Man Is Upset His Female Colleague Was Shouting At Him While He Was Breaking Safety Rules, Wants To See Her Manager Who Fires Him On The Spot
Until you experience or witness a situation in which a person could have been just a little bit more careful or could have followed the rules and avoided the tragedy they got themselves into, you don’t really understand that it’s truly better to be safe than sorry.
This woman didn’t want to witness anything when she saw her coworker in the trash compactor that was still plugged in and yelled at him, which annoyed the man. But she wasn’t upset at all that he wanted to see her manager and prepared herself for the show.
More info: Reddit
Woman was not playing around when it came to work safety and yelled at her coworker who ignored it
Image credits: Daniel Brody (not the actual photo)
The man didn’t like that and thought he’d teach her a lesson by talking to her manager
Image credits: rawpixel (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Mike Goad (not the actual photo)
Image credits: AQuietBorderline
The manager found out the reason her subordinate yelled at the man and because she considered the same safety rules important, he was gone after 30 minutes
The Original Poster (OP) works at a company where safety regulations aren’t something that you just sign for and never hear about again. Actually, they have briefings regularly to freshen up their memory.
This time it was about safety when handling the compactor. The rule is that you never ever get inside a compactor unless it’s unplugged and you are sure that a person passing by won’t think to plug it in again.
It seems logical as a compactor is a powerful mechanism that would leave no hope for a person to stay alive. But OP’s coworker wasn’t too worried about that and when his phone fell inside, he thought he would just quickly hop in and take it out.
Which is proof that these rules need reminding, because the consequences are fatal. That is why the OP was in shock to see the coworker inside and yelled at him out of anger. The man immediately wanted to talk with the OP’s manager despite it being him violating the rules.
The woman knew that the rules were on her side and her manager was as strict with rules as she was, so she didn’t argue one bit and went to bring the manager she called Miss Heroine in this story.
The coworker’s facial expression must have been priceless when the manager was told why her subordinate yelled at him. It only then dawned on him how serious the situation was. It was so serious that half an hour later, the man was packing up his things.
People in the comments applauded the woman for teaching the man a lesson and many of them noticed she was apologizing in the text by saying that she shouldn’t have yelled, which they thought was unnecessary because politeness doesn’t work in these situations, especially when timing is important.
Because it’s still better for a person to get angry with you instead of cleaning up their blood, and someone also said that a good manager and safety officer would rather fire everyone than bury at least one.
Image credits: rawpixel (not the actual photo)
It seems that the statement is true not only in the realm of Reddit that sometimes like to go to extremes. Leadership expert Morag Barrett pointed out some situations in which yelling is acceptable. Among them she mentions a noisy environment, so you yell to be heard; when the yelling is positive, like cheering someone on; or if you’re yelling at yourself and letting out your frustrations, though, you might want to do it alone.
But the situation with which the expert starts the list is “When it’s a life and death situation – a warning of impending disaster.” You could say that the situation the OP described was a life and death one because an accident was just waiting to happen and the man needed to get out as soon as possible before anything happened.
The woman quotes Aristotle: “Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not easy.” Which means that you just have to read the room and adapt accordingly.
Also, not all yelling is the same. Liane Davey, an organizational consultant and author of The Good Fight distinguishes between yelling that is directed at people and harms them and yelling that is meant to release stress.
She says that directionality matters and the example would be her former coworker: “a lovely man who was prone to occasional shouting, but never in the form of a personal attack. Instead, he’d bang his head against the desk or bark at his computer.”
Davey claims she never felt uncomfortable or scared when he did that, rather she thought that her nice coworker was having a rough time at the moment.
While not all yelling is bad, when it becomes a habit, it can create a hostile work environment and various guides will advise to avoid it altogether. Do you think that in the OP’s situation it was necessary and the man overreacted as well and was stupid for digging his own grave?
People in the comments applauded the woman and her manager and believed the dangerous situation justified the yelling
In the vast majority of circumstances, a calm and respectful tone will achieve far more than yelling at someone but when someone's life is at risk it's the absolute opposite. Strict rules like the ones here are usually written in blood.
In a candy factory, a worker fell into a vat of chocolate. He began yelling "Fire! Fire!" When he was rescued, they asked hom why he yelled "Fire!" He responded, "Would anyone have come to help me if I'd been yelling 'Chocolate!'"?
