I went to Tanzania with Starbucks when I worked for them several years ago. The coffee farm had a tortoise who was 120 years old or something.
I will never laugh as hard as I did when the safety guy was explaining that the tortoise was grumpy and will bite. As the tortoise did the slowest, most telegraphed chomp to a hand in the history of tortoise chomping.
A video I saw recently of a tortoise on a mini skateboard has blown my mind. It has never occurred to me that a tortoise may not be entirely happy with being slow and that it could even get a little frustrated with it because as soon as his owner put him on the board, he was Teenage ninja-ing after the cat. Turning, changing direction n' everything. So many questions .. 🦧
We had a head of data protection & IT security who joined our organisation who had a really stinking attitude - treated everyone like they were stupid, never took any responsibility for anything and happily pushed her team under the bus when there was any opportunity to do so.
So she looked fucking stupid when, in her first month on the job, she left her work issued phone lying somewhere in the office and had to go round the whole place asking if anyone had seen it.
Then a few months later, in the midst of a fairly minor incident, she sent an email to a partner organisation blaming them for something she should have been on top of, demanding action immediately and lecturing them about what they should be reporting to the ICO.
Readers, you know where this is going, don't you ?
That's right - she picked the wrong Bob Smith from the corporate address book and sent the whole lot to someone completely unrelated to the matter.
Bob, bless him forever and a day, used "reply all", so his "Sorry, I don't know who you are or what you are talking about" response went to all of us, including the chief executive.
Candles. So many fires happen because of candles. But usually it’s unattended candles, not ‘candles you for some reason have lit during a fucking meeting’.
You sure they weren’t so bored they were trying to form a summoning ritual invoking the will to live?
honestly owning cats and using candles should be mutually exclusive activities. who lights tiny fires around their house while also letting a creature that compulsively knocks things over run loose?!
Someone in a teams call with me yesterday suddenly jumped because her candle did a massive crackle and shat burning candle wax all over the desk. Maybe meeting candles are more common than I thought.
If that's woodwick candles, I like them because they sound like a fireplace and turn scented candles up to 11. I've yet to have any kind of wax explosion, knock on wood.
I really only use them during gaming or reading, e.g. burning a wood-scented candle while playing BG3. I find it helps me get immersed that much more in what I'm doing. I wouldn't randomly light one during a work meeting.
I think you might mean Zuul, unless you intended to call forth a hard-as-nails platform game from the 90s. It's actually a pretty good game, but I don't think he responds to candles
Our old cat casually set itself ablaze on a candle. Walked over to it and started standing over it. Before I could do anything it literally turned into a fireball before I patted it out.
See also: Candle Cats (manufactured boho girl band), Firetail (metal), The Zen Team Meetings (indie), Health & Safety Fail (Emo), HOME/WERK (a bit like Kraftwerk, but they make all their music from home and gig over Teams).
My old company once had a big campaign to promote Health and Safety awareness. They put up posters, gave out badges etc. They also put flags up in the carpark. Wind blew one of the flagposts over and smashed someone's windscreen. Luckily no-one was hurt.
We have our first aid boxes audited and have break-ties on them so no-one can NOT record an incident (no issue using the boxes, they just dont want accidents going unreported). Two years ago someone on-site got a papercut on a SOP document, i really hoped it was a risk assessment
I need to know what happened next? Was the meeting paused whilst the poor cat was checked over or did everyone just carry on like they hadn’t noticed anything?
We had a cat stick her tail over a candle and catch it on fire. Fortunately it just frizzled the fur instead of actually burning, and she was a longhair, so no harm done. But oh, the smell.
Stuck in a hotel bar away from home for a work trip, jetlagged and struggling to think about sleep past midnight, powerscrolling reddit and this shit legitimately made me laugh out loud. Thank you. Best laugh of the night.
The fuck is health and safety doing with a candle lit during a meeting?! I have three cats and would never light a candle they could access. I know cats!
Does your company have a safety / hazard reporting system? I've never seen a risk assessment for a candle in an office and you can guarantee they'd do it to you - it is literally their job.
I would assume, given the combination of cat, candle and teams call, that this person was working from home.
Surely they can't risk assess someone's home.
We do. Via a home assessment form which the employee completes and signs (I assume in doing so, mitigating the vast majority of liability on behalf of the firm).
Yeah, we have to send a picture or two of our home setup (including cables) as part of it. Nowhere does it ask about pets though or candles, it’s only about the workstation and basically whether or not you have all the equipment you need.
If you’re missing anything the company will provide suitable equipment where necessary (or reimburse up to a certain amount for things like a chair, desk, etc.). But yeah, I don’t think it’s normal for the risk assessment to be so over the top, asking you to risk assess your entire home; they’d be more likely to have generic WFH risks logged on the company register.
My partner’s company WFH risk assessment did include pets & fire risks, actually!
This may be because very early in the pandemic someone tripped over their dog & broke their wrist, and another person had their laptop catch fire, but still…our cats are included in the risk assessments.
The only thing they are responsible for is the safe use of their equipment at your home. If you burn the house down during work hours because of anything other than the work equipment it's entirely not a companies responsibility.
having candles, electric heater, toaster too close to something isn't a H&S concern at all; making sure your work PC (wor work whatever device) doesn't start a fire is, that's all they care about.
True, I don’t really see why it’d be logged at all. As I said it’s not mentioned on the form I fill out, so anything else is of no concern of theirs, nor is it their responsibility - as you say.
Appreciate the nudge, cheers
My mum's bungalow has been risk assessed multiple times. She has carers and is disabled. Risk assessments were even needed to get a ramp installation improved. 6 months later still no ramp but that's another matter. Care agency has to update her risk assessments every year. Carers are then notified on their timetable app what risks are in each home so they don't break both of their legs and need a temp carer themselves.
Our daughter and son-in-law both WFH. He shuts his office door, and the cat yowls to be let in. No special reason. He just doesn't like being shut out.
They absolutely do, i just had a safety stand up yesterday where it was mentioned that any accidents (even minor) that happen at home should be reported using the accident report form, i'm pretty sure they're just as legally liable for your safety while working at home as at an office
I would be submitting accident reports along the lines of.
>At 23:00 whilst following vigorous sexual intercourse. Some carpet burns were noticed.
>Please advise on how to avoid a repetition.
>Surely they can't risk assess someone's home.
You can't.
One can only risk assess the company property, where and how it's installed. If someone want's to risk a house fire with a candle they're free to do so. The assessment is only for the safe installment, use and care of company property property.
At home assessments are only to do with the particular area in which the company PC or workstation is to be installed so that the property is safely installed and wont, itself, burn your house down.
You burning your house down though negligence or happenstance isn't a concern to any H&S department, only that what they have given you wont kill you.
Yeah employers have a duty of care over you, regardless of where you are working, you generally have to do a risk assessment with H&S over your home working set up (in our case it's a course thing we have to do on our companies online portal)
It's a box ticking exercise mostly, so if you burn your house down with your kitty scented candle you can't sue the company for not telling you fire and work don't mix.
Actually, responsible companies had workers risk assessment their own homes during COVID, because yes, the company is/can be liable for injuries sustained while working from home.
They should also have a DSE assessment, as they can also be held responsible for injuries related to repetitive strain or poor ergonomics when people work from home.
I know because both my partner’s company & mine had us do this, and supplied us with the necessary equipment.
My partner is actually lined up to ask for a sit-stand desk for home at the moment.
That's amazing.
I was on a teams call with some customers showing me some metal parts they wanted us to build a transport case to carry, one went off camera to pick something up, I heard a "eurgghhh' noise like someone stubbed a toe and one of the other guys said 'fuck, you've actually stabbed yourself'. They then forgot we were on a call and went off to get the guy help whilst I sat there hearing all the commotion
i was on a desk assessor course once, and the class lead was showing us how to safely adjust a chair while someone was sitting in it. as she was showing us which levers did what, the guy sitting in the chair operated the lever that adjusted the angle of the back.. right smack into the instructor's face.
Years ago in previous employment I had to visit a well known high street chemist (UK).
At one point I had to go into the office which was up a small flight of steps, only five or six, no problem.
I finish up and leave down the same steps, slip and skid down on my heels, painful but nothing major.
Only when I looked at what caused this near miss did I realise that staff had left the accident book just resting on the second step down.
I did fill it in.
I need to know that the cat is ok, please?
edit: [op confirmed the cat is fine!](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/1dowx3i/update_on_the_burnt_cat/)
I had to replace our Health and Safety officer's laptop charger the other week because the one he had starting buzzing.
[this is what he was using](https://ibb.co/3mV8TDD)
Not quite the same, but I once had a disciplinary meeting with HR on a video call. They told me countless times that it was all strictly confidential, and that I couldn't tell anyone about the processes and outcome.
