Alive & Well At Work

Enjoying life are you? It's important to most people that the answer is always yes, although this is not a very realistic expectation. Sometimes life can get downright unpleasant and we have to do things we would rather not, like working, fighting or ending a relationship. Sometimes the unpleasant things we have to do have no personal gain that is easy to see, or the benefit is far outweighed by the risk. If we look coolly and rationally at what we are doing we should always be thinking safety first.

Life is not like that, we take risks and put ourselves into terrible situations for all sort of crap reasons sometimes reasons as daft as impressing others. I'll tell you why it's daft, although I know it wont change the way men act, I think it's written into our DNA. It's daft because we take calculated risks without enough accurate knowledge. ( We usually have no previous experience of dying horribly in a road accident so we can't be sure if that's better or worse than not doing it? ) The other reason it's daft is that taking risks in a way that we think others like mates or girls will admire us for, a large proportion of them won't.


My father belonged to a time in which hard graft was admired as a virtue. He used to say, "Hard work never killed anyone". How on earth did anyone fool him into believing that, generally speaking he was a pretty sensible type. Any set of statistics you use will confirm that manual workers tend to die before non manual workers, and countries whose stage of industrial development still demands large numbers of unskilled workers always have a shorter average life span than the others. I would never use the term "civilised" to describe the industrially developed nations, in many ways they seem to become less civilised the further along that road they go, but enough of my ramblings.


The first rule for staying safe and alive at work therefore would be to get a job that is not manual. For many that is not realistic however, and it's just as well. Without the armies of under rated "unskilled" workers society would quickly grind to a sticky end, whatever anyone believes about the age of technology. That's why society writes rules and laws about what workers can and can't do, and their responsibility to themselves and each other.


Although self preservation is a strong force acting on our lives there are others almost as strong. Safety is not just about driving a bit slower or being careful at work, it is in every part of our lives, even our sex lives. We come from a past where in order to mate we would need to be able to demonstrate the ability to provide for offspring by hunting in the dangerous wilderness.



We were and are programmed to want to take risks, or our species would have died out long before we even developed enough to design the Ford Corsair. It remains a major need, even though modern life can be successfully lived without taking more than the every day risks of living. We still admire dare devil stunts, demonstrations to others that some people will have a go at anything for money, status or just the thrill. I suspect that the thrill part is not as powerful an element as we sometimes think, it's certainly not as strong when you're on your own. It's often the demonstration to others that counts, being the only one, or the fastest one, or the highest... you get the picture.

The duty of a person at work is to further the objectives of his employer whether that is profit or some other desired result. The employee and his boss have responsibilities to each other and themselves to see that this duty can be carried out at minimal risk.

This is quite a recent development in the workplace and as a result not every situation is covered by legislation. The very least you should do is to find out what is available to make your place of work, or your school, or anywhere you will spend some time, to make life safer. It might be as simple as finding out where the fire exits or extinguishers are. A famous person once said quite rightly that a working man's capital is his health, without that he is bankrupt. Enlightened employers take a genuine interest in the health and welfare of their workers, they are often the most valuable commodity a firm can have. Those who are not so enlightened should note that the legislation is not comprehensive and that new interpretations are being put on the rules by the courts every day, resulting in awards for damages for harm which occurs because of work. Need health and safety advice or information in the Bradford or Keighley area, ring the health and safety helpline on Keighley 01535 664462.