On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:37:47 +0100, Phil Cook wrote:

>>> We're even getting forced labour now... sort of
>>> http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/unemployed-to-be-used-for-
>> soup--200807211110/
>>
>> <shaking head>  What's the world coming to?
> 
> Hey if it means more jobs in the soup processing industry ;-)

LOL

>> Yeah.  It is a "society becoming lazy" thing in my mind.
> 
> But what's the cause, is it bottom-up or top-down (or neither or both).
> Personally I think it's top-down - you can't perform this 2 minute job
> without filling in H&S forms 11b, 121c, and 2d and then submiting them
> for processing; if you just do the damn thing you will be reprimanded if
> anyone finds out because if anything happens who's held liable
> dum-dum-duh!

I think it's a little of both - I think a big part of the problem is that 
nobody is responsible for their own actions any more.  If I, say, stick a 
screwdriver in my eye, it's not my fault - it's the fault of the 
manufacturer of the tool for not including a warning that says "WARNING:  
Screwdrivers have pointy bits; do not stick them in your eye, or you are 
likely to be injured!".  So we have to have all these forms and whatnot 
that are used to disclaim responsibility.

I was reading a story the other day (have to see if it's online 
somewhere) about a guy who fell off a ladder in spite of having taken 
"ladder training" that explained that there were ways in which it was 
inappropriate to use the ladder.  He was standing on the very top 
(against the training) and was only found to be 25% at fault in the 
accident.  The result is that he'll collect something like £37,500 on his 
claim of £50,000.

Because he fell off a *ladder* that *he* was using improperly, and he'd 
been trained was improper use (and he even admitted he knew he was using 
it wrong).

>> Yep, that is the biggest problem.  There have been stories about kids
>> being expelled from school for having prescription medications because
>> the ZT policy of the school is "no drugs".
> 
> Except from the teachers point of view in this case what's to stop a
> student putting drugs in a medication container, how could they tell the
> difference? Easier (there's that word again) just to ban the lot.

Except that the student actually *needs* the medication in order to 
*live*.  I'm not talking something like being able to tell aspirin from 
cocaine - but things like insulin for diabetic students.  Apparently 
they're supposed to get insulin injections without using a syringe 
because the teachers can't tell the difference between a diabetic student 
taking necessary medication and a heroin junkie shooting up in the 
hallway.

>>  We're not talking about
>> minimum-wage workers making those kinds of decisions - school
>> *administration* people saying "we're not going to apply common sense
>> here", as if there's a difference between inhaling from an albuterol
>> inhaler (for asthma) and huffing from a can of compressed air.
>>
>> It's absolutely *ridiculous*.
> 
> Yeah that is ridiculous. I think I've still got buried somewhere in the
> mounds my old cap-gun an item I would now NEVER hand-down as a toy and
> cannot be bought anymore as it's modelled on a real gun. Heh crooks
> should start pimping their weaponry with plastic fins and day-glo
> accessories that way the government would have an excuse to ban anything
> that looked like a gun.

Heh, now that would make things interesting.....

>>> I do like the tag line.
>>
>> Each story he does comes with a tag line - it's one of the things that
>> makes it fun to read.  Another reason for the premium subscription as
>> well is that you can participate in a monthly "tagline challenge" where
>> the readers send in suggestions for taglines for one story.
> 
> Well I meant "Truth is Stranger than Fiction because Fiction Has to Make
> Sense"

Oh, yeah - that is a good one. :-)

Jim

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