Jobs people do willing that I will never understand.

[Knaight]

@Vinyadan: just because laws exist doesn't mean people follow them all the time. I'd bet majority of those helmetless construction workers, for example, were acting in direct violation of safety regulations.

This seems likely. There are cases where safety regulations are broken on company insistence, but not wearing helmets seems relatively unlikely to be one of them (whereas something like having more people than necessary in a dangerous place to speed up a process is much more likely).

[GolemsVoice]

Are German safety laws nationwide or land-dependent? I have seen some odd mixture of safety and "unsafety" there, so, for example, pruning of very tall trees was done in a remarkably safe way, with the right shoes, safety ropes and harness, and I think also head protection; at the same time, however, you could occasionally find an excavator working on the walkway without it being closed to the public, or state buildings without crash bars, or people working at some construction sites without head protection, while they were used on other sites.

Beside safety, one unusual thing I saw there was a construction worker who simply staid in the construction site when everyone else was gone, sat on a roof, and spent about half an hour playing with his smartphone. Does this happen often?

Usually, wherever there's construction work going on, there should be at least cones or some stuff. But as others said, sometimes people are lazy, or don't use them.

Regarding crash bars, I think that's more of an US/UK thing. German buildings usually have a pretty strict fire code, and that includes doors which can always be opened from inside, most just use the generic handle, some are even equipped with a system that sounds the fire alarm as soon as they're pushed.

[Honest Tiefling]

Being a dentist is usually a secure high paying job. The other jobs help pay the bills too.

You know that troupe where a mother suggests to her daughter to shack up with a nice dentist because he's loaded? There's a reason that troupe exists. And it's money.

In fact the sound better than most jobs that I know of.

I'd trade.

Since they offer either:

good pay,

good conditions,

or,

the chance to do good

*gestures wildly at this statement* THIS.

Also, if you want to know why people act in Horror Movies, may I suggest Bruce Campbell's autobiography 'Behind the Chin'? He details his and his friend's love of horror movies, and their attempts to make their own. Several directing and acting careers have been launched by horror movies, or started out there.

And I can think of a lot of jobs that are worse then having buckets of corn syrup and dairy creamer with food coloring thrown at you.

[AMFV]

Are German safety laws nationwide or land-dependent? I have seen some odd mixture of safety and "unsafety" there, so, for example, pruning of very tall trees was done in a remarkably safe way, with the right shoes, safety ropes and harness, and I think also head protection; at the same time, however, you could occasionally find an excavator working on the walkway without it being closed to the public, or state buildings without crash bars, or people working at some construction sites without head protection, while they were used on other sites.

Well I can't speak for German laws in particular. But I can say this. in the US at least, what laws are followed and how stringent they are depends a great deal on exactly what is being done and what company is involved. Some companies tend to be far more safety conscious than others, even exceeding OSHA rules, and others go the opposite direction getting away with as much as the possibly can.

Falling is one of the MOST dangerous things that you can. It is the leading cause of workplace fatalities in most jobs. Which is why people take heights more seriously than other things, like an excavator in a walkway. I mean you can see the equipment and walk around it, and depending on how deep the excavation you might not even need any serious roping off or anything.

And at least in the US rules vary considerably in different areas. I mean you have the federal rules, but a lot of Construction depends on county and municipal level rules. Now most of that isn't safety, but rather construction procedures what kind of things you are and are not allowed to do. But if Germany is similar the fall rules are Federal in the US, that's OSHA, 6' or up and you wear a harness, unless you can't tie off to anything, or you're on a scaffold or you're in steel erection. Whereas rules about road closures and when to rope things off are like municipal level.

Beside safety, one unusual thing I saw there was a construction worker who simply staid in the construction site when everyone else was gone, sat on a roof, and spent about half an hour playing with his smartphone. Does this happen often?

That sounds to me like a lunch break. Or maybe they had an open hole that they couldn't cover before lunch and he offered to watch it instead of having everybody have to actually go and close up the opening. I mean there's all kinds of possibilities. Maybe they needed somebody to stay behind during lunch so nobody steals their power tools. Which I could see as well.

I mean if you drive by my site at 12:30, you'll see a bunch of dudes with no helmets, some of whom are playing on smartphones.

Usually, wherever there's construction work going on, there should be at least cones or some stuff. But as others said, sometimes people are lazy, or don't use them.