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I worked in a Deli. Every time we got a new clerk, I would inform them that the machine is a 'meat' slicer and that - as far as that machine was concerned - 'they' were 'meat.' Then I showed them the scar on my right ring finger, the one that wraps around 3/4ths of the aforementioned finger. After that, if they got cut doing something dumb. I'd show them the pics on my phone of the same finger - BEFORE it was stitched up.
On "Malcolm in the Middle" one time, Reese got a job in a butcher's shop. After his first day he told his parents, "I even got a cool nickname--Ten Fingers! The old Ten Fingers wasn't using it anymore"
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How TF did his phone get inside the compactor in the first place? He HAD to have been leaning so close to it he was practically IN it for his phone to have been dropped in it—-or he was already IN it hanging upside down and his phone fell out of his pocket. Either way, he was breaking all the safety regulations around a compactor, decided to cop a misogynistic attitude when a woman upbraided him for it. In his tiny man brain he must’ve been thinking how humiliating it was to be yelled at by a GIRL, so he just knew her manager—-who would have course be a man—-would straighten HER out. So when her manager, another woman, showed up and started to chew him a new a*****e, his angry inch went from hard to soft in a split second. Bet it hasn’t been hard ever since. Probably rarely got hard before then either.
There's always the possibility his phone got mixed in with the stuff before he even made it to the trash compactor and didn't realize it till after. I mean the guy still an idiot but I guess it depends how literal she means when she said the phone fell in
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I used to work in the recycling (green and wood waste only) industry, and there are incidents that would make your eyes water. The site that I worked at, for example, one employee put his hand into a CDE to remove some plastic without turning it off. It removed most of his arm instead. Yes, he had been taught, but chose to ignore it. Tried to sue the company, failed, they had his signed forms to say he had been trained.
Well, I think it's one of those few situation where yelling is exactly what you should do. How else can you alert somebody to immediate danger? "Excuse me sir, could you please remove yourself from under this thing or you might get electrocu...Oh, you already did. Fine then, sorry to bother.?
Yeah, manners are not high on my priority list when I see someone about to die, either.
I e seen people killed on job sites more than once.use your brain don't get squished or worse
I feel like I'm missing something - who was Mr. Idiot? Do co-workers usually demand to see your manager?
If they work in different departments and have different managers they might ask
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Sad story - a place I worked at were very strict on things like this - all equipment was "lock out - tag out". We had someone lock out a mixer (massive big tub sort of a thing) and start work on it. Problem was it caused the line to back up. Manager got pissed and had the lock cut off - Ended up killing the guy. Now - if womething is locked out it cannot be cut off without the plant leader ordering it. If the EngTech locking out cannot be found they will send people to their house - local shops - pub ... whatever it takes to find them before cutting a lock. It if gets that far 3 EngTechs have to agree it will be safe. Just a shame it cost a mans life to get that safe.
Raising your voice is acceptable when someone is doing something that could end their life. Can't say for sure but he probably didn't like getting yelled at by a woman. Most people would avoid getting a manager involved and and deal with it themselves with a simple conversation whether they were in the wrong or not. He was way to offended over a raised voice.
Maybe we should do away with all safety rules and just let nature take its course. The world would be a better place with less stupid people.
That Admiral Halsey story in the comments is awesome. So much respect for leaders who can put common sense ahead of their own ego's!!!
Yes! This is awesome! As someone who works in maintenance at a school, we get safety briefings during our break work (like Christmas break, summer, and spring break) every morning before we get our assignments and start and some of the briefings are such simple stuff like staying hydrated or not lifting things with your back but they are still so important
On the job I had from 1987 to 1997, I was driven to the ER twice for injuries that clearly came from OSHA violations. We usually tried to clear cardboard jams with a long pole, but once in a while it wasn't enough, and somebody had to go down the chute. I'm sure we all knew we shouldn't
Totally agree100%, idiots do need to be told just how stupid they really are. F**k'em.
Don't have a juicy (ahem) story, but I have worked at a few places where there was a possibility. If you go anywhere except to the parking lot on the other side of the fence, you will wear steel toe boots, safety glasses, and helmet. No exceptions. We know you don't work on the line, you still dress for it. No problem, will do.
I actually have something to add this time! I worked for a large company (one of the top 5 chicken processors) a few years ago. Maintenance was the "permanent temporary patch" type and did not care to actually fix anything. To be fair, management cared even less since they only wanted it running. So I was operating the machine that folds boxes and it wouldn't quite run right. Maintenance was called repeatedly as I sent boxes from the buffer we kept built up. They'd show up, watch the boxes, declare it good enough and leave. Buffer runs out and I start sending hand-folded boxes and you canNOT stay caught up that way. I start getting calls from production so I explained once again what was going on (and that I'm not "trained" to fix this easy adjustment). Now, I was demoted because I wouldn't scream at my crew; I didn't need to, they worked harder for me than for anyone else. This company mistakes screaming for assertiveness.