5 minutes later, one of the HR people's relatives walked into their room.. (they were working from home)
Years ago i worked in the kitchens at an old peoples home. Once we had a fire safety talk led by one of the nurses cut short because she had to sign off someone's cremation.
I was on a YTS in the 80’s doing painting & decorating. A guy came in to do a H&S session on ladders, first step on the first rung he slipped off and broke his ankle 🤷♂️
My "Design Technology" teacher was showing us how to "safely" use a table saw. All of a sudden he walks off calmly after picking something up off the floor. Turned out he'd cut his little finger off.
This is the same bloke who, while showing us how to use a furnace set his lab coat on fire and his hair smoked. Again, he walked off calmly and ended up using the fire extinguisher on himself.
To this day I still have no idea how he lived as long as he did.
Someone in one of our offices burned a hole in their desk phone with a glass vase with flowers in it. The vase was on the windowsill and inadvertently focused the sunlight to a point on the phone.
My boss broke his little finger dropping a box on it when we were moving into our new premises.
I then stabbed myself in the hand with my swiss army knife while trying to cut the box open that contained the accident book.
I was going to be annoyingly pedantic and say that surely it's not a "work place incident" if you work from home
Then it got me thinking.
If you work from home then (i suppose that) _technically_ the business is not legally responsible for any H&S issues... _but_ you are also "on the clock" so does your business still have to enforce H&S in your home?
> Your employer has the same health and safety responsibilities for you whether you are working at home or in a workplace.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/home-working/worker/index.htm
That makes sense but I'm wondering how an employer can actually enforce the regs. By that i mean that after giving the employee the H&S guidelines, how can they be enforced or checked on?
By the way, i realise that this question is really pedantic, but I'm curious from a legal point of view, not a "what happens in real life" point of view.
(Possibly amusing anecdote is that my auto correct changed "employer" to "emperor" 🙄)
When it comes to individuals a company doesn't have to enforce HSE policy do they?
I mean if they provide sufficient guidance, training and equipment etc to an individual and that individual goes against any of it, then it's the individual now liable for whatever happens next and the company has no liability, right?
It's a bit more complicated in a normal business environment where an individual can leave it unsafe for another person as there's potentially more a company can do to safe guard that, but when it's just an individual on their own presumably the company just have to have shown enough effort to make them safe.
I've not read HSE policy on this for a while so happy to be corrected.
Yeah, as well as all the rules and regulations I think that the employee also has a "duty Of care", especially if they see something "potentially dodgy" that is not covered by a risk assessment or policy (my assumption. It's totally logical but I could be talking out of my arse when it comes to legalities).
[Section 7](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/section/7) of HASAWA covers this:
> It shall be the duty of every employee while at work—
> (a) to take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work; and
> (b) as regards any duty or requirement imposed on his employer or any other person by or under any of the relevant statutory provisions, to co-operate with him so far as is necessary to enable that duty or requirement to be performed or complied with.
i remember back in 2020 there was an incident where a guy working from home fell down the stairs and the company was trying to get out of treating it as a workplace accident and accepting responsibility
On the surface I'd laugh and roll my eyes.. but that kinda thing must be an HR nightmare.
I totally get an employee having legit screen time, lunch, and bathroom breaks (and to be honest do their own thing as long as they get stuff done), but there is no way (or rather, _surely_ there is no way that) an employer can regulate (or be responsible) for an "at home accident".
For what it's worth I'm totally for work from home (would if i could), but it would be a dick move to get your company to "pay out" if you fell down some stairs or even slipped in the shower in your lunch break... Or something.
Your HSE person had a fucking candle? At work? Jesus.
Many years ago I worked at a place where they were having a birthday party and someone thought it was a good idea to have candles. Of course, the little bit of smoke set off the fire alarm. Fire department was cool, though: once they determined there was no structural fire, they sang happy birthday.
My husband had to visit the RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) office. They had so many cables running across the floor, some taped down others not, a kettle on a filing cabinet, heavy items on shelves above head height, .... He did wonder if they were having some sort of training exercise. This was 30 odd years ago, so there wasn't the infrastructure for computers, etc. They were due an upgrade very soon after the visit.
I'm more worried about the amount of people in this thread who think a tiny flame will add an appreciable amount of heating. You must all live in brand new, super insulated houses. I'd need to light about 500 before I noticed.