That's true, but the rules as to exactly how many and when they should be used vary pretty drastically, and sometimes it's impractical to use those kind of devices for other reasons and you can get all kinds of exemptions on that sort of thing, at least in the US.

[Honest Tiefling]

Maybe they needed somebody to stay behind during lunch so nobody steals their power tools. Which I could see as well.

Every contractor I have ever seen has put their name on EVERY. SINGLE. TOOL. because tools are quite valuable. Even the ladders have their names on them and can't be left unattended.

[GolemsVoice]

That's true, but the rules as to exactly how many and when they should be used vary pretty drastically, and sometimes it's impractical to use those kind of devices for other reasons and you can get all kinds of exemptions on that sort of thing, at least in the US.

I've actually looked up the German legal situation, and found out that there are not that many hard-and-fast rules. Basically, the person who causes the danger (meaning in most situations, the contractor) has to do all they reasonably can to avoid dangerous situations. Otherwise they're liable for any damages caused by their lack of safety measures. The same applies to safety measures like wearing helmets. As you can see, this is the kind of thing that only becomes a problem once there HAS been an accident already. Somebody fell into your badly secured pit? Your mistake. Somebody made the effort to ignore your barricades and blinking lights? Their mistake.

However, as is usually the case, I guess most types of construction have some kind of minimum level of effort required. Meaning that even if nothing happens, you can probably be forced to put up something, because you're knowingly endangering people.

[AMFV]

Every contractor I have ever seen has put their name on EVERY. SINGLE. TOOL. because tools are quite valuable. Even the ladders have their names on them and can't be left unattended]

Well ladders aren't really a theft item, and most of the folks I know leave pretty much everything but power tools just laying about. Of course people aren't really going to go to onto a major site like that and just start rooting around. Like there's a ton of stuff I've seen left out, everything from levels to ladders. Of course, Union Jobs are a little different, like the ladders we use tend to be built on site, so there's less incentive to steal them.

Generally people label things like ladders and stuff, not to prevent theft, since you'd just paint over the name, but because when clean up time happens then you know "this ladder is my ladder", instead of trying to remember if you'd brought the ladder or if it was one of the other contractors who brought it. Or maybe Steelcore left the ladder there after they were tying.

It's also a little different for Rezzie folks cause they usually can't just go out and buy or build another ladder without it really cutting into their margins.

[Spacewolf]

[QUOTE=AMFV;22223004]

Every contractor I have ever seen has put their name on EVERY. SINGLE. TOOL. because tools are quite valuable. Even the ladders have their names on them and can't be left unattended]

Well ladders aren't really a theft item, and most of the folks I know leave pretty much everything but power tools just laying about. Of course people aren't really going to go to onto a major site like that and just start rooting around. Like there's a ton of stuff I've seen left out, everything from levels to ladders. Of course, Union Jobs are a little different, like the ladders we use tend to be built on site, so there's less incentive to steal them.

Generally people label things like ladders and stuff, not to prevent theft, since you'd just paint over the name, but because when clean up time happens then you know "this ladder is my ladder", instead of trying to remember if you'd brought the ladder or if it was one of the other contractors who brought it. Or maybe Steelcore left the ladder there after they were tying.

It's also a little different for Rezzie folks cause they usually can't just go out and buy or build another ladder without it really cutting into their margins.

Working on ships whenever we have contractors on we lock up our tools and check peoples bags before and after they do the work because otherwise they steal all our tools.

[Honest Tiefling]

[QUOTE=AMFV;22223004]

Every contractor I have ever seen has put their name on EVERY. SINGLE. TOOL. because tools are quite valuable. Even the ladders have their names on them and can't be left unattended

Maybe we live in different areas, or work in different arenas. I help out with renting houses, which you cannot leave unattended in this region or people will break in to steal the copper wiring. Here, you can't even leave a normal wooden handled hammer out without someone stealing it.

[AMFV]

[QUOTE=Spacewolf;22223010]

Working on ships whenever we have contractors on we lock up our tools and check peoples bags before and after they do the work because otherwise they steal all our tools.