The asst plant manager couldn't get promoted because he screamed too much and treated everyone like they're r******d (quite literally, no denigration here) children who were incapable of following simple orders. He would mock his managers, etc. Back to the story: This man is in the box room in about two minutes because production has basically stopped. He gets head of maintenance on the radio and five maintenance men plus the head are there quickly. He watches and waits until all five are either in the machine or have a limb in there and then calmly asks if the machine is locked out. I have never seen those maintenance move so fast; it looked like you kicked over an anthill!
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Working for Amazon, there would be regular Health and Safety briefings. I can remember one time where we were told a worker at an Amazon facility in Germany had been crushed to death between the loading dock and the back of a truck. He'd been wearing headphones, listening to music, and hadn't heard the truck's reversing signal, or the shouted warnings of his colleagues.
I have seen some horrendous accidents in 40 years at work and a couple deaths. I myself as leader did some pretty stupid things in a moment of brain fog. Someone screaming at me was the least I deserved. If you were standing on the front porch and you looked up and your 4 year old was running into the road, would you calmly say, Tommy, I believe that is not safe?
My dad had someone at his job site break his back, almost died, because he didn't like the roof harness and skipped putting it on when he was up top alone. Ended up misstepping a rafter and falling 3 stories into the cement basement. They think hitting a few beams on the way down is what saved him...
Why? Because SHE took health and safety seriously? Because SHE did her job? If you have any sympathy for Mr Idiot then you are as dangerous as he is. People with that attitude are a serious risk to anyone around them ,never mind themselves.
Load More Replies... In the vast majority of circumstances, a calm and respectful tone will achieve far more than yelling at someone but when someone's life is at risk it's the absolute opposite. Strict rules like the ones here are usually written in blood.
In a candy factory, a worker fell into a vat of chocolate. He began yelling "Fire! Fire!" When he was rescued, they asked hom why he yelled "Fire!" He responded, "Would anyone have come to help me if I'd been yelling 'Chocolate!'"?
Load More Replies... I worked in a Deli. Every time we got a new clerk, I would inform them that the machine is a 'meat' slicer and that - as far as that machine was concerned - 'they' were 'meat.' Then I showed them the scar on my right ring finger, the one that wraps around 3/4ths of the aforementioned finger. After that, if they got cut doing something dumb. I'd show them the pics on my phone of the same finger - BEFORE it was stitched up.
On "Malcolm in the Middle" one time, Reese got a job in a butcher's shop. After his first day he told his parents, "I even got a cool nickname--Ten Fingers! The old Ten Fingers wasn't using it anymore"
Load More Replies... How TF did his phone get inside the compactor in the first place? He HAD to have been leaning so close to it he was practically IN it for his phone to have been dropped in it—-or he was already IN it hanging upside down and his phone fell out of his pocket. Either way, he was breaking all the safety regulations around a compactor, decided to cop a misogynistic attitude when a woman upbraided him for it. In his tiny man brain he must’ve been thinking how humiliating it was to be yelled at by a GIRL, so he just knew her manager—-who would have course be a man—-would straighten HER out. So when her manager, another woman, showed up and started to chew him a new a*****e, his angry inch went from hard to soft in a split second. Bet it hasn’t been hard ever since. Probably rarely got hard before then either.
There's always the possibility his phone got mixed in with the stuff before he even made it to the trash compactor and didn't realize it till after. I mean the guy still an idiot but I guess it depends how literal she means when she said the phone fell in
Load More Replies... I used to work in the recycling (green and wood waste only) industry, and there are incidents that would make your eyes water. The site that I worked at, for example, one employee put his hand into a CDE to remove some plastic without turning it off. It removed most of his arm instead. Yes, he had been taught, but chose to ignore it. Tried to sue the company, failed, they had his signed forms to say he had been trained.
Well, I think it's one of those few situation where yelling is exactly what you should do. How else can you alert somebody to immediate danger? "Excuse me sir, could you please remove yourself from under this thing or you might get electrocu...Oh, you already did. Fine then, sorry to bother.?
Yeah, manners are not high on my priority list when I see someone about to die, either.