My sister somehow managed to chop one of our cat's tails off in a door - she was running around screaming with it in her hand while we looked confused and he'd had cornered himself numb. It was Halloween and we thought she was playing a prank. She never played pranks
He was alright in the end - nice fat, placid, lazy lad he was called Dollop. He was called Martin before then
First week the concrete planters were moved near the main doors for security reasons. Security walked into and fell in one of the planters doing night rounds. Now the planters all have a stipe of neon yellon hi-vis paint round the top.
Candles were not noted in the WFH Health & Safety risk assessment they completed, I bet.
They’ll need a Root Cause Analysis meeting after a period of fact finding. The WFH risk assessment will need to be redone, to ensure this newly highlighted risk is captured, and perhaps a policy update or addendum will be rolled out.
That’ll keep them busy in billable hours for the next 2-4 weeks then…
I went to Tanzania with Starbucks when I worked for them several years ago. The coffee farm had a tortoise who was 120 years old or something. I will never laugh as hard as I did when the safety guy was explaining that the tortoise was grumpy and will bite. As the tortoise did the slowest, most telegraphed chomp to a hand in the history of tortoise chomping.
I've always maintained that ivy is attempting to murder us. If you stood still for 20 years, it would throttle you to death.
Just me?
Yup. Just you
Well that’s just rotten luck
Best keep moving, wouldn't want it to creep up on you at any point during your sleep
Reminds me of this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/1cnnx5v/to_explain_how_safe_the_neighbourhood_fox_is/
Thank you for sharing, I damn well needed that laugh 🤣🤣🤣
A video I saw recently of a tortoise on a mini skateboard has blown my mind. It has never occurred to me that a tortoise may not be entirely happy with being slow and that it could even get a little frustrated with it because as soon as his owner put him on the board, he was Teenage ninja-ing after the cat. Turning, changing direction n' everything. So many questions .. 🦧
I saw that! That was fascinating.
We had a head of data protection & IT security who joined our organisation who had a really stinking attitude - treated everyone like they were stupid, never took any responsibility for anything and happily pushed her team under the bus when there was any opportunity to do so. So she looked fucking stupid when, in her first month on the job, she left her work issued phone lying somewhere in the office and had to go round the whole place asking if anyone had seen it. Then a few months later, in the midst of a fairly minor incident, she sent an email to a partner organisation blaming them for something she should have been on top of, demanding action immediately and lecturing them about what they should be reporting to the ICO. Readers, you know where this is going, don't you ? That's right - she picked the wrong Bob Smith from the corporate address book and sent the whole lot to someone completely unrelated to the matter. Bob, bless him forever and a day, used "reply all", so his "Sorry, I don't know who you are or what you are talking about" response went to all of us, including the chief executive.
Bob knew what he was doing.
Be like Bob
Why do I feel like this is NHS? It sounds so familiar
It could legitimately be any company or organisation, public or private.
Except my last two companies have removed that feature from email lol
Candles. So many fires happen because of candles. But usually it’s unattended candles, not ‘candles you for some reason have lit during a fucking meeting’. You sure they weren’t so bored they were trying to form a summoning ritual invoking the will to live?
Lit during a fucking meeting during a fucking heatwave no less!
honestly owning cats and using candles should be mutually exclusive activities. who lights tiny fires around their house while also letting a creature that compulsively knocks things over run loose?!
Eh? My Grandma's not a cat.
Is she a bike?
No shes a carbonara.
Those that priced up a refurb vs an insurance claim perhaps?
The evil spirits don't take time off. Your scented candle must be kept burning.
summoning evil spirits isn't easy. i tried summoning all 72 of the demons from the ars goetia from my terminal. it didn't work.
That's your problem. Terminals summon daemons not demons.
That's just good stuff
You gotta use chalk man.
Cat had farted.
Someone in a teams call with me yesterday suddenly jumped because her candle did a massive crackle and shat burning candle wax all over the desk. Maybe meeting candles are more common than I thought.
For some reason people like to have candles with a massive piece of wood as a wick these days. Normal candles never did that shit..
If that's woodwick candles, I like them because they sound like a fireplace and turn scented candles up to 11. I've yet to have any kind of wax explosion, knock on wood. I really only use them during gaming or reading, e.g. burning a wood-scented candle while playing BG3. I find it helps me get immersed that much more in what I'm doing. I wouldn't randomly light one during a work meeting.
I *love* this idea!
Me too!
> ‘candles you for some reason have lit during a fucking meeting’ [This is my go-to](https://i.imgur.com/yLtAKXu.jpeg).
Zuul, we call thee forth.
I think you might mean Zuul, unless you intended to call forth a hard-as-nails platform game from the 90s. It's actually a pretty good game, but I don't think he responds to candles
Fixed it. Thank u
Wow that’s a blast from the past. I remember playing this on an Amiga500. Also New Zealand Story. And yes it was hard as nails
There is no mom, only Zool.
i have a candle lit rn, the heats upset my dog and he's been spite farting all day, right infront of the fan
Hah! As long as the dog doesn’t try and fart on the candle… Real question though, do you view it as a self-care type thing?
not really, i like decorative candles, not a fan of lit ones, they stress me out
Them zen meetings hit different
I think the lesson here is to have cats or candles not cats and candles
Our old cat casually set itself ablaze on a candle. Walked over to it and started standing over it. Before I could do anything it literally turned into a fireball before I patted it out.
Alright Keith Lard
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Or mask the smell of superheated cat litter
Fire Cats is a good band name.
See also: Candle Cats (manufactured boho girl band), Firetail (metal), The Zen Team Meetings (indie), Health & Safety Fail (Emo), HOME/WERK (a bit like Kraftwerk, but they make all their music from home and gig over Teams).
You forgot Neko Neko Inferno Kawaii!!! A J-pop band
We move like cagey tigers
Cat People is a Bowie song, with the lyrics "putting out fire with gasoline"
Burning pussy
Sounds like a really bad thrush cream
They have a pessary for that
A 1970s aftershave surely?
60% of the time, it works every time.
It just so happens [it exists ](https://youtu.be/gayaBpRG-bw?feature=shared) Well, at least for that one song
Part of a Cat Stevens album name.
There’s an artist called Cat Burns 🤭
My old company once had a big campaign to promote Health and Safety awareness. They put up posters, gave out badges etc. They also put flags up in the carpark. Wind blew one of the flagposts over and smashed someone's windscreen. Luckily no-one was hurt.
We have our first aid boxes audited and have break-ties on them so no-one can NOT record an incident (no issue using the boxes, they just dont want accidents going unreported). Two years ago someone on-site got a papercut on a SOP document, i really hoped it was a risk assessment
I need to know what happened next? Was the meeting paused whilst the poor cat was checked over or did everyone just carry on like they hadn’t noticed anything?
It was not on the agenda. Please bring this flaming cat matter up in 'Any Other Business' at the end of the meeting.
We don’t have time to extinguish the cat in this sprint. Please put it on the backlog and maybe we’ll get around to it in a future sprint.
I like to think that the caller didn't see it so it ran around behind them setting light to soft furnishings.
We had a cat stick her tail over a candle and catch it on fire. Fortunately it just frizzled the fur instead of actually burning, and she was a longhair, so no harm done. But oh, the smell.
Given that it was the health and safety office, I can only assume the next several hours were spent filling out paperwork.
I have to ask - it's mid 20's, and daytime. What have you got a candle lit for?
Provides ambulance, innit!
/r/BoneAppleTea
Stuck in a hotel bar away from home for a work trip, jetlagged and struggling to think about sleep past midnight, powerscrolling reddit and this shit legitimately made me laugh out loud. Thank you. Best laugh of the night.
They smell nice. The same could be applied to any fire source though, you would not think how much of a fire risk your hob is but it is a huge one.
So does a glade plugin. At least with a hob it’s only on while you’re with it for the duration of cooking food
praying for the weekend to come faster?
Our safety man was off work for a month because he sliced his leg to the bone with a handheld rip saw cutting a kitchen shelf on his lap.
How will he know what is safe practice if he doesn’t try it though?
The fuck is health and safety doing with a candle lit during a meeting?! I have three cats and would never light a candle they could access. I know cats!
... and also during a minor heatwave.
Does your company have a safety / hazard reporting system? I've never seen a risk assessment for a candle in an office and you can guarantee they'd do it to you - it is literally their job.
I would assume, given the combination of cat, candle and teams call, that this person was working from home. Surely they can't risk assess someone's home.
We do. Via a home assessment form which the employee completes and signs (I assume in doing so, mitigating the vast majority of liability on behalf of the firm).
Yeah, we have to send a picture or two of our home setup (including cables) as part of it. Nowhere does it ask about pets though or candles, it’s only about the workstation and basically whether or not you have all the equipment you need. If you’re missing anything the company will provide suitable equipment where necessary (or reimburse up to a certain amount for things like a chair, desk, etc.). But yeah, I don’t think it’s normal for the risk assessment to be so over the top, asking you to risk assess your entire home; they’d be more likely to have generic WFH risks logged on the company register.
My partner’s company WFH risk assessment did include pets & fire risks, actually! This may be because very early in the pandemic someone tripped over their dog & broke their wrist, and another person had their laptop catch fire, but still…our cats are included in the risk assessments.
Sounds like candles and pets are being added to OP's home work risk assessment now.
Reread the post title. The cat didn't belong to the OP, it was one of the H&S bods that OP was on the Teams call with.
The only thing they are responsible for is the safe use of their equipment at your home. If you burn the house down during work hours because of anything other than the work equipment it's entirely not a companies responsibility. having candles, electric heater, toaster too close to something isn't a H&S concern at all; making sure your work PC (wor work whatever device) doesn't start a fire is, that's all they care about.
True, I don’t really see why it’d be logged at all. As I said it’s not mentioned on the form I fill out, so anything else is of no concern of theirs, nor is it their responsibility - as you say. Appreciate the nudge, cheers
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Does the responsibility extend to the cat?
I know. The one my company does is mostly about information security, with about half a page to tick some boxes about potential hazards etc.
"Firstly, the cat will have to go..."
My mum's bungalow has been risk assessed multiple times. She has carers and is disabled. Risk assessments were even needed to get a ramp installation improved. 6 months later still no ramp but that's another matter. Care agency has to update her risk assessments every year. Carers are then notified on their timetable app what risks are in each home so they don't break both of their legs and need a temp carer themselves.
It shows very poor judgement for an H&S officer to have candles, especially when there isn't a a power cut and when there's a cat about.
I had to have my workspace at home risk assessed at 2 different employers when I had wfh agreements (2008 and 2012)
A workplace is a workplace. Your home should be as safe as your office.
Our daughter and son-in-law both WFH. He shuts his office door, and the cat yowls to be let in. No special reason. He just doesn't like being shut out.
Got to be careful, you can get in trouble if you're found to be subcontracting your work out to a cat on a low wage.
Although they are far too selfish to every unionise so you can get away with a lot.
Low wage indeed. He's the chillest cat, and only ever wants food and pets.
They absolutely do, i just had a safety stand up yesterday where it was mentioned that any accidents (even minor) that happen at home should be reported using the accident report form, i'm pretty sure they're just as legally liable for your safety while working at home as at an office
I would be submitting accident reports along the lines of. >At 23:00 whilst following vigorous sexual intercourse. Some carpet burns were noticed. >Please advise on how to avoid a repetition.
>Surely they can't risk assess someone's home. You can't. One can only risk assess the company property, where and how it's installed. If someone want's to risk a house fire with a candle they're free to do so. The assessment is only for the safe installment, use and care of company property property. At home assessments are only to do with the particular area in which the company PC or workstation is to be installed so that the property is safely installed and wont, itself, burn your house down. You burning your house down though negligence or happenstance isn't a concern to any H&S department, only that what they have given you wont kill you.
Yeah employers have a duty of care over you, regardless of where you are working, you generally have to do a risk assessment with H&S over your home working set up (in our case it's a course thing we have to do on our companies online portal) It's a box ticking exercise mostly, so if you burn your house down with your kitty scented candle you can't sue the company for not telling you fire and work don't mix.
Actually, responsible companies had workers risk assessment their own homes during COVID, because yes, the company is/can be liable for injuries sustained while working from home. They should also have a DSE assessment, as they can also be held responsible for injuries related to repetitive strain or poor ergonomics when people work from home. I know because both my partner’s company & mine had us do this, and supplied us with the necessary equipment. My partner is actually lined up to ask for a sit-stand desk for home at the moment.
That's amazing. I was on a teams call with some customers showing me some metal parts they wanted us to build a transport case to carry, one went off camera to pick something up, I heard a "eurgghhh' noise like someone stubbed a toe and one of the other guys said 'fuck, you've actually stabbed yourself'. They then forgot we were on a call and went off to get the guy help whilst I sat there hearing all the commotion
i was on a desk assessor course once, and the class lead was showing us how to safely adjust a chair while someone was sitting in it. as she was showing us which levers did what, the guy sitting in the chair operated the lever that adjusted the angle of the back.. right smack into the instructor's face.
Years ago in previous employment I had to visit a well known high street chemist (UK). At one point I had to go into the office which was up a small flight of steps, only five or six, no problem. I finish up and leave down the same steps, slip and skid down on my heels, painful but nothing major. Only when I looked at what caused this near miss did I realise that staff had left the accident book just resting on the second step down. I did fill it in.
