More red tape

[johnfm]

Just got a letter from the daughter's school regarding her work experience placement next year.

According to the school, they must 'by law' undertake a health and safety check of the proposed work experience provider - which may cost up to £65 if the provider is outside the region.

Yes, I am sure my daughter's life may be in peril during her one week at the design office for Mulberry UK. I expect she will be crushed by a handbag or be hideously burnt by a Starbucks Latte...

Are they having a fking laugh?

No wonder trying to achieve anything in this beaurocratic hell hole is like swimming in custard.

Pathetic beyond belief.

[tonym911]

That is extraordinary and a ludicrously unnecessary duplication of the H&S checks that Mulberry must 'by law' have carried out on itself in order to do business.

[plasticpig]

My company used to do the student placements. Not anymore though as it became a complete pain in the backside. Went from the kid just turning up to pre and post placement interviews and a load of form filling.

[CoolC]

Surly (as already mentioned) the school just ask Mulberry for their risk assesment that has been carried out on their offices.

[Digga]

It is a piss-boiler to think that, somehow the idiots running our education systme feel they need to have a parallel H&S system to that of the HSE.

For now, we still accept work placements from local schools, but it's a close-run thing. Unlike some sorts of firm, we get very little out of it - we're not generally looking for GCSE school-leavers - but do this because we want to contribute and beleive it is vitally important that school leavers have a more rigorous education in terms of real work, the standards required and the hours entailed.

[johnfm]

CoolC said:

Surly (as already mentioned) the school just ask Mulberry for their risk assesment that has been carried out on their offices.

You would hope so.

You would expect some common sense.

If, for instance, we fill out the form to do work experience feeding sharks by hand at the London Aquarium, then rightly a school might say "hmm, lets assess the risk of a 16 year old with no scuba training going into a tank to feed sharks".

The same may be said for, say, a placement in a factory where there are real risks of machinery killing people if things go wrong - a foundry for example.

But an architects office, or a law firm, or a bank, or retail? It is just bonkers.

[Laughingman21]

Too many people who know nothing about H&S are put in charge of H&S. They have no clue on how to do a risk assessment and also seem to think that H&S involves eliminating and not minimising risk.

[Sticks.]

Will all business premises which take placements have done their own H&S assessment? Only ask because a friend of mine who runs a small business from a shop (with a workshop) and takes WPs, but has never mentioned H&S.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Laughingman21 said:

Too many people who know nothing about H&S are put in charge of H&S. They have no clue on how to do a risk assessment and also seem to think that H&S involves eliminating and not minimising risk.

H&S has its place, but its spread like a disease to alot of places it shouldnt.

I used to work at Corus. Now if anyones been to the BOS plant or the Beam Mill on Teesside then you will know H&S is a must and is not to be taken lightly. However they did have their heads on the right way round most of the time and didnt over do it... there was some silly bugger stuff like going to get the HS rep before even driving into say a finishing bay to do some measurements (we got bked for simply driving the van into the unloading area and then walking back out to go see the HS man). But on the whole, they make you aware of all big dangers... like what will get you crushed to death, dismembered or pulverised, not what you might graze your knuckles on.

Get back to the office and we got 3 stooges going around doing an H&S office inspection... looking for risk of paper cuts and stacks of paper. No stacks of paper on your desk they say, they could topple and hurt you... no desk fans, you might catch your fingers... basically just absolute cod st, turning anything and everything into a bloody risk. They seem to forget life involves risk, it is impossible to do away with risk and they seem to always always forget the line "REASONABLY PRACTICABLE"... as in dont do stty H&S for H&S sake or to justify your existance as a H&S drone.

Btw I got a bking off those guys as well after they asked me if I felt safe sat behind my desk (1 computer, 2 ring binders and 2 small stacks of paper less than an inch high each). I told them I was living on the edge, with my 3 empty tea cups an all.

But honestly they'd been made H&S dudes and blatantly didnt know a thing about it, but with their new found power felt compelled to run around the offices interfering with everyones work. They took H&S so far in my offices that one guy almost completely stopped doing his normal job and just wandered round the site looking for things to trip over, cut himself on, walk into or bang his head on. He took great pride in going out with his camera to photo graph himself tripping over, cutting himself, banging his head and producing pretty H&S Alert reports to show in the weekly meetings and claim his brownie points. I think they eventually made him a H&S guy to shut him up!

[perdu]

Otispunkmeyer said:

They took H&S so far in my offices that one guy almost completely stopped doing his normal job and just wandered round the site looking for things to trip over, cut himself on, walk into or bang his head on. He took great pride in going out with his camera to photo graph himself tripping over, cutting himself, banging his head and producing pretty H&S Alert reports to show in the weekly meetings and claim his brownie points. I think they eventually made him a H&S guy to shut him up!

re:^^^^^^^

I have Boiling Pifff Syndrome!

Do you think you should have subjected me to a hot willy without a H&S warning?

Where do I complain?

But as this thread says, all this crap has gotten (is that a word?) utterly ridiculous.

Edited by perdu on Monday 17th October 16:46

[johnfm]

Just had letter back from the school suggesting that despite the fact that the company in question is huge, AIM listed etc etc, they still need to check their employor's liability insurance is in place, their proposed working hours for placement students are within H&S criteria etc etc.

Just bking paper shuffling crap.

[willfinch36]

I remember when I did work experience.... I wasn't allowed to make the tea incase I burnt myself!

[tomw2000]

Send them an invoice for your time reading all their 'work experience H&S LIES' correspondence?