Archive for category: Tool Box Talks

Hearing loss is a natural progression of age. Is it common for an 80 year old to be yelling “Huh”? Of course it is. But without proper hearing protection, we are speeding up this process. So make sure you have the correct PPE on, or you could be yelling “Huh” just months into your career.

Anything above 85 decibels can be hazardous to your hearing. With grinding from 95-105 decibels, arc gouging at 115, to just using a common power tool at 94 decibels, we need to take the appropriate precautions.

You will usually have your choice of ear muffs or plugs. Muffs don’t always offer as much protection as plugs. Some ear muffs are not as protective with safety glasses, welding lids or hard hats unless you have the ones fastened right to your hard hat. Ear plugs are much more common and convenient. Usually the disposable kind are offered by employers. You can also get banded and custom ones. When using these, read and follow the directions. If your ear plugs are sticking out of your canals like Frankenstein bolts, they’re not working. Always make sure they are placed properly.

Ear protection should be worn at all times on site so pick what’s comfortable for you.
Wear the proper protection so hearing loss is only a possibility with age and when your spouse is nagging (Kidding… not kidding).

Whether it’s teaching us to tie our shoes, learning our ABC’s or striking our first arc… Here’s to all our dads! Working hard at home and on site to ensure a better future.
If you’re a Dad please always take the time to be safe.  You need to make it back home to your rugrats…they need you….and to all the rugrats, don’t forget to treat your dad, he deserves it!

 

Happy father’s Day everyone.

 

JHA (Job Hazard Analysis), FLRA (Field-Level Risk Assessments) and JSA (Job Safety Analysis) are just a few of the more common terms used on sites. No matter what name you give them, they are a morning ritual on every site. I know it can feel redundant filling out the same card every day especially if you’re doing the same job day-in and day-out. But these cards are designed for a specific purpose and that’s your safety. JHA’s help you detail the hazards you may encounter during the day, this is something that you should go over to help you stay alert and to avoid complacency. So the worker that has a fully filled JHA in their back pocket and copies their card everyday is not doing themselves any favors. Or, the person who is working in a group and signs on to the JHA without reading it, is also not doing themselves any favors. You need to look around and think about what you will be doing. If you think it will be the same as the previous day, chances are it won’t. Things can change drastically from day-to-day on site, from weather, additional workers in your area making it congested, to new construction, anything and everything changes and that makes your hazards change too. Completing a card thoroughly only takes 15-20 minutes… And if your safety wasn’t enough to make you do a JHA properly, you also get paid to do them. You should have just as much pride in your safety as your workmanship.

I talked about near misses last week, which got me thinking about an incident that happened to me as a young apprentice. I thought I’d better share it, because if it happened to me it could happen to anyone… And I’m still pretty sore about it. When it’s your life on the line, it’s hard to just forget it.

With maintenance jobs, you’re more than likely going to use “lock out / tag out” or “LOTO”, it’s pretty standard. This is a practice where a worker physically stops whatever they are working on from being energized. Put simply, you use a lock to secure that piece of machinery or equipment in the “OFF” position. The lock has a tag with all the information needed, the who, why and when. The person who attached the lock and tag is the ONLY person authorized to remove it and should have the ONLY key to unlock it. This gives the other workers the piece of mind knowing that while they are working on that particular machinery or equipment it will not start up. So you can imagine my surprise when on the Friday of a long weekend, I went to remove my lock at the end of the day and it was already off! Turns out that some of the crew decided we should shut down a few minutes early for the long weekend and went ahead and removed everyone’s locks. Well I didn’t get the memo and worked till the end of the day. I worked on that equipment for probably 10 minutes after my lock had been removed, doesn’t sound like much but it literally only takes a second. I could have been pulled into this machine and killed, all because someone wanted to stand around and chew the fat for ten minutes… and they were doing it in the control room. So now my lock is off and the room is packed with workers. Think about that! This incident still haunts me, things could have turned out very different. Needless to say, a huge investigation ensued and people lost their jobs, which is a win compared to people losing their lives.

Make sure you always follow safety protocol, nothing is worth losing your job and most importantly human life over. Follow the rules, they are there for a reason.

Have you ever worked on a site where near misses are usually followed with a quick cover up and an agreement that no one saw anything?…….. I have. Near miss cards usually go empty at the end of the day. This stems from a misconception that admitting you “almost” had an incident will lead to you getting skidded from site. Not true! Near misses are learning experiences. If this close call happened to you, it could happen to anyone and steps need to be taken to stop this hazard in its tracks. Safety officers are not out to get you. They are there to make sure you go home every night safely. So do yourself and your co-workers a favour and share a near miss if you have one. You might just save someone’s life!