This thread was started on March 1st 2006 by yours truly. It began with this line:
"Am I the only one in this paranoid society who is sick and tired of "safety posters" and the hackneyed opportunists that are breathlessly hawking them?"
Since then, we have diverted into all manner of great signs and posters that we have seen - and that's been a ton of fun. But (to begin a sentence with a preposition) the original irritation still persists - "safety" hacks of all kinds still call us up asking for either a long-ago terminated "contact" employee or (even more annoying) "the person in charge of safety". I just hang up - but that doesn't stop the calls.
Today I answered a call from what turned out to be (after much interrogation) a company called
Progressive Business Compliance - they first asked for a mountain manager who has been gone for years. After asking how long it had been since they last called, they then asked for "the person in charge of OSHA compliance (I hate the word compliance). I just hung up. They immediately called back - so I gave them a bogus contact name and an impossible chain of phone numbers and extensions to reach him. Should keep them busy for a while. I also took the trouble to find their website and to "contact" them. The following e-mail pretty much summarizes my feelings toward such companies and their products.
To: Progressive Business Compliance
To whom it might concern:
You will no longer place "sales" phone calls to Brian Head Resort. Remove us from your "hit list" immediately.
A few tips:
- You often ask for employees who have not worked here in years this immediately flags you as a "sales" network. I just hang up.
- Asking for "the person in charge of "safety" or "whomever is in charge of OSHA compliance" also flags you as a sales hack. I just hang up.
- "Safety" is a completely overused word and should be avoided at all costs by intelligent people. Avoidance of injury is achieved neither through overpriced, trite posters nor an abundance of "official" forms. Safety is not just a slogan it is also not some nebulous, unachievable utopia where no one is at risk. Accident reduction is the result of informed common sense and avoidance of hazardous situations. I seriously doubt that your company and its trash products are of much help in the real industrial world
even though there is no shortage of poorly-informed lay pundits who loudly insist otherwise.
Those of us who earn a living by producing useful products and services and who daily risk our well-being by performing such work generally ignore companies and products like yours as well as the mindless followers you have managed to convince that propaganda is a useful tool in avoiding injury.
I'm happy that you have secured gainful employment shoddy though it is but I will thwart your sales efforts whenever possible. My advice is to find a more productive occupation.
Ernest M. Fischer III
This post has been edited by Emax: 20 October 2009 - 10:46 AM