Well that depends on who you're working with. Certainly out of the people are likely to take (accidentally or deliberately), tools, contractors would be the only people I could really think of. I mean maybe a few others. The thing is that what something likely to be stolen is either that it's useful or that it has resale value. For most people tools aren't that useful and they don't have good resale value

[QUOTE=Honest Tiefling;22223038]

Maybe we live in different areas, or work in different arenas. I help out with renting houses, which you cannot leave unattended in this region or people will break in to steal the copper wiring. Here, you can't even leave a normal wooden handled hammer out without someone stealing it.

Well as somebody who works in construction, I can tell you this. That copper wire... is the most valuable thing in that house, by not a small margin in terms of building materials, and it's relatively easy to sell for scrap. That's why people steal it, cause it's several hundred dollars easy money. You can't resell an aluminum ladder or a wooden handled hammer.

Generally my experience has been that wooden handled hammers vanish not because of theft, but because somebody is like "Oh, I need a hammer," and they grab one that's right there, and they put it someplace else, and this continues until somebody takes it home with them. Because it's not worth that much people wouldn't really feel guilty about it. Or they might genuinely believe that it was their hammer. I've seen the same thing happen with multiple ladders.

I mean there's plenty of stuff you can leave in a house, wood, for example, hand tools, generally, it's not usually worth the time and effort to steal those, or they're cheap enough to replace. I mean you can put them out of sight, but it's not really as big a deal as other things. I once had my truck broken into, I live in a bad neighborhood, I forgot to lock it, that was my mistake. I had a bunch of hand tools in there, wrenches, sockets, vice grips, all that, do you know what they took? Auto-darkening welding helmet and nothing else.

It's not worth it to steal a hammer, unless you're a kid and you find it, then you don't think about it. Or you're a laborer and somebody says "get me a hammer" so you go find one. And then it never gets put back.

[2D8HP]

....Maybe they needed somebody to stay behind during lunch so nobody steals their power tools.

Every contractor I have ever seen has put their name on EVERY. SINGLE. TOOL. because tools are quite valuable. Even the ladders have their names on them and can't be left unattended.

Ladders are always stolen by other trades, even when you paint them!

You lock them so you can find them, and as soon as you set it up, someone else tries to take it away (for the record most jobs I've been on have been "two gate").

I was very relieved one day when after our tools were stolen from our "gang box", we found the lock, which had been sawed through, otherwise I would've gotten in trouble for not locking it, or an "inside job" would be suspected.

[anjxed]

I once had my truck broken into, I live in a bad neighborhood, I forgot to lock it, that was my mistake. I had a bunch of hand tools in there, wrenches, sockets, vice grips, all that, do you know what they took? Auto-darkening welding helmet and nothing else.

It's not worth it to steal a hammer, unless you're a kid and you find it, then you don't think about it. Or you're a laborer and somebody says "get me a hammer" so you go find one. And then it never gets put back.

Quick question, how do you not lock your truck automatically? and how much is the Auto-darkening welding helment? A quick search and it says it costs roughly 50 dollars in my country.

[AMFV]

Quick question, how do you not lock your truck automatically? and how much is the Auto-darkening welding helment? A quick search and it says it costs roughly 50 dollars in my country.

Mine was more than fifty, it was worth around 200. And I normally DO lock my truck automatically. That time I just forgot too, it happens. I mean I was parked at my house.

Ladders are always stolen by other trades, even when you paint them!

You lock them so you can find them, and as soon as you set it up, someone else tries to take it away (for the record most jobs I've been on have been "two gate").

I was very relieved one day when after our tools were stolen from our "gang box", we found the lock, which had been sawed through, otherwise I would've gotten in trouble for not locking it, or an "inside job" would be suspected.

That's why I like job built ladders, cause they're on really useful at one specific job, and then you take them apart. I think a lot of it depends on what specific things you're working with as well. Stealing a ladder from our sites would often involve cutting tie wire and removing a ladder from a scaffold, and that changes things from stealing a 100 dollar ladder to causing potentially a several thousand dollar OSHA fine.

[Honest Tiefling]

Well as somebody who works in construction, I can tell you this. That copper wire... is the most valuable thing in that house, by not a small margin in terms of building materials, and it's relatively easy to sell for scrap. That's why people steal it, cause it's several hundred dollars easy money. You can't resell an aluminum ladder or a wooden handled hammer.

Which is why I am not surprised someone stayed behind to keep an eye on things, personally.