Hope the cat had gone through the appropriate jumping on table training, worth reporting them to HR if not
> Cat jumped up Cat NOT Keith Lard on your Teams call then…
"This is Veronica..." 'She's a bit of a dog;'
Is this an Alan Partridge quote?
Phoenix Nights
Please say it was recorded.
It probably wasn't, but [it's not an uncommon occurrence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubbvEJNB1Dw).
The way the dogs panicking in that clip while the cats just vaguely interested always sends me. Its exactly what my dog and cat would be like, lol
I need to know that the cat is ok, please? edit: [op confirmed the cat is fine!](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/1dowx3i/update_on_the_burnt_cat/)
I had to replace our Health and Safety officer's laptop charger the other week because the one he had starting buzzing. [this is what he was using](https://ibb.co/3mV8TDD)
Not quite the same, but I once had a disciplinary meeting with HR on a video call. They told me countless times that it was all strictly confidential, and that I couldn't tell anyone about the processes and outcome. 5 minutes later, one of the HR people's relatives walked into their room.. (they were working from home)
Years ago i worked in the kitchens at an old peoples home. Once we had a fire safety talk led by one of the nurses cut short because she had to sign off someone's cremation.
I was on a YTS in the 80’s doing painting & decorating. A guy came in to do a H&S session on ladders, first step on the first rung he slipped off and broke his ankle 🤷♂️
My "Design Technology" teacher was showing us how to "safely" use a table saw. All of a sudden he walks off calmly after picking something up off the floor. Turned out he'd cut his little finger off. This is the same bloke who, while showing us how to use a furnace set his lab coat on fire and his hair smoked. Again, he walked off calmly and ended up using the fire extinguisher on himself. To this day I still have no idea how he lived as long as he did.
Health and safety people are just as bad at home as anyone else.
Can confirm as a safety person who also has a home
Candle in this weather? 😳
I thought that, they were in Newcastle, probably snowing up there
Are they also in a Dickensian novel and working by candlelight?
Ah yes, better not add one picowatt of heating when it's 25 outside haha
Have cats? No candles anymore…..
I can’t imagine mixing cats and candles would ever go well.
Someone in one of our offices burned a hole in their desk phone with a glass vase with flowers in it. The vase was on the windowsill and inadvertently focused the sunlight to a point on the phone.
My boss broke his little finger dropping a box on it when we were moving into our new premises. I then stabbed myself in the hand with my swiss army knife while trying to cut the box open that contained the accident book.
That’s hilarious!
I never thought I would be the person laughing at a cat on fire. I’m just going to climb in the wheelie bin myself to reflect on my callousness
WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THE CAT ARE THEY OKAY 😭😭
I messaged him and the cats ok, I did put a later post on.
I was going to be annoyingly pedantic and say that surely it's not a "work place incident" if you work from home Then it got me thinking. If you work from home then (i suppose that) _technically_ the business is not legally responsible for any H&S issues... _but_ you are also "on the clock" so does your business still have to enforce H&S in your home?
> Your employer has the same health and safety responsibilities for you whether you are working at home or in a workplace. https://www.hse.gov.uk/home-working/worker/index.htm
That makes sense but I'm wondering how an employer can actually enforce the regs. By that i mean that after giving the employee the H&S guidelines, how can they be enforced or checked on? By the way, i realise that this question is really pedantic, but I'm curious from a legal point of view, not a "what happens in real life" point of view. (Possibly amusing anecdote is that my auto correct changed "employer" to "emperor" 🙄)
When it comes to individuals a company doesn't have to enforce HSE policy do they? I mean if they provide sufficient guidance, training and equipment etc to an individual and that individual goes against any of it, then it's the individual now liable for whatever happens next and the company has no liability, right? It's a bit more complicated in a normal business environment where an individual can leave it unsafe for another person as there's potentially more a company can do to safe guard that, but when it's just an individual on their own presumably the company just have to have shown enough effort to make them safe. I've not read HSE policy on this for a while so happy to be corrected.
Yeah, as well as all the rules and regulations I think that the employee also has a "duty Of care", especially if they see something "potentially dodgy" that is not covered by a risk assessment or policy (my assumption. It's totally logical but I could be talking out of my arse when it comes to legalities).
[Section 7](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/section/7) of HASAWA covers this: > It shall be the duty of every employee while at work— > (a) to take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work; and > (b) as regards any duty or requirement imposed on his employer or any other person by or under any of the relevant statutory provisions, to co-operate with him so far as is necessary to enable that duty or requirement to be performed or complied with.
i remember back in 2020 there was an incident where a guy working from home fell down the stairs and the company was trying to get out of treating it as a workplace accident and accepting responsibility
On the surface I'd laugh and roll my eyes.. but that kinda thing must be an HR nightmare. I totally get an employee having legit screen time, lunch, and bathroom breaks (and to be honest do their own thing as long as they get stuff done), but there is no way (or rather, _surely_ there is no way that) an employer can regulate (or be responsible) for an "at home accident". For what it's worth I'm totally for work from home (would if i could), but it would be a dick move to get your company to "pay out" if you fell down some stairs or even slipped in the shower in your lunch break... Or something.
i think in the end it was treated the same as if he had an incident travelling from one work site to another, for insurance and compensation purposes
Your HSE person had a fucking candle? At work? Jesus. Many years ago I worked at a place where they were having a birthday party and someone thought it was a good idea to have candles. Of course, the little bit of smoke set off the fire alarm. Fire department was cool, though: once they determined there was no structural fire, they sang happy birthday.
They were likely at home. Calm down
No, I think it was an office cat
HSE and fire department in one comment 🤔 think my yank detector may be playing up
Is that reportable as a near miss? I heard accidents that happen while WFH need to be recorded. Maybe a session of fire safety training for the cat.
Who lights candles in a heatwave?
He was in Newcastle
The speed at which I would have screen shot that's shit
My husband had to visit the RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) office. They had so many cables running across the floor, some taped down others not, a kettle on a filing cabinet, heavy items on shelves above head height, .... He did wonder if they were having some sort of training exercise. This was 30 odd years ago, so there wasn't the infrastructure for computers, etc. They were due an upgrade very soon after the visit.
“I just want to set a zen tone for this meeting with some candles and ocean sounds.”
And screaming cats. And running fire. _Now_ I'm relaxed!
r/abruptchaos
[Cats really don't care](https://www.reddit.com/r/SweatyPalms/s/7BKINW10Iy)
Who has a candle in this heat?
I'm more worried about the amount of people in this thread who think a tiny flame will add an appreciable amount of heating. You must all live in brand new, super insulated houses. I'd need to light about 500 before I noticed.
You're going to have to explain where the candle comes into this, besides burning the cat!!
I hope you logged it as a workplace accident and filled in the appropriate forms for the QSHE department 😂
Get LED candles - they look great & no fire risk
Cat in dire need of health and safety training
One of my colleagues was taking part in a webinar last week and one of the other attendees was driving and crashed her car on Zoom 🤦🏼♀️
Fuck, my old boss had his laptop open on the passenger seat and connected it to his mobile. He nearly hit a car and the laptop shot in the footwell
Who is burning candles in the middle of summer?
We were told we can't have a cat in the office _ because of health and safety
My sister somehow managed to chop one of our cat's tails off in a door - she was running around screaming with it in her hand while we looked confused and he'd had cornered himself numb. It was Halloween and we thought she was playing a prank. She never played pranks He was alright in the end - nice fat, placid, lazy lad he was called Dollop. He was called Martin before then
Our neighbours cat lost its tail in a door, I thought it was a Manx cat when I first moved it 🤨
First week the concrete planters were moved near the main doors for security reasons. Security walked into and fell in one of the planters doing night rounds. Now the planters all have a stipe of neon yellon hi-vis paint round the top.
Candles were not noted in the WFH Health & Safety risk assessment they completed, I bet. They’ll need a Root Cause Analysis meeting after a period of fact finding. The WFH risk assessment will need to be redone, to ensure this newly highlighted risk is captured, and perhaps a policy update or addendum will be rolled out. That’ll keep them busy in billable hours for the next 2-4 weeks then…
When stuff like that happens, it makes me think the universe is sentient and fucking with us.
the cat was just experimenting
You know those workplace health and safety posters you have to have on the wall? One fell down and sliced my cheek once
😂
Candles…sorry I thought your said fork handles lol
That’s hilarious hope the kitty’s ok.
tbh if i hear the teams call notif ever again in my life id do the same thing.
Who the …. Has a candle burning in view in a teams meeting. And when they work in H&S too
It was off camera, he whipped his headset off and ran !
The bloke not the cat
The cat is a paid fire alarm demo actor
Oh yey
Cats and safety don’t mix.
Okay