Dangerous shop practices

[wayfast1500]

What kinds of things have you guys seen when working in a shop that OSHA would not approve of?  I was working at a shop where the shop owner tried to get me to work under a chevy 2500 van that was lifted with a old fork truck.  I said no way and I'm glad I did 20 minutes later the van dropped down a foot from the leaking hydrolic cylinders.  Same shop used customer trucks to tow cars from the back of the lot, had me torch cut a 200 gallon oil tank, then he got surprised when there was 10' flames shooting up when it seperated and had no fire extinguisher in the shop, tried to push a conversion van with a fork truck with the back end on a jack and asked me to steer it.  After a few months I got out of there.  The shop I'm at now is very safety cautious, even leaving a air line on the ground in a way it can be tripped on will get you a talking to from the owner.   

[PA Dodger]

Where do I start?
I used to work in a big old 2 1/2 story factory. We were getting visitors and had to make the shop look good.  So one coworker climbs into a parts tote pan with a spray gun hooked to a long air line, then the overhead crane operator picks up the parts tote and gets it swinging pretty good. The shop was painted in no time. Yes, alcohol was involved. No one got hurt so I guess that makes it OK?

[bobs66440]

What kinds of things have you guys seen when working in a shop that OSHA would not approve of?  I was working at a shop where the shop owner tried to get me to work under a chevy 2500 van that was lifted with a old fork truck.  I said no way and I'm glad I did 20 minutes later the van dropped down a foot from the leaking hydrolic cylinders.  Same shop used customer trucks to tow cars from the back of the lot, had me torch cut a 200 gallon oil tank, then he got surprised when there was 10' flames shooting up when it seperated and had no fire extinguisher in the shop, tried to push a conversion van with a fork truck with the back end on a jack and asked me to steer it.  After a few months I got out of there.  The shop I'm at now is very safety cautious, even leaving a air line on the ground in a way it can be tripped on will get you a talking to from the owner.   

Wow! Hopefully someone does something to stop those dangerous practices before someone gets killed...

[wayfast1500]

The shop probably went under, last I heard he wasnt on good standings with the secretary of state, and the IRS for not filing his taxes since '08.

[bull]

Well, I worked at a sawmill for a short time where the safety rules were bent quite often. Of course management knew what was going on but turned a blind eye because it increased productivity, and they could blame the employees if anything went wrong, which it did in s big way once. After I quit it seems the journeyman welders started to play a little game called "jump in and fix stuff quickly without locking the machine out" and it cost one of the players his life. Yea, he took a short ride inside the chipper because he thought he could get in and weld something before they started the line back up. Wrong.

[bobs66440]

The shop probably went under, last I heard he wasnt on good standings with the secretary of state, and the IRS for not filing his taxes since '08.

Not surprising...

[bobs66440]

Well, I worked at a sawmill for a short time where the safety rules were bent quite often. Of course management knew what was going on but turned a blind eye because it increased productivity, and they could blame the employees if anything went wrong, which it did in s big way once. After I quit it seems the journeyman welders started to play a little game called "jump in and fix stuff quickly without locking the machine out" and it cost one of the players his life. Yea, he took a short ride inside the chipper because he thought he could get in and weld something before they started the line back up. Wrong.

[Old Moparz]

I worked at a packing & crating company in NYC my last year of high school. The owner of the company also owned the 5 story building we were in. So with him being the landlord, we also had to fix, or do a few other things around the building for the tenants. One time the fire inspector told him there were some steps on the fire escape on the outside of the building that needed to be repaired. The boss told me & another guy to get the drill, some nuts & bolts, and go up to the roof & work our way down the fire escape to repair it.

No big deal I thought, it would be nice to work outdoors for a change. We went up the stair well, out onto the roof, over the parapet & onto the ladder. We started with the fire escape steps between the 4th & 5th floors that were rusty & corroded. Neither of us knew how to "test" bad fire escape steps, so we stood on the platform at the 5th floor & kicked downward on the top step. It seemed solid, so we worked our way down. Eventually we'd have a step shake or move, so that's the one we knew we had to drill & bolt. I think we fixed about 10 loose ones & 2 or 3 that were hanging.