Generally my experience has been that wooden handled hammers vanish not because of theft, but because somebody is like "Oh, I need a hammer," and they grab one that's right there, and they put it someplace else, and this continues until somebody takes it home with them. Because it's not worth that much people wouldn't really feel guilty about it. Or they might genuinely believe that it was their hammer. I've seen the same thing happen with multiple ladders.

I'm not disagreeing with you (my mother threatened to buy all pink tools so my father wouldn't wander off with them), but since my family has had tools being stolen out of cars, I think there's likely a market here that's a lot less...Questioning.

Then again, bikes here get stolen all the time, so it's probably just a matter of area. Which means that the mysterious guy on the roof might have stayed behind to keep an eye on anything metallic if it's a high crime area. I sincerely doubt that if a water key was left outside for more then a few hours that it'd still be there after a while.

[Wardog]

They're not paid enough.

Most of those make sense, as they involve heavy machinary or dangerous environments. But how come bar tending is so dangerous?

[Knaight]

Most of those make sense, as they involve heavy machinary or dangerous environments. But how come bar tending is so dangerous?

Lots and lots of drunk people, some fraction of which are violent drunks. Plus, it's one of those professions where the average is driven up by a cluster of really high danger worksites well outside the norm. Those bars. The sort of bar where if there's a knife fight in a bar in your city there's a 50-50 chance that it was in that particular bar, even though the city has a good sixty bars in it.

[2D8HP]

Most of those make sense, as they involve heavy machinary or dangerous environments. But how come bar tending is so dangerous?

I was once curious about this as well (I briefly was a bartender), and IIRC I found that male bartenders have a much higher on-the-job-fatality-rate than female bartenders, also waiters have a lower on-the-job-fatality-rate than waitresses.

[AMFV]

Most of those make sense, as they involve heavy machinary or dangerous environments. But how come bar tending is so dangerous?

They get off work at the same time as all the drunk drivers leave the bar

[Gnoman]

They get off work at the same time as all the drunk drivers leave the bar

No. No they do not. Bartenders generally have at least an hour or two of work (cleaning the bar area, logging tips, etc.) after Last Call. Bartending tends to be a bit more dangerous than a lot of jobs because they have to deal with drunk people a lot, and drunk people have a tendency to get violent. Add in the occasional robbery (bars tend to have an incredible amount of cash lying around at the end of the night), and the cause isn't hard to see.

[dps]

(people volunteer to do good, most have to be paid to do evil),

While people certainly do volunteer to do good, that either that second phrase in your statement is a joke or you're the most naïve person on Earth.

[2D8HP]

While people certainly do volunteer to do good, that either that second phrase in your statement is a joke or you're the most naïve person on Earth.

Perhaps.

I stand-by it though.

Most of the evil that is done is to pay the rent or the mortgage.

[An Enemy Spy]

Perhaps.

I stand-by it though.

Most of the evil that is done is to pay the rent or the mortgage.

Or drugs. A lot of bad things are done to pay for drugs.

[Tvtyrant]

Perhaps.

I stand-by it though.

Most of the evil that is done is to pay the rent or the mortgage.

Yeah, agreed. That is why evil is so mundane, people do it with a sigh and "its out of my hands," only rarely with a cackle.

[AMFV]

Perhaps.

I stand-by it though.

Most of the evil that is done is to pay the rent or the mortgage.

I disagree strongly. Most of the evil that is done is not acknowledged to be actually evil by the party committing the evil.

[Bohandas]

Perhaps.

I stand-by it though.

Most of the evil that is done is to pay the rent or the mortgage.

Or, more to the point, to increase profits

[anjxed]

Or, more to the point, to increase profits

Blasphemy! Profits are good! Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

[BWR]

Blasphemy! Profits are good! Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Greed =/= desire

[Bohandas]

Garbage collectors are more likely to die on the job than police and fire.



They're not paid enough.

I don't see firemen on the chart, and there's no way it's due to not making the cutoff, not if police made the cutoff

[Keltest]

I don't see firemen on the chart, and there's no way it's due to not making the cutoff, not if police made the cutoff

I don't know about where you live, but my local firefighting force is largely a volunteer operation, so that could affect whether it was considered a "job" for the purposes of that study.

[GolemsVoice]

Larger cities usually have at least a core of fully employed firemen, maybe backed up by volunteers. Strange that it doesn't show up.