Health and Safety Top Tips for Ladder Users
Posted on | February 21, 2010 | No Comments
HEALTH AND SAFETY TOP TIPS FOR LADDER USERS
Having one of your employees climb a stepladder, or even a step-up to get a box down from on top of a cabinet, might seem like a small risk but is it?
The latest figures available on accidents in the home, show that falling from height caused a staggering 341,000 injuries. Window cleaning, clearing gutters, painting and even putting up Christmas displays, are all situations where there is a real risk of injury.
So what should you be aware of, whether at work or at home, when you have to do anything that requires you to carry out any operation from anywhere above ground?
Here are 10 Top Tips –
1. Only ever do light work and never carry more than 10 Kg (up or down) when climbing
2. Never, ever use anything to climb up on, unless it is made for the job (e.g. don’t use a swivel chair!)
3. Always ensure that equipment (ladder, step-ladder or step-up) is in good condition before using it
4. Never work on anything that causes you to reach too far to the side, always work ahead of yourself or nearly so
5. Have someone hold the equipment when working on it, or where that isn’t practical, try to wedge it against an immoveable object (a wall or desk)
6. Where possible, always have three points of contact when climbing (two feet and one hand or vice versa)
7. Only put the equipment on firm, level ground (not a shiny or slippery surface) and never place it on any other item (e.g. a box) to gain greater height
8. Where possible, you must still try to have a hand-hold when you are at the top
9. If possible, secure a ladder towards the top by tying it on to something e.g. around the frame of two open windows)
10. On larger jobs, assess whether there is any safer way that the task can be carried out using equipment other than a ladder or stepladder e.g. an aluminium scaffold tower
If anyone is working at height regularly, make sure that they are properly trained and then you won’t find yourself as one of the HSE Statistics.
Tony Willson is Managing Director of award winning Helmsman Safety Services
www.helmsmansafetyservices.co.uk or call 01206 363712
Build Your Own Steps In The Ladder Of Success With An Evergreen Resume
Posted on | February 21, 2010 | No Comments
To land a good job we need a good resume; no one can argue about this fact. As a result many applicants spend a great deal of time and money confectioning and then massaging that resume until it can no longer be improved upon. In the end, the time, the effort, and the money really pays off, since we all eventually manage to get a job.
But is that the whole object of a resume?
For 99 percent of workers it is. Once employed, we get into a ghastly routine: collect a paycheck every week or every 2 weeks, put food on the table, pay the rent, pay all the other bills, maybe save a little for a laptop.
While Jacob (Genesis) saw, in his dream, a traffic ladder reaching up to the heavens, the go getter and self-starter should see the initial resume as the bottom step of the ladder with which to climb upward to better things-financial heaven.
Whenever you take a workshop, a seminar, an online or classroom-attendance course, update your resume. Did you get married or divorced? Did you have a child? Update your resume. Did you travel overseas? Have you written a book or article? Are you volunteering for something? Did you run a marathon? Then list the event. Sometimes what may seem an insignificant event, in the end it can be the attention grabber that can bring the promotion.
Once I updated my resume by adding a remark: “Earned 3 credits at NYU: Proust and Memory Enhancement.” When a new boss came into the department, she interviewed me for an opening as district manager that she had just created. She simply said to me, “I love Proust; my minor was French Literature.”
One of my favorite novels is Stendhal’s The Red and the Black. The hero, Julien Sorel, uses a ladder not only to ford a river and to negotiate terraces, but also to climb up and into Mme. De Renal’s boudoir. The point is that like Julien one must constantly carry the image of the ladder of success.
On another occasion, when my second child was born, I updated my resume. And as an afterthought, I included my wife and the children’s names and dates of birth–all in one line. Again, this proved to be fruitful during a promotion interview. My boss said, “My daughter’s name is Kay also-same age. Maybe they should get together.”
Keeping a resume evergreen, with a copy of the update to the Human Resources, and your boss, will get you ahead of peers and competitors.
When you are up for annual evaluation, bring up an updated resume. Use it to highlight what you have been doing to enhance your skills and how they will help you to be a better producer.
Conclusion
Convert the traditