One of the rules in youth soccer is that before a player plays, he must be wearing shin pads. No shin pads, no playing. A new young referee is going to miss a lot of important calls in a soccer game but this is one he isn’t going to miss. It’s the one rule he knows: it’s called a no brainer.
An interesting scene begins to unfold when the young ref discovers little Johnny isn’t wearing shin pads today. The referee signals for the distracted coach to come over where he and Johnny are. Johnny’s teammates begin to form a semi circle around him; though they won’t be able to understand why he can’t play today.
Soon the parents, who are on the sidelines, notice their “parental radar “ beeping and start looking towards the scrum. Finally, Johnny’s mother, who has her 2 younger children with her, is called to the scrum. She has no idea what could be wrong. She arrives and the young ref, who is too young to know what tact means, tells her Johnny has no shin pads and won’t be playing soccer this morning. She looks at Johnny for some explanation. Johnny’s chosen defense is to pretend he just arrived from Outer Space: I have no idea what you’re talking about. She looks at the coach, who is just a volunteer on this cold rainy morning, and has moved onto his next problem. Johnny’s mother knows she got up in the dark, got her son out of bed and into the car. Picked up his friend to come to this wet, cold playing field. Drove for an hour to a field that has no shelter from the rain or wind. It was her husband’s idea that their son should play soccer. But he’s away on business and won’t be home till tomorrow. So she is doing all the driving. No one seems to care about all the effort she put into getting here. All they care about that she forgot to make sure her son brought his shin pads. Now, she starts wondering whose shin she should be kicking.
Safety inspectors can make life very difficult for bosses when they believe a work site is unsafe. Their responsibility is to make sure the work site is safe for all workers. And usually they have been granted a lot of power to enforce their viewpoint. Using intimidation, strong language, or any other knee jerk reaction with the safety inspector generally doesn’t help him immediately understand your viewpoint.
Believe it or not, it’s interesting to flip through a cylinder cart catalogue. You can see where safety inspectors have been the impetus behind certain cylinder carts. The question I have is:
when the infraction was discovered, were they given a time to get things corrected OR did they have to shut the job down until it was corrected.
On the right is a cylinder cart with an eye on it. The first cylinder cart made didn’t have that.
Cylinders were once hoisted up onto the job site or work piece without the eye.
The cart on the left has a flame wall between the oxygen cylinder and the flammable gas. One day, somewhere on some job site, it was requested that there be a firewall between the two cylinders.
The cylinder cart’s humble beginnings are rooted in efficiency. The basic cylinder cart is a marvellous idea. By creating a cart to hold the two cylinders, putting a little tool box on the cart, putting on applicable wheels to match the terrain (shop floor, or rocky paths, etc) you’ve created this portable work station. I love going into the trade schools and seeing these neat workstations lined up like ready, neatly attired soldiers on a parade ground.
One of the things you might want to look at is your cylinder cart. Are they able to pass the safety inspection? And are they doing the best job for you? We don’t want you scrambling at inopportune time looking for something that requires a 2-week lead-time. That’s worse than a kick in the shins.
Cheers,
Ron-Son’s Torch