Inside the building, sometimes one of the art galleries would get a delivery of a painting that was too large for the elevator. We'd lower the elevator to the basement, use the special key to open the elevator doors, then climb on top of it with the painting & ride up to whichever floor we had to go to. We'd stop at the floor below, open the doors the same way & get the painting out. The shaft was slightly bigger than the elevator so there was enough room between the elevator & the wall to slip into & get dragged up or down the shaft. Nobody ever slipped, so I guess we were lucky.

[elacruze]

Drag racing forklifts, in a warehouse full of boxes with lots of cross-aisles.

For the Win, a little soapy water around the beam at the other end for a hairpin turn two-way.

Since supervisors were spectating, the fine ended up to be north of $150,000 to the company. OSHA don't play.

[John_Kunkel]

Working off of a forklift is for sissies, real men use two.

[aussiemuscle]

I'm surprised shows like american chopper and such have such poor safety. who needs a welding mask for tacking 

in australia, work safety is taken very seriously and we push safety all the time. Like bull i work in a sawmill. guys used to loose fingers all the time, now we hardly loose time to injury. Worksafe is always on our backs tho.

[greenpigs]

Another forklift story. To check the upper racks a person would get in an empty tub & the lift operator would put them up. Guess it was around 25 feet and the tub was sorta stable, no one died.

[PocketThunder]

Drag racing forklifts, in a warehouse full of boxes with lots of cross-aisles.

For the Win, a little soapy water around the beam at the other end for a hairpin turn two-way.

Since supervisors were spectating, the fine ended up to be north of $150,000 to the company. OSHA don't play.

We used to have time trials racing forklifts around the distribution center at Menards.  You had to keep and empty pallet on to fool the supervisors.  it was always a race to get the fastest machine when work started. 

[Brock Samson]

 in '78 I worked at Candlestick Park stocking beer,.. on off (non-game) days we would race each other in our forklifts around the Mezzenine breaking through the padlocked chain link fences... Great fun for a couple teenagers working around thousands of kegs!!!   free Hamburgers, sandwiches and hot dogs too...   our bosses spent all day down below in the shop playing cards and drinking beer, they would only venture up at the begining of the shift... after 11:00 am it was just us Yahoos...  Great Topic! 

[Wicked72]

I dont know if OSHA even cares but how about working in a maximum security block in a jail with a cart loaded with 500lbs of tools working on a cell door while murders and other sick bastards are not even in their cells and the officers(which is to good of a title) fall asleep on the other side of the room and not even pay attention to anything other then the personal phone calls they make from the facilities phones. Hell I have to watch my damn tools and fix a door that basically can not be fix but a little duct tape and bubble gum I smuggled in should do the trick for a little while. This place is in Washington DC and is ranked the 5th in the nation for highest amount of inmates with aids. 80% of the doors in the entire place need to be torn down to nothing and something else installed since the parts do not exist anymore. In all other maximum jails they post extra officers and never even let them out! DUH!...Where was I going with this? God I hate my job....

[charger490]

i was on my way to deliver gas to a station but i was held up by a detour so i was late getting there. at the station the guys were working on a rear end of the car inside the bay. they had an empty alcohol barral under the car holding up the rear end with blocks of wood on top of the barral.they were working with a torch . as i rounded a corner to get to the station it blew up the place and both guys were blew out into the street and they both died.the cops got there and told me to get the truck out of there and i told them as soon as you get the cars behind me out of the way i will.
i sure was glad that detour was there or i would have been at the station delivering the gas

[Wicked72]

well holy crap its crazy to think the dangerous job I have the chance of something happening is greater however when something so minor is left to chance it has just as great a possibility to end a life.