He was lucky that he didn't find himself bobbing up and down in the sea...

It sounded like he had a ship day in the office...

Reminds me of the time when a miniature Hitler came rocketing across the tarmac in his orange and white Hilux pickup “safety vehicle” at a large airport to inform me that I was going to be fined for not having my high visibility vest fully buttoned up.

“But how did you know it wasn’t done up?”, I asked.

“Because I could see you from ALL THE WAY OVER THERE”, he replied, without the slightest trace of irony.

I was working under IR35 at the time when I shouldn’t have been, so the fine was filed in the kitchen bin and the airport didn’t bother to follow it up as it might have raised questions they didn’t want answered.

for the IR35 comment.

Was the problem containerized.

At least the problem was quickly contained

Deary me, and it's just Monday

They spotted Bob because he wasn't wearing hi-viz*, the other person was rendered invisible by theirs.

*Or it might have been the torque wrench he was carrying.

Someone saw someone else without the mandatory hi-viz jacket. Mandatory! Safety! Missing! Must! Report! Or else distaster! Because safety.

Same logic as wearing hard hats on top of the crane - at the highest point where nothing but the sky could fall down on you and wearing anti-fall guard on ground level. Not to forget anti-fall guard in actually dangerous height but without a rope and certainly without anyone holding it. Completely pointless but safety inspectors are fine with it...

At a safety concious* utility company in the south of England, I was called by a colleague to assist him loading some old pallets into his car, in the loading bay. As I am large, was wearing a bright yellow shirt, and it was a overcast, but bright day, I didn't put on hi-viz. (tbh, it didn't occur to me)

Within 5 minutes, some one came running out to point out to me that as I wasn't wearing hi-viz, I'd need to come in. Apparenlty I wasn't visible enough... Did I mention being large and wearing a bright yellow shirt?

Fortunately I had finished helping my colleague anyway.

*some might say safety obsessed

One one of those Michael Portillo train journey TV programmes, he was wearing one of his usual eye-wateringly bright jackets. As they headed into an engine yard his guide handed him a hi-vis jacket, and apologized for having to reduce his visibility...

"One one of those Michael Portillo ... apologized for having to reduce his visibility..."

A different sort of [1]Portillo Moment ? :)

[1] https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSK2vBy1cxAaVuXoCFpz0N14qlwzUX8lw3TYXuQRK9Xr3GM0iOoM3E1Ry8G&s=10

On the BBC "Digging for Britain" most of the archeological digs have archeologists in tshirts, shorts, floppy hats etc as you might expect ... but they featured several digs that were excavating land where HS2 would/might eventually be built and as they were contracted by HS2 they invariably were all in head to toe HS2 hi-viz despite the fact that any trains track etc would not appear for years!

Possibly also to avoid injuries from smacking your head on some bit of metalwork that "wasn't there last time you looked". Any bloodstains, even caused by stupidity, have to be written down.

We had a mandate that everyone who went onto the workshop-floor had to wear toe-protection. A sensible rule which stopped you scuffing your shiny brogues.

Management didn't like this rule and flouted it until the 'workers' pointed to the H&S rulebook...

The management bought a set of 'over-shoes' that provided the same protection to the foot and enabled them to keep up 'appearances'. But they did make the unfortunate wearer look clown-like.....

The resultant sniggering ensured that they bought a pair of 'sensible' work shoes.

A few from my experience.

When Hi-Viz was first coming in on sites (in place of the ubiquitous donkey jacket) I was at one site where they took all the hi-viz off the ground workers to give to the machine operators 'cause Elf 'n Safety had dictated the operators must wear it - that's notwithstanding the fact they were safely sat in blooming great yellow machines with flashing beacons whilst the ground workers were vulnerable.

Brother rocked up at a site to deliver a digger - the first plant for the job in the middle of an empty field. The site agent followed him in and shouted at him for not wearing a hard hat as he exited the cab.

Working on a canal lock restoration, volunteer workers on top of the lock had hard hats on, those from a different group at the bottom didn't. The biggest danger was someone being hit by a falling hard hat as none of them had chin straps.

When the (never used) Nightingale hospitals were being built during the pandemic, they called in the army to help build them.

Being in the army they wore uniforms - in camouflage designs intended to make them difficult to see.

Being on a building site they wore hi-vis jackets over their low-viz camo.

That sounds pretty sensible

As somebody whose job in latter years (before retirement) involved a lot of visits to companies to assess their capability to deliver what the customer wanted (they were called "audits" because that's a term people understand, but were really capability assessments) I could write a book on the ridiculous PPE requirements I encountered. A few examples:

• Safety glasses for people operating hydraulic machinery - but not required for anyone else nearby i.e. just the person at the control panel (often the place least likely to have a high pressure/velocity leak).

• A requirement to wear safety harnesses when working at height - but omitting any requirement to have them fastened to a strong point (so most people would have the "cow's tails" clipped back to their harness).

• A hard hat when cutting into pavement but no requirement for eye protection (flying concrete chips), mouth and nose protection (cement dust) or hearing protection (noise from the hand-held, petrol powered diamond disc cutter).

I recall being told that the HSE* had called an offshore contractor (for the UK North Sea O&G sector) to stop their staff phoning in safety observations for the building site opposite their offices - "it's a construction site, not an offshore platform". There are a lot of jokes about H&S, especially offshore, but it's one of the most hazardous places to work yet has one of the best records for safe working. Yes, there are excessive requirements, but it generates a culture where people fly back to the shore in the same physical condition that they had when they flew out.

And a lot of the onshore excesses that get blamed on the HSE are a result of a fear of prosecution, and well in excess of any legislative requirement. I recall a meeting where the head of the HSE at the time commented that children need to learn that falling out of a tree hurts - before they get into situations that cause real injury.

* For left-pondians: the UK Health & Safety Executive - the body responsible for overseeing the implementation of UK H&S legislation (and prosecuting breaches).

I must admit my interactions with the HSE were generally sensible - even when I wanted them to condemn a piece of machinery so I could get it replaced they helpfully suggested improvements instead.

The issue was usually company safety officers - I had one who's idea of a risk assessment was that even the most minor hazard would kill you, e.g. noticing a minor crack in concrete, "It's very likely someone will trip over that and if they do they might bang their head on the floor and die!"

I used to do the IT in a lime quarry. I had to wear high vis (yellow). I normally wear black. You'd think black would be more highvis against white then fluorescent yellow...

Probably, but it doesn't necessarily shout out "person here". Like hunters who wear bright orange baseball caps, white might be as visible against a dark background but there are few animals with fluorescent orange pelts, so less chance of a mistake.

I assume "the senior tech on site" who accompanied Bob was suitably* admonished for not enforcing site rules.

* obviously

Just when people were getting really sniffly about static sensitivity of semiconductor devices, the edict went round at one place I worked that ALL components would be packed in conductive bags.

Strangely, after that an awful lot of memory backup batteries came out of stores flat.

What shape where they before?

A joke? maybe...

Guy out walking comes to a lake where a couple of others are having a skimming competition. He is astonished to see them getting 10 -15 bounces.

"Wow!" He says, "What kind of stones are you using to do that?"

"They're not stones", is the reply "AA batteries." and to prove it they skim another couple across.

The following day he goes along again with a bunch of batteries, and ask if he can join in. However he's upset that his only get 1 bounce, and sometimes not even that.

"Why can't I do it?" He asks. "I got these from the shop this morning."

"Well, that's the problem." One of the others says. "It only works with flat batteries."