I e seen people killed on job sites more than once.use your brain don't get squished or worse
I feel like I'm missing something - who was Mr. Idiot? Do co-workers usually demand to see your manager?
If they work in different departments and have different managers they might ask
Load More Replies... Sad story - a place I worked at were very strict on things like this - all equipment was "lock out - tag out". We had someone lock out a mixer (massive big tub sort of a thing) and start work on it. Problem was it caused the line to back up. Manager got pissed and had the lock cut off - Ended up killing the guy. Now - if womething is locked out it cannot be cut off without the plant leader ordering it. If the EngTech locking out cannot be found they will send people to their house - local shops - pub ... whatever it takes to find them before cutting a lock. It if gets that far 3 EngTechs have to agree it will be safe. Just a shame it cost a mans life to get that safe.
Raising your voice is acceptable when someone is doing something that could end their life. Can't say for sure but he probably didn't like getting yelled at by a woman. Most people would avoid getting a manager involved and and deal with it themselves with a simple conversation whether they were in the wrong or not. He was way to offended over a raised voice.
Maybe we should do away with all safety rules and just let nature take its course. The world would be a better place with less stupid people.
That Admiral Halsey story in the comments is awesome. So much respect for leaders who can put common sense ahead of their own ego's!!!
Yes! This is awesome! As someone who works in maintenance at a school, we get safety briefings during our break work (like Christmas break, summer, and spring break) every morning before we get our assignments and start and some of the briefings are such simple stuff like staying hydrated or not lifting things with your back but they are still so important
On the job I had from 1987 to 1997, I was driven to the ER twice for injuries that clearly came from OSHA violations. We usually tried to clear cardboard jams with a long pole, but once in a while it wasn't enough, and somebody had to go down the chute. I'm sure we all knew we shouldn't
Totally agree100%, idiots do need to be told just how stupid they really are. F**k'em.
Don't have a juicy (ahem) story, but I have worked at a few places where there was a possibility. If you go anywhere except to the parking lot on the other side of the fence, you will wear steel toe boots, safety glasses, and helmet. No exceptions. We know you don't work on the line, you still dress for it. No problem, will do.
I actually have something to add this time! I worked for a large company (one of the top 5 chicken processors) a few years ago. Maintenance was the "permanent temporary patch" type and did not care to actually fix anything. To be fair, management cared even less since they only wanted it running. So I was operating the machine that folds boxes and it wouldn't quite run right. Maintenance was called repeatedly as I sent boxes from the buffer we kept built up. They'd show up, watch the boxes, declare it good enough and leave. Buffer runs out and I start sending hand-folded boxes and you canNOT stay caught up that way. I start getting calls from production so I explained once again what was going on (and that I'm not "trained" to fix this easy adjustment). Now, I was demoted because I wouldn't scream at my crew; I didn't need to, they worked harder for me than for anyone else. This company mistakes screaming for assertiveness.
The asst plant manager couldn't get promoted because he screamed too much and treated everyone like they're r******d (quite literally, no denigration here) children who were incapable of following simple orders. He would mock his managers, etc. Back to the story: This man is in the box room in about two minutes because production has basically stopped. He gets head of maintenance on the radio and five maintenance men plus the head are there quickly. He watches and waits until all five are either in the machine or have a limb in there and then calmly asks if the machine is locked out. I have never seen those maintenance move so fast; it looked like you kicked over an anthill!
Load More Replies... Working for Amazon, there would be regular Health and Safety briefings. I can remember one time where we were told a worker at an Amazon facility in Germany had been crushed to death between the loading dock and the back of a truck. He'd been wearing headphones, listening to music, and hadn't heard the truck's reversing signal, or the shouted warnings of his colleagues.
I have seen some horrendous accidents in 40 years at work and a couple deaths. I myself as leader did some pretty stupid things in a moment of brain fog. Someone screaming at me was the least I deserved. If you were standing on the front porch and you looked up and your 4 year old was running into the road, would you calmly say, Tommy, I believe that is not safe?
My dad had someone at his job site break his back, almost died, because he didn't like the roof harness and skipped putting it on when he was up top alone. Ended up misstepping a rafter and falling 3 stories into the cement basement. They think hitting a few beams on the way down is what saved him...
Why? Because SHE took health and safety seriously? Because SHE did her job? If you have any sympathy for Mr Idiot then you are as dangerous as he is. People with that attitude are a serious risk to anyone around them ,never mind themselves.
Load More Replies...
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