe they don't allow you to wear flip-flops to work).

DELETED

Oh SJ... we Californians have very thin blood. Space heaters go on when it drops below 70! LOL!!

minde - yup, see below comment if you need further proof...

toes - an effective way to enforce use of safety gear is to write up the supervisor or dept mgr of the violator and have those warnings be a metric in the manager's performance evaluation. THEN they'll get the people in their area to shape up pretty quickly.

jmq wrote:"Failure to warn" is a lucrative source of finding legal liablity in the good ol' U.S.of A.

Plus, people get complacent and do dumb things that jeopardize the safety of themselves and others, and, the safety dept. has to justify their existence.

Thread winner.

For every ridiculous warning sticker you remove from a new product, you can bet your arse that some fool made a million bucks for doing something stupid.