Thread: I have no idea about your job, but my book says you are doing it wrong.

Changing jobs has given me an insight into the world of OHS and some of its incredible applications. My impression has been that it's a good thing in that it can prevent injury or worse and that it does focus people’s attention to dangers and to look out for their fellow work mates. The thought has crossed my mind though that there are more people running the asylum than there is in the asylum. BobLs' post (#3) about the fallen falling tree is a classic, I often think the society we live in is full of dumb down pressures which in some way feel patronising.

Just one more thing, a bit picky I suppose but considering the cost to arose62 father multiplied by how many others, the fact their job is to pick faults and earn their payola from it then perhaps they could find the time to get more appropriate stickers and fill them out correctly...I'm talking to you Bat Charger

Originally Posted by arose62

My Dad's in the William Cape Gardens nursing home at Kanwal, and a new bigboss poked her nose in the much advertised "Mens' Shed" and decided that the exposed part of dad's new Carbatec BAS350 bandsaw blade needed to be covered.
My dad tried to explain that this would make the bandsaw useless, but was quoted some Australian Standard (but not the wording).
Next, a further safety "investigation" found the need for testing and tagging, and he's copped a $200 invoice-pretty harsh on a nursing home resident!

Particularly when the toasters in the dining room are NOT tagged, but get used daily, whereas dad is lucky to toddle out to the shed fortnightly.
But what really cheesed me off was charging him 3 x $8 tests on his mobile phone charger, and tagging it 3 times!

If I had a cord inspector called Bat Charger, I'd be using him all the time! Does he say "Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed" when he drives off?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBe3QzVW5_8

I left Australia 7 years ago and when I visit, I can't believe how fats things are going down hill. In Norway, if you injure yourself doing somthing stupid, its YOUR fault. No judge would even allow the case into court if you were trying to sue for damages.

My kids were in daycare and went down to the river to fish. The carers allowed them to fish with hooks, whittle wood with knives and then built a fire and roasted the fish on the spits so the kids could eat them. This is how things were when I was a kid and it's a shame that kids in Australia are missing out.

I worked as a school teacher in Australia and Norway and can tell you that the loss of manual arts equipment is happening everywhere. In Norway I worked in Manual arts and refurbished all the machines and it was the first time they had them running in 10 years. Here we don't have the litegation but the government is squeezing out production and forcing us to buy cheap Chineese garbage. soon only the hobbyist will have any idea how to make or fix anything.

Paul.

I'd be asking for my money back on the THREE test tags as none of them are filled out correctly, and one doesn't have a proper licence number on it! and all on the same day, what a joke!

Well, William Cape Gardens at Kanwal has been advertising for 10 years now, that they offer a "Mens' Shed".

However, in the 10 years that my dad has been there, he is the only one who put anything into the development of the shed, buying brand new bandsaw, drill press, dust collectors, lockable cupboards, as well as a lathe, shelving, and bringing his bench and lots of hand tools.
WCGMensShedBefore.jpg

He built a trailer for his scooter, and systematically collected outdoor furniture, cleaned, re-oiled, and returned it, and made footstools, soapholders, shortened knitting needles, and made a Bobs Game.
DadTrailer.jpg
The trailer mysteriously disappeared a couple of years ago, and every notification of this theft or deliberate destruction to management has just been buried, and never really acknowledged.

Around July 2016, WCG management started to treat the Mens' Shed as a dumping/storage area, and stuffed some mouldy outdoor umbrellas in there, which made it a really horrible, smelly, mouldy environment. After 6 months of asking for the umbrellas to be removed, I took my complaint to a higher level of management, on 30-Jan-2017.
AaMouldy01.jpg

Throughout February, I received multiple letters, phone calls, and personal approaches, all to do with how my father's tools were a "hazard" and a "danger" and were blocking their "vision" for the shed.

At their request, I removed everything of dad's by 01-APR-2017.

And waited ...
and waited ...
and asked about progress after 7 months, and was assured that wonderful things would be happening "in the next couple of weeks"
and waited another 2 months ...

So, now, 9 months later, I would like to present William Cape Garden's "revitalised" Men's Shed, which I'm assured was *not" a tit-for-tat retaliation for complaining about the mouldy umbrellas.
WCG_MensShed_20171111_105514.jpgWCG_MensShed_20171119_102314.jpg

Damn shame when one person puts a big effort in and management crushes it. Maybe they had concerns re safety?
However, they should be up for false advertising or change their website as they advertise a men’s work shed on their WEB site.

