Just got nailed, actually written up, for too many crumbs in our toaster oven. Have until February to mitigate the problem. You can't make this kind of stuff up.

You're lucky, we are not even allowed to have a toaster oven.

What a crock of nonsense. Why didn't the OSHA inspector simply tell you about it, you could take 10 seconds to dump it into the garbage can and then take it off the list?

I work on a military base and have never seen OSHA around.

We once had a problem. We had a bolt lock on a door that kept the warehouse night crew from coming up to the office after hours. We had a fire inspection and got written up for it. The fire inspector was sitting at a table about 10' from that door, inside the office. As he was writing it up, I went to my office, found a nice large phillips head screwdriver, and removed the entire latch and catch. He kind of had a puzzled look on his face as I walked right past him and dropped it in a garbage can.

In life sometimes you've got to be quick acting.

Totally absurd, another half dozen violations of similar severity. They found expired salad dressing in the fridge. I was told that if 2 or more people were hospitalized due to food poisoning that OSHA would treat it as a catastrophic event, basically the same way as a fatality. 3 of them combed the mill for 6 hours. I really should stop here.

Actually the audit was a compliment, its a fucking steel mill and all they could find were crumbs.

My outfit got an audit back in '13. The previous program leader left and I took that person's spot. It's standard procedure for a full audit on an outgoing program leader.

They had several findings - a whole page worth actually. I didn't really have a dog in the fight, having just transferred into the job I knew any findings wouldn't be on me, so I didn't really worry too much.

I was very helpful and found the auditor all the paperwork he needed to finish the job. After the audit we had a board meeting to discuss the findings. Fifteen or Sixteen findings, and none of them amounted to a hill of shit.

The auditor and I had become fairly friendly over the three days he was there - like I said, none of it was my work - so I asked him point blank: All of this work you've done seems like a whole lot of nothing. Is it really that important?

And he said: Do you know what they pay us to do these audits? (I did not) Well, he said, if you did, you'd know we have to find something - even if it's a whole lot of nothing. I can't go tell my boss 'hey thanks for the money, but we didn't find anything'.

It made sense to me at the time.

Don't take it too hard, it's their job to find something. Even if it's only crumbs.

Somebody complained to OSHA that the air in a scuba tank we filled "tasted funny", so we got an inspection of our sporting goods store.

The inspector made about half-a-dozen remarks on her walk from the front entrance of the store to the back room where we kept everything, stuff like not having a lip on the floor of the raised storage area (four-foot railing wasn't good enough).

She got to the back of the room, leaned her hand against the air compressor, and said, "Where is the air compressor I came to inspect?"

Despite her dipshittery, we treated her politely, showed her the logs documenting air filter changes, running hours, etc. Finally she said that it checked out, and left. No reported issues.

Later, we found that (1)The customer who complained had a beef with the store's owner, that being the real reason for the complaint, and (2)The tank had actually been filled at another scuba facility, not by us.

OSHA? Sounds more like a Health Department finding. What does OSHA have to do with bread crumbs in a toaster?

The H is for health.

quote:

Originally posted by ugeesta:
OSHA? Sounds more like a Health Department finding. What does OSHA have to do with bread crumbs in a toaster?

The S is for Safety . The toaster was a fire hazard . I know it's a stretch , but they had to find something .

Yea, I get what OSHA is but primarily in the construction field. Also understand they inspect large food manufacturing\meat packing plants.

My mind set is the local Health Department would call out something like this as part of a kitchen inspection. I wasn’t aware that OSHA made inspections to restaurant\kitchen inspections.

In the early 1990s, I worked in a professional building in Atlanta, on what's known informally as Pill Hill, just across from Scottish Rite hospital. The freaking fire alarm was going off a couple of times a day. People simply started ignoring the fire alarm. Potentially dangerous situation.
I called OSHA. They wouldn't do a thing. They told me that a complaint had to come from someone who actually worked for the building's management.

Great. Thanks for your assistance in this potentially dangerous situation.

quote:

Originally posted by ugeesta:I wasn’t aware that OSHA made inspections to restaurant\kitchen inspections.

OSHA couldn't care less if your restaurant gives patrons food poisoning. That's the health department. They only care about things that endanger employees. As someone else said, the oven was a fire violation, not health. Chicken shit, but still under their rules.

Glad I don't have to deal with OSHA. I DO have to deal with MSHA....so I guess I'm no better off.

I was working on a hotel just south of Baltimore about 7 years ago. I needed to access the top of some millwork to plug in LED drivers. I was running lean and mean, just a 4' ladder, no tools or equipment otherwise. I was standing on the second step from the top of my ladder and an OSHA goon, walking down the hall (all the doors were propped open) saw me and walked in the room. He ordered me down off my 30" perch and started giving me a little cinnamon asking who I reported to/who my supervisor was. He was annoyed when I told him it was me. After about 20 minutes of time wasting...educating me on ladder safety, he advised me to store the ladder and get something taller to which I agreed. And when I say "I agreed" I mean I went to the far end of the hall way and started back up, only this time I shut the door behind me and threw the security latch as to not have to deal with any more interruptions.

I had an OSHA health safety inspector show up at my cabinet shop many years ago. I politely refused entry; as was my right back then. He politely stated he would get a warrant and be back. In the two week period before he came back, we worked furiously. When he came back, he found no violations.

We chatted awhile. He said that they were charged with generating revenue through fines. And that most violations were of the record keeping genre. Also, he related a story about trying to stop an improper and dangerous ditching operation in DC. The workers told him to bug off; they worked for Congress and he had now power over them.

quote:

Originally posted by 08 Cayenne:
The H is for health.

quote:

Originally posted by ugeesta:
OSHA? Sounds more like a Health Department finding. What does OSHA have to do with bread crumbs in a toaster?

Someone might get Mesothelioma from the bread crumbs burning off in the toaster!!!!!!! hahahaha

The best interaction I ever had with OSHA was when I was working with a software vendor early in my career. We actually visited OSHA in Washington DC to give a demonstration.

They ushered us into a conference room where we began to set up the projector and workstation. Then, when we were ready to begin the demo, one of my team members sat in the chair, which collapsed. He was not injured.

Yes, this actually happened AT OSHA.

quote:

its a fucking steel mill and all they could find were crumbs.

You've got to be shitting me.