30+ Cringe-Worthy Violations Of Safety Standards That Will Leave You Concerned About People's Intelligence

Are these safety regulations or suggested guidelines? Some people, apparently, do not know the difference let alone the purpose.

Elana

• Published in Interesting
• August 28, 2022

We've all seen questionable signs that tell a greater story than what we see in front of us. We've also all seen warning labels that shouldn't be necessary but alas, they are necessary for a reason and that reason is equal parts shocking, hilarious, and pathetic.

Regardless of how you feel about the purpose or necessity of warnings, guidelines, and regulations that aim to steer low-IQ folks into making smarter, safer, and/or healthier decisions, you most likely understand that safety regulations exist for reasons beyond your ability to understand right from wrong. Humans are adventurous, obstinate, and even the most boring among us have their moments of thrill-seeking.

This means we don't always make great choices and we require guidance from other people who have put in the time and effort to research best and worst-case scenarios. As such, most of us who work know that safety regulations exist at work and that they are overseen by a variety of compliance professionals.

If you work in a restaurant, you're familiar with the health inspector, for example. In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (more commonly known as OSHA) is a large regulatory agency of the Department of Labor. OSHA protects workers from health and safety hazards on the job, any job.

That means that OSHA inspectors have seen some sh*t. If you've ever wondered about some of the most abhorrent, shocking, or jaw-dropping things they've reported seeing, then you're in luck because they hopped on Reddit to answer that question!

1. "I worked in a lab doing cytomegalovirus research."

"One day we had workers in replacing the lights and one said ‘wow- I always thought those shower things were real!’ Pointing at one of the emergency showers in the lab. These are for heavy duty chemical spills where you run under the shower and pull a handle to decontaminate.

Turns out ours were just the shower heads in the ceiling not connected to any water. We used extremely dangerous chemicals every day. We got the showers hooked up pretty quickly after that."

- Smokeylongred

2. "Not the OSHA guy, but it happened in the plant I was working in."

"Idiot is told by junior manager to clean the floor after a chemical spill (I don't recall what it was for certain, but we used a LOT of industrial adhesives, so maybe that). Idiot ignores all his safety training, and the entire closet full of cleaning gear, and decides to clean the spill with acetone. And a steel wire brush.

It wasn't so much of an explosion as a deep "whumph" sound that sucked most of the air out of the room. He was horribly burned. His clothes melted into his skin. 3rd degree burns covered his body. Incredibly, he was still alive when the Fire and Paramedics got there. He opened his eyes, asked for a cigarette, and died right there on the floor. What did we do? Hosed down the floor, and the line was back up by that afternoon. Quit that job as soon as I was able."

- Corsair09

3. "I was on the Workplace Health and Safety committee."

"The committee head at the time decided to change a lightbulb. Do you think that she used a step ladder on the sloped surface? Nope, office chair with wheels and nobody to hold it still. So many stupid decisions in that last sentence. Of course she fell, broke her arm, and received work place compensation.

The kicker? The light bulb wasn't blown, she was just using the wrong light switch."

- meri_bassai

4. Oh, Walmart.

"When I used to work at Walmart they use to block FIRE EXITS.

They probably still do it yet I don't think OSHA does anything about that."

- HouseofPain1

5. "Watch 8 tonnes of pipe fall from about 20m because someone was in a rush and used the incorrect rigging."

"The kicker is everyone there (20-30 people) were totally willing to let it go unreported, except me. I never really did make too many friends after that. Oh well."

- ski--free

6. "I used to work as a safety consultant for an insurance broker."

"One of our insureds had an employee who was tasked to apply a “Do not enter, compactor starts automatically” sign on a cardboard box compactor. The idiot set the can of spray adhesive on the lip of the compactor, knocked it in, and then jumped in the compactor to get it.

Of course it started automatically because it’s a machine that can’t tell idiot from box. He’s lucky some else was walking by and saved his life.

Edit: he went into the compactor AFTER sticking the sign to the front of it."

- mad_wood_scientist

7. "I taught skydivers to be tandem instructors."

"One dropzone bought a new type of tandem rig and faked their training... management had them lie about it to me and another examiner.

Chief instructor's excuse: "They're all the same anyway."

He had a malfunction caused by his not knowing how the rig worked, and his poor paying first-time passenger had no idea the danger this arrogant prick put him through. The worst thing was the training was free! Seriously, WTF..."

- Base841

8. "I'm not a safety inspector but this came to mind...."

"I am an electrician in Las Vegas. One jobsite I was on was the remodel of the hotel tower at Caesars Palace. We started at the bottom floor and worked our way up the tower one floor a week for a year. It was horrible air conditions, major demolition, massive dust(because the hotel windows in Vegas don't open in order to keep people from jumping out), they rely on exhaust fans to circulate air but don't run the fans for the subhuman construction workers like myself.

