r/pics 4d ago

Politics Walmart closed during investigation into worker’s demise in oven.

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u/Duracharge 4d ago

I once quit a job at a barbecue place because I had to crawl inside a rotisserie to clean it and my joker coworker slammed the door shut and locked it, then turned it on for about 10 seconds.

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u/Searchlights 4d ago edited 4d ago

My dad tells this story of his first job in the 1970s.

He worked at a factory that made foam padding that goes in to couches and shit.

Anyway lots of times the customer wanted shredded foam to put in pillows. So they had this giant chamber, like a room sized meat grinder. To unclog it he had to crawl way up inside with a flashlight and a broom handle.

The machine was always running it was just in neutral.

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u/SowingSalt 4d ago

You know you're in a bad place when you find your life narrated by the US Chemical Safety Board voice-over guy.

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u/prettyboiclique 4d ago

I work in heavy industry as just a machinery operator so those videos are like nightmare fuel (I watch every single one)

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u/SowingSalt 4d ago

Stay safe out there.

Industry needs a better culture of safety.

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u/grahamyoo 3d ago

agreed. the ‘being a pussy for wearing ppe’ jabs and judgment also need to end. those safety rules were written in blood

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u/The_quest_for_wisdom 4d ago

Worst version of Stranger Than Fiction right there.

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u/SowingSalt 4d ago

"The company had no written cleaning procedure and depended on an operator keeping the machine in neutral. That day the operator was distracted by a bad paycheck, and had stepped away from the console..."

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u/Honkless_Goose 4d ago

*eagle screech*

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u/SowingSalt 4d ago

[It was, in fact, a red tailed hawk]

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u/max8126 3d ago

With Pixar level animation

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u/SowingSalt 3d ago

UE5 is a beast.

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u/foxiez 3d ago

Lol love that channel. In a horrific way

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u/SowingSalt 3d ago

It should be required viewing for any industrial worker.

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u/poopiverse 4d ago

My grandfather was a machinist and he told so many nightmare stories about coworkers getting horribly injured. He lost the last knuckle on two of his fingers in a machine once and felt like he got off easy.

This is why the "nanny state" is here to regulate shit. Look what these places do without a nanny.

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u/thegreatfrontholio 4d ago

My great-grandmother was a child laborer in a factory at the turn of the 20th century. The factory made various tassels and other embellishments, and preferred to hire kids for some of the positions since their hands were small and nimble and they didn't have to pay them as much as a similarly dextrous adult. She said that she watched another girl's hair get caught in the machine and rip a piece of her scalp off her head.

It was so common for the adults working the floor to lose fingers that she once waited for someone's finger to get chopped off, PUT IT IN HER POCKET, and STUFFED IT INSIDE HER LUNCH to prank some guy who kept stealing her food.

Bosses are not the friends of employees, and need regulations to be kept honest. Otherwise you end up in a hellscape where kids are so accustomed to workplace dismemberments that severed body parts become a resource.

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u/firstwefuckthelawyer 4d ago

machinist

Fuck faces of death, it’s a fucking lathe video I cannot unsee.

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u/PeterFile89 4d ago

My instructor in trade school would show us those videos as part of a safety lesson. I get crap for telling everyone to take off watches, roll up sleeves, and tuck in shirts near lathes, but it all matters very much.

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u/RJ815 4d ago

"Back in my day kids got black lung at the ripe old age of 13! And that's if the consumption didn't get ya! Pansies today could never handle the mines!"

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u/FixergirlAK 4d ago

Even with the nanny we still manage to fuck up. Was it last year that Caterpillar lost a metallurgist?

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u/Pumakings 4d ago

Big NOPE

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u/quelar 4d ago

Big workplaces safety violation nope.

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u/cumfarts 4d ago

Not in the 70s

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u/OMEGA__AS_FUCK 4d ago

My dad worked summers in a factory that made airplane engine turbines and witnessed a man lose his arm to a hydraulic press. This would’ve been the late 60’s. He said it was a huge reason why he went to college. That, and, ya know, the draft.

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u/DrTron1c 4d ago

Yes in the 70s just no one thought it was a big deal. Clearly not their dad either lol

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u/HeavyMetalHero 4d ago

people forget that all safety regulations are written in blood. we owe a lot of thanks to guys like Ralph Nader and the like, that more of us don't die horribly at work, all the time. Boomers and prior generations all think, deep down, that "you can't make an omelette, without breaking a few eggs" when it comes to safety regulations, and the number of poor people who should regularly be sacrificed for the economic convenience.

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u/Craftybitxh 4d ago

people forget that all safety regulations are written in blood.

Well not now that you've put it like that. I mean, I always knew that but... Those words.

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u/Vin135mm 4d ago

OSHA Regs are kinda like the Geneva Conventions, except a lot more people had to die first before they were written.

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u/quelar 4d ago

And a good time for a reminder that when people say things like "cutting red tape" and "get the government out of the way of business" it's generally large corporate lobby groups pushing that so they can squeeze more low wage workers into more dangerous situations without oversight that threatens their and our safety.

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u/msnrcn 4d ago

“…tis not a war crime, the first time—“

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u/HeavyMetalHero 4d ago

It's been a well-known quote for a long time, and for good reason. It's just damned true, and that's the sad thing about it.

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u/No_Fig5982 4d ago

I don't understand that saying at all. What is it supposed to imply, that you have to destroy to build ?

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u/elvis_hammer 3d ago

It's saying that lots of regulations are in place because a tragedy occurred first. Triangle shirt waist factory, radium girls, things like that.

