Sit Down For This One

"How the world must be laughing at us," says web commenter Roy from Southend, England. Yes, Roy, the world is.

In most offices, when a chair is in the wrong position then immediate action is taken. Somebody moves it. But not at the Health and Safety Executive. There, employees have been banned from shifting furniture on the remote chance that they might do themselves a mischief [injure themselves, RvB]. They are told to book a porter to complete the task — and allow two days for it to happen.

One little point of light: the person raising a stink about the order is Labour peer Lord Berkeley.

Incensed by what he considered to be "health and safety gone mad", Lord Berkeley raised the matter in the House of Lords, demanding in a parliamentary question to know why the HSE had put up the notices. 

If Labour politicians, of all people, start questioning the many excesses of the Nanny State, you know how out of control the jungle of unnecessary, asinine edicts has gotten. Maybe there's hope yet.

Comments

[ben]

"They are told to book a porter to complete the task"

And of course, the porter is immune to any mischief.

[markm]

It's not about safety, it's about job protection. You'll hear similar stories from unionized corporations - including only the official furniture movers being authorized to push a table a couple of inches. But the difference is, when a business can't get work done for three days because you're waiting for the chair mover to come and roll the chair into your office, customers will go to a competitor that can provide the service now. And when the BS starts to cost too much, customers will go to a lower-priced competitor. Eventually, the companys that allow unionization or internal bureaucracy to hamstring them go out of business, and any actually productive employees that are left move to places that will use their abilities properly, likewise the buildings, desks, etc., get sold off to somewhere that might get more use out of thm. Government agencies that can't do the job just ask the legislature for more money, and their customers are stuck...