Then after almost a year, coughing and gagging when we were on the VERY LAST FLOOR(level 44) a team of men showed up in hazmat suits and shut the job down. Apparently all of the sparkly dust we were breathing everyday was almost entirely asbestos. FML"

- humbleprotector

9. "Wasn’t our plant but another plant for our company."

"We have these huge steel drums that we fill with 100s of pounds of ingredients that go onto an hydraulic lift that lifts and tilts the drum and pours the contents into a kettle.

The drum shifts forward a little bit on the lift while all the way up and falls back into place on its way down. The operator was resting his hand on the bottom of the lift while lowering it back down and the drum fell back down on his finger and pretty much turned it into mush.

That’s not the worst part. Afterwards the safety lead was doing a review of the incident and another operator showed the safety lead EXACTLY what happened and smashed his finger in the same manner."

- vickers24

10. "Fire Inspector here, finding a guy using a propane grill inside a building. He was initially pissed off when I told him he couldn’t do that, until I showed him the stratified smoke that was about a foot off the ceiling."

- escushawn

11. "I interned at OSHA."

"I got to ride around with a former electrical union superintendent and I’m still telling stories. As an intern they honestly let me ask anything. The inspectors were so glad that someone actually respected them and wanted to learn so they just spilled.

Personally the worst was a couple dozen guys hung their coats up to cover the hot commercial electrical box they had pig tailed their broken radio directly to. The OSHA inspector saw it and just turned to them and said “do you have a family? Do you ever want to see them again?” Turned out the crew chief had a brand new baby girl at home. He basically cried his face off about how stupid they were and shut it down until they could make it safer. No fines were issued. Even though it could’ve bankrupted all 3 companies on site. Just real talk.

In case you didn’t know that amount of electricity would kill you in the worst way (unable to let go and feeling every single shock) and leave you a pile of dust."

- briannamanners

12. "My dad went to his work OHS committee to ask them to mow the patch between the parking lot and the building because the grass had gotten so long that snakes were living in it."

"The committee decided it was too risky to have someone mow it because there were snakes in the grass and the person mowing might get injured."

- Mr_A

13. "I'm a HSR at my workplace."

"I recently had management trying to pin a couple of guys on my shift for putting a pallet of product to close to a fire hose. Ok fair, yeah it's a safety issue.

Only problem was more than half of the fire hoses on site are blocked or inaccessible due to rows of product blocking them.

Poor storage planning on managements behalf, yet 1 pallet near a fire hose is enough cause for a written warning and talks of terminating said employees.

Safe to say when I politely pointed out how many safety hazards and violations that were the fault of the management. They quickly dropped their talks of terminating employees.

Still working on getting those other fire hoses unblocked though. Like banging your head on a brick wall sometimes I swear."

- Yenschy

14. "My uncle is a safety inspector and is always going off about dumb*sses in the workplace."

"Same uncle broke his arm in four places trying to clean the gutters of his workplace with a too short ladder on top of an oversized toolbox in wet weather."

- anon

15. "The safety committee at the state psych hospital I worked at was going building to building, making a surprise inspection."

"They walked into the Hospital Chapel and found the Chaplain sitting at his desk - getting a blow job by one of the patients who was under his desk. That old f****r should have gone to prison but they let him take early retirement." -

brutalethyl

16. "I've worked for a couple of engineering contractors in the past, my first firm was by far the worst for lack of work ethic and sheer incompetence. OSHA would have a field day with them."

"One time, our reciprocating saw broke; the foot that held the blade in place was busted, so rather than follow protocol and get another saw, my coworker fastened the blade in place with a plastic wire tie and proceeded to use it.

The same firm worked as contractors for the company my Dad worked for, so he has the best/worst stories about them. On one site, they'd found that sections of a pipeline had been sealed with asbestos gaskets. The boss of my firm (I'll call him Jim) was present on this site, and had to call in a specialist to remove the asbestos.

Jim would never wear safety gear like the other guys, claiming to be "exempt", and so when the specialist turned up in full breathing gear and overalls and tried to do his job, Jim just stood leaning on the pipe in his normal clothes talking to him. My Dad and the others are stood well away from the asbestos at this point, and he shouts out:

"JIM!"

"What?"

"Are you immune?!"

"Immune to what?"

"F*****g asbestos!"

"Ah, I've breathed loads of it in in the power stations, it's all political."

My Dad says that Jim has defied all facets of medical science by staying alive this long."

- SJB95

17. I'm not mad I'm just disappointed.

"Not directly relevant, but I worked for a company where the Risk Management Executive accidentally shot himself in the leg checking to see if the safety was on on a pistol."

- Curlaub

18. "I didn’t see it personally, but someone smoking & another person eating lunch inside of what was a “high risk” containment during an asbestos abatement."

"In a high risk you have to be naked under your body suits, shower when you leave, cannot bring anything in or out that hasn’t been washed & you have to wear a full face mask. It’s supposed to be very sterile. These guys had their face masks off inside the containment eating & smoking."