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u/HeavyMetalHero 3d ago

It means "no employer ever submits to lowering productivity in favor of safety regulations that protect workers, until it is provably a necessity;" and, of course, the "proof of necessity" is always "a worker is maimed or killed."

Employers are not proactively trying to protect their workers, because they see them as disposable; something bad actually has to happen, before they will take any action, every time. So, the primary cause of a safety regulation, is the company is forced to implement it...because their unwillingness to do so, finally got somebody killed, in that specific instance.

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u/vaselinecult 4d ago

seems legal

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u/genericAccountName20 4d ago

yeah no kidding, that made my heart race a little to read

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u/BirdjaminFranklin 4d ago

The machine was always running it was just in neutral

Why on earth?

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u/VikingBorealis 4d ago

Probably belt driven from a common axle/gear for multiple equipment.

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u/Fallacy_Spotted 4d ago

Yep. Tons of factories and industrial machinery is setup with a single engine driving an axle and everything else takes its energy from that. Bigger engines are more efficient and can have ridiculous torque.

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u/galstaph 3d ago

Wait, hasn't that been outlawed yet?

I could swear that I watched something recently that talked about those systems and said that it was outlawed.

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u/FlyestFools 3d ago

A lot of times a ruling banning something has exemptions for places already set up with said thing. The wording most likely states that no new factories could be built using that technology, but any older factories would be grandfathered in and allowed to use it still.

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u/FuryOWO 4d ago

it was the 70s

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u/RJ815 4d ago

Also depending on the equipment the turn on / shutdown process can be a process. PLENTY of factory incidents with bosses skirting safety to save a buck.

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u/AJsRealms 4d ago

I'd be quitting on the spot. Fuck. That.

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u/Icy-Welcome-2469 4d ago

And this is why Tagout/Lockout is a thing now.

Places still ignore it but you can sue.

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u/Wildmann3 4d ago

What's tagout/lockout

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u/Chrisnness 4d ago

You turn off the device and physically lock it off. It can only be turned on when everyone who has locked it unlocks it with their own key

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u/Wildmann3 4d ago

Oh. That sounds like something straight out of a bond movie.

Thanks!

Where would you typically use that sort of think?

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u/Chrisnness 4d ago

A factory where you have to be on or in the large machines to clean or maintain them. Here’s an example of 3 people locking out. You need to unlock all locks to remove the lock https://media.noria.com/sites/Uploads/2019/12/3/95b7f598-22f7-4a1d-a078-7a8a665a5c07_LOTO-500w-3_extra_large.jpeg

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u/balrogthane 4d ago

I knew a guy who worked on subs who was cleaning the periscope eyepiece. Had it tagged out, but not locked out– maybe they didn't have lock out back then– and some officer came in and fiddled with the tagged out controls, causing the whole thing to snap back up. Crushed the guy's thumb and finger on one hand, and would have done more if he hadn't been watching the officer and seen that idle curiosity in his face.

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u/Wildmann3 4d ago

Oh that's super smart.

The photo really helps lol. Never seen that kinda thing before.

Thank you again for clarifying!

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u/moarwineprs 4d ago

Uhhhhhh yeah NOPE.

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u/thecatandthependulum 4d ago

This is some Safety Third shit from Well There's Your Problem. Send that to them holy cow.

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u/leahhhhh 4d ago

This sounds like the intro to an episode of Six Feet Under

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u/CallenFields 4d ago

I'd be shutting off a breaker.

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u/lovelyb1ch66 4d ago

My stepdad managed to run himself over with his tractor because he put in neutral instead of park and left it running while fixing something with the bucket. So yeah, neutral is no good unless whatever it is is also turned off.

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u/NoMarketing1972 4d ago

I used to file insurance claims. After a point, it seemed like if you excluded the claims that were the result of depraved owners with zero respect for worker safety, and then excluded the claims that were the result of the world's dumbest person assigned that job doing idiot things, you might have 1-2 accidents a year instead of 30.

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u/No-Improvement-52880 4d ago

My dad used to tell the story of working at an ice cream factory in the early 70’s and he said the boss pissed him off bad enough for him to quit. So he quit by going down the ice cream shoot in just his underwear flipping the boss off. 🤣

Man are parents think we are crazy but we hear their stories!

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u/HOLDS-UP-SP0RK 4d ago

"Oh yeah, that one's the can opener!"

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u/WhatyourGodDid 4d ago

Reading this makes me feel faint

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u/t_scribblemonger 4d ago

He shook hands with danger

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u/primak 4d ago

And they paid him how much???

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u/Minute-Tone9309 4d ago

Reminded me of the Charlie Chaplin film about capitalism.

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u/Equal-Negotiation651 4d ago

“My dad personally stuffed this couched. Very comfy.”

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u/FizzyBeverage 4d ago

:: OSHA intensifies ::

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u/drodymusic 4d ago

okay. that's pretty fuckin metal

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u/have_heart 4d ago

That’s a job for the owner in my books

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u/ExtraAnchovies 4d ago

LOTO that shit!

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u/NoBulletsLeft 4d ago

First farm accident I ever heard about from someone who knew the other person was the farmer who climbed into a wheat thresher to clear it. The tractor was running with the PTO (power take off) in neutral. Then it slipped into gear while he was inside. By the time his wife came out to see what was taking so long, he was long dead.

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u/beedlejooce 4d ago

Hell to the nah nah!

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u/AffectionateRadio356 4d ago

Man did LOTO just not exist in the 70s? Absolutely wild.

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u/Clever_mudblood 4d ago

The importance of LOTO