Arose62's post should probably be in the Men's Sheds forum but anyway maybe the mods will move it and the associated ones there.

Here is my experience FWIW.

So called "Men's sheds" in Nursing homes can be very different to regular "mens shed".
These "mens sheds" are usually only open to the home's residents and if there are no permanent or regular supervisors, have to for safety sake of course cater for the lowest common denominator.
In some cases this literally means an empty room into which very limited stuff is bought into.

I was a supervisor for such a men's shed in a nursing home for about 18 months and all the space we had was a 3 x 3m empty space in the maintenance workshop basement.
As well as myself, at least one OT was allocated to help and if there were more than 6 members present another OT would work with us.

The "mens shed" only operated for the "half an hour" per week - that's all the time we were allocated.
The allocated space was in the loading bay area of the home's maintenance workshop which meant the maintenance boys had to weekly clear the area of junk and put up mobile partitions to prevent the participants wondering off into other parts of the workshop. On a number of occasions the loading bay could not be cleared and I had to move the activities for that day to a regular carpeted activity room.

Before I could even begin doing this I had to get a police check and undertake 4 hours of training and exams only working with seniors. - I was not permitted to physically help move a member ie push a wheel chair or (unless it was an emergency) steady a member on a walking frame.

For each session it took
- 15 minutes to set up the area - see below.
- up to 15 minutes to move the participants (anywhere from 3 to a dozen blokes) from the nursing home 2 floors up down the lifts and into the workshop, and 15 minutes to move them back.
- 15 minutes to pack up the area.

Most of the blokes were physically and/or mental disabled and used walkers or wheelchairs and some could not speak/hear well, or at all.
Only 2 of the dozen or so members had the full use of both hands, most had only one useful hand, and some had "none" so they could only watch.

We only used hand tools although I occasionally brought in a power drill.

After a few months we were given a small woodwork bench with a vice but only one member was up to using it (ie could stand up to use a workbench). We used 3/4 folding tables since most of the participants were restricted to working in a seated position and could only undertake sorting, light assembly and sanding and painting activities.

One of the members organised for his son to bring in a beat up B&D Workmate which we repaired and repainted. This proved useful so I brought another one in I found at the side of the road and we used these to hold workpieces so the one armed members could at least do a bit of sanding.
The same member donated his hand tools and we set some of these out on a shadow board above the bench. Mostly they were for show.
There was a small drill press and compressor available to us and we used those occasionally but some of the participants did not like the noises they made and one stopped coming because of the noise. Some of the members also complained about the dust from the hand sanding and the smell of the water based paints. One member had to sit in a particular seat because he did not like the light from the window - Bill did not like to sit next to Fred etc.

There is no way we could have used machinery of any kind so I spent up to half a day a week cutting out various bits and pieces at home which the members would assemble/sand/paint.
Extreme patience was required because every activity was mind numbingly slow and lots of stuff ups occurred. This of course was what I expected but it obviously affected and frustrated the more capable members who could have managed a couple of hours and made some progress on projects in that time.

A better way to serve these members would have been to run a basic short OT sessions for the less abled members and for the capable members to be taken to a real mens shed for half a day a week. Of course where do you get the staff to supervise this is another matter.

Bug gar getting old is a crock!

The day has now dawn whereby my wife is suggesting we downsize & move to a village lifestyle merely because my brother has done it.
I'm going to have to show her this thread ,that on seeing this there is snowballs chance in hell of me moving & losing the shed I have & the time I like spend in it.
It's a given that each of us in our pursuits in the shed face numerous hazardous tasks ,I'd rather face that than dying slowly in a village with or without the pursuits I like at home here.
My 0.2c worth on this,But I do empathise with the chap in the village/nursing home.

Originally Posted by John Saxton

But I do empathise with the chap in the village/nursing home.

There are probably hundreds of blokes like this around the place.
These blokes should be getting out of the nursing home all together for a couple of hours a week and going to regular mens shed but the issue is one of and who does the transport and minding and the shed.
A buddy member at the regular mens shed could be organised by the mens shed but as someone who is in a mens shed if I were the family and/or nursing home I'd like to see more than a "sheel be right mate" level of supervisor. OTOH the nursing home requirements of 4 hours of training just to be a "buddy" is definitely OTT. The ideal person to transport and buddy is a family member but interests are not always going to align on this.

