iwishihad comment on safety problems

George managed the nucleus of the printworks in the 'Twin-Cities'. He only had two staff, Elsie and Fred. Elsie prepared the plastic to wrap the final product in while Fred did the heavy-stuff, lugged the huge paper rolls from the store, changed them on the print machine, and removed the printed, cut output transferring it to Elsies' machine when ready. Automation is wonderful, providing you have the job of feeding it. The small nucleic department had worked flawlessly and profitably for over a decade. The 'triad' had no qualifications, just 'Workplace Experience, over-'currency' experience, by 'todays' standards.

When the manager called George in that day, it was to be a simple change. 'Need an OH&S rep in your department.' Was the command that George had to expedite. So George chose Elsie, just in case the 'feminism' bit arose. Not a decision of 'fairness', perhaps, more a decision of, 'Flexibility', perhaps. Fred whinged a bit when Elsie left for the one day each week, for eight weeks, to attend the company funded OH&S course. George upped his pay, a bit. George had some power. Fred whinged, but not so loudly, he was very flexible in the hip-pocket, like most of us are. Elsie finally became 'accredited'. Filled in the open-book 'assessment'. Got a brand new OH&S reg-book. The company was happily 'compliant.' Not so Elsie. On the day after her OH&S accreditation Georges department came to a stop.

In the managers' office Elsie stood, perceived as triumphant-like. "Need to paint yellow lines in your department, George." The manager instructed, sideways nodding towards Elsie, clutching an OH&S reg-book. "Elsie will tell you where, OK?" George nodded in disbelief. The work stopped as Fred and George painted yellow 'Safety' lines while Elsie, clutching her manual of doom, supervised their position. Fred's, "Shit, Elsie, we've been walking about this place for the past ten years..." was gob-smacked just as if Elsies' OH&S reg-book had been shoved into it, sideways!

And so it went on. The work piling up as stoppage after stoppage to attend to 'OH&S' stuff took over. The manager did as all managers do, delegated the job of handling Elsie to George. Musn't 'micro-manage' the excuse.

And so it got safer. Safer than safe. Elsie stopped the work for a long time until the 'ladies' had an hygenic, OH&S compliant 'bun-burner' complete with recycled smoke afterburner. George thought Elsie past menopause. Elsie's 'In case another woman uses it.' Didn't help.

Then Fred whinged, again, "She was in the men's loo! Watching me." She wasn't, really. The work stopped again until syringe, 'OH&S safe' disposing receptacles were installed in both the male and female toilets. "Where's the bloody druggies?" From Fred made no difference and he worked all weekend to catch up on the work stoppage.

The men's toilet-seats were loose and could fall on men's 'plonkers'. (Fred wondered what midgets worked there and how Elsie knew this?) New ones took a long time to install, spring-returned toilet seats are rare. Fred worked more, again.

Then George found Fred in the men's toilets his hand covered in blood. George wondered about the 'needle-boxes'. Fred had always been somewhat nozy, but they were always empty. Apparently Fred had been confused by the new signs on the machinery. The multicultural ones, in six, different languages had taken weeks of downtime to install. "I only got as far as 'Gobbledy-gobbledy', 'Wait 5 seconds before...', and the cutter cut the top of me thumb off!"

George sympathised and had he known would have realised that lexical input slows down the Bicameral body-learnt response as consciousness interferes, trying to relay the lexical input to the right lobe.

And so it continued. Throughput ceased as the place became an Oh! Help &Scream 'Hell' for George and Fred. But for Elsie, it was safer than safe!

In a large company the management can 'restructure' when the input exceeds the output. Drop off the 'Dregs'. Retain their employment.

In a large company, with a bottleneck in the production route, the bottleneck manager is the 'Dregs'.

George had attended the same 'Never-reply-to-you' job Agency for some time now. Then Fred arrived. "What happened?" George enquired. The company had gone into liquidation was the answer invoking his thought, 'To get rid of HER?' A tantalising realism as Elsie also arrived, in reality, still clutching her reg-book, the latter looking somewhat 'Maoist' to George.

Both George and Fred watched in silence. No 'Workplace Assessment' for them. It had GONE! No qualifications either!

And, Elsie? "Oh, you have an OH&S Certificate. Wow! That must have cost you!," The job Agency lady said to Elsie, "No problem, we have at least fifty places for this type of qualification." Elsie smiled at the nice, helpful lady.

Elsie also smiled at her old boss and ex-colleague as she left.

She wasn't really vindictive.

It was only 'her' perception of the OH&S reg-book after all.

It wasn't just that 'management' didn't have the guts to challenge this perception. It was merely an interpretation of words, or perhaps, complex, newly defined metaphors, that created the 'thing' trying, now, after 3000 years, to interpret its' siblings by genrating profuse, lexical, descriptive laws to control the consciousness it had spawned, perhaps to achieve this.

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