- vegans-ate-my-cat

19. Another reason cigarettes are terrible.

"Equipment operator used brake cleaner to remove grease from his hands and arms, then proceeded to light up a cigarette on his way out of the work area... Fairly significant second degree burns on both hands and forearms."

- daishiknyte

20. "Got called to a factory where the workers had to cut metal on large conveyor belts."

"There were large boxes with built in gloves that you stuck your hands in to operate the press. So, for safety, workers had on one set of gloves ( that everyone wore on the factory floor because sharp hot metal ) and then stuck their hands in a second pair attached to the belts to reach the materials.

One of the workers felt like this slowed him down so he cut a hole in the safety box to be able to just reach in and adjust the metal to the press... Except, the press came down ON his hand, leaving 4 of his fingers perfectly preserved inside the glove.

They recovered his wedding ring, neatly dangling right above the cut off finger bone."

- WideFix

21. This person has seen some sh*t:

22. People really need to take fire safety way more seriously!

23. He tried to sue his boss, lol.

24. "Guy at my work was collecting a soil sample amd tested it."

"Right after he finishes the boss says now can you test it all for asbestos when hes been exposed to what he thought was just plain soil for the past few hours."

- jaybloggs

25. "Fire alarm/sprinkler leaking onto steel racking for so long it’s rusted. Racking was 6 tier high..."

"Management refused to treat it as a hazard. "

- donthatedaplaya

26. It's not dual-purpose, ya ding-dongs.

"I inspect fire sprinklers and I saw someone had a chain going through one to hang a light."

- beefstewforyou

27. "Not an OSHA employee, but these guys I worked with were undermining a road."

"Cars were still passing over the dug area. No efforts were made to secure the trench (trench boxes or such), no ladders, a 6' pile of the trench spoils were right on the edge, phone, gas, and power ran nearby but locates weren't done...

I'm honestly surprised it didn't collapse, the cars driving overhead shook loose plenty of gravel from the sides of the hole."

- anon

28. "Former safety rep who specialized in industrial food manufacturing working for the largest food companies."

"I am now in school for psychology so am interning at a clinic. In my interview I said that was my previous career so they asked me to do their EAP and exit maps. Yet they wont buy the fire extinguisher signs.

The thing I repeatedly tell them to do is unlock one of the doors leading to a exit door. They have a storage/file room with one of the emergency exits and you cant walk in the room even if the door is unlocked."

- Negaface

29. "Worked as a Storeman at a retail store."

"We were having renovations done to the building at the time so there were a lot of construction workers around. One day I walked in on a bunch of Eastern European workers holding a ladder on top of a trolley while one of them climbed it to reach something on the wall (high af ceiling). I flipped my s**t at them and had a go at their foreman as well."

- snoop_cow_grazeit

30. "Guy was a warehouse worker."

"Qualified to use the forklifts, but this was a special one where the entire cabin lifts up so the forklift worker has better vision. What does the guy do?

He gets out 3.5 meters in the air and steps on the pallet to adjust some of the products. The guy faced 0 repercussions. He was a nice guy, but crazy."

- Roel93

31. "I have so many I can barely choose."

"Once I noticed workers welding on a table with their leathers between their waist and the table. Apparently bad wiring in the building was causing the full outlet electrical current to charge the table when the machines were set up so for years people just knew not to touch anything near or on the table during welding work.

Once I couldn't stop a place from not welding outside next to their flammable cylinders.

A manager was having an employee scale lime deposits off equipment with essentially CLR and letting it just run free into the storm drain next to him. It literally dyed the pavement for over a year.

Had 2 morons try to get something off a wall in a warehouse. One held the base of a ladder (standard, not A-frame) while the other got to the top wrung and started jumping to reach whatever it was. I shouted to them and the moron holding the base turned to look at me and let go; as you can imagine moron 2 had a quick trip back to the ground."

- Vealophile

32. Oh yeah, don't get too fancy or worked up over the details...

"Worked in a hospital lab and higher ranked coworker asked me to take inventory of things from our liquid nitrogen storage tank (-200C mind you). I asked her for the proper mitts to handle our stuff and she told me to just use our usual latex gloves. WTF.

*My company rents the lab space of the hospital so I’m assuming she doesn’t know where it is and doesn’t care to ask*

I proceed to ask the hospital lab staff for proper mitts to which I was given.

After I took inventory, coworker decided she wanted to do a verification inventory check and had the audacity to ask me for the proper mitts. GTFO"

- katioats

33. Some people just don't get the respect they deserve.

34. "But he got everything done on time so he was a golden goose. Every time I hear of an accident at a wind farm I wonder if it’s related to that guy."

35. Some people can see a problem and still do nothing about it.

If there's anything we should all do right now, it's making sure our smoke alarms are operational and that we remember to hug and kiss our loved ones when we part ways. Obviously, there are a lot of stupid people out there in the world we're all coming into far too much contact with.

Elana