Tis indeed a very difficult issue. We're just starting the process about signing mum (92, with moderate dementia currently living with a sister) up for a medium leading to high care facility. The issue for mum is her garden plants, she spends 3-4 hours a day pottering about and knows all her plants - she has already said she won't go anywhere because of the plants - we will let them die or be stolen.

Originally Posted by Fuzzie

Bug gar getting old is a crock!

Yeah, but it sure beats the alternative.

I, like Bob, also help out at a "Men's Shed" not as part of a Nursing Home but a part of the local Day Centre. I've taken on the role of Supervisor (self appointed)
as no one else had a clue as to what they were doing. Originally when I started there, it as as a client suffering mental health issues. After about 8-9 months I was asked if I'd be interested in becoming a Volunteer in the shed. Filling in the paperwork which also involved a Police Clearance, they discovered I had a Workplace Training and Assessing certificate 4, also a semi trailer licence, I was then asked to drive the bus to pick up the clients.
Our shed, which is named Tilly's Shed, after a client that had been coming there for something like 45 years, originally was about 3.5 metres by 5 metres, it's now about 9 metres by 5 metres, and holds a nice range of powered equipment, plus a large range of hand tools. When I first started there, we had a Ryobi 3 speed drill press, a Ryobi bench grinder for sharpening tools on, a Ryobi 3 wheeled bandsaw, and a Makita drop saw. there is still the drop saw and bench grinder, but the rest have been replaced with better equipment, which now includes a Leda combination jointer thicknesser, a Carbatec 14" bandsaw, Makita Table saw, Carbatec drum disc sander, Leda Bobbin sander, Carbatec scroll saw, Carbatec 16 speed pedestal drill, Leda Lathe, Triton Router bench which was picked up second hand, and a Tormek tool sharpening station.
The first original items were donated by the Masonic Lodge of Murray Bridge, the updated items were made available by various grants and fund raising, by selling toys etc that are made by the Volunteers and Clients there.
Our clients range from a Stroke victim (44 yr young person) to a client that uses a walking frame, that does excellent scroll saw work (not intricate stuff).
The stroke victim can only use his right hand and gets around in a motorized wheel chair, and he does most of the sanding, we cut out serving spoons/stirrers and he sands them smooth. He also comes up with a lot of ideas on the toys that are made there. We also make a lot of different items that go inside to the ladies to decorate, tissue boxes with a sliding base, door hangers, plus small jewelry boxes. These are then sold at a trading table usually in October, where something like $1500 is raised, on average Tilly's Shed raises some thing like $7-800 from sales most of the items are around $15 -20 and under. The offcuts of wood are sold as kindling at $5.00 a feed bag full.
Unfortunately some of the volunteers, have no idea about working with wood, 9 mm ply was. joined with glue and 25 mm nails!!!!! Axles for trucks were 6 mm doweling. This is the type of thing I have to contend with.
Due to a recent incident, we weren't allowed to use any powered tools or equipment, but we had a few orders for Christmas to get out. So, like Bob, I spent quite a bit of time cutting the pieces out and preparing them for the clients, then take them home and finish them, re sanding painting etc.
The Co-ordinator has decided that there should be some changes in the way things are done in there, all jobs have to be in a quote book. So that people know how much it costs, plus she can see what work is to be done, then she hands me a "printed sheet" with a hand scrawled listing pieces that needs to be made, no date required by, no date when she took the order, no details who it's for?? Double standards???
Kryn

are the trends so surprising we are at least ten years behind the yanks but we as you say are doomed by the do gooders and people who don't know s--t from sixpence this includes our wonderful government.

I do need to respectfully disagree with the sentiment that we’ve become overly restrictive as a society due to safety concerns.
I think we have a great balance of freedoms and duty of care in Australia. We get to do pretty much what we like in our own homes or activities we control. Organisations however have a very powerful duty of care over their employees/members/clients. We may disagree where duty of care starts and stops, but ultimately the people making that decision are those that risk prosecution if they get it wrong, not the arm chair commentators. And I’m happy with that.
Note that I’m not talking about poor policy, management or bureaucracy. That will always be subject to the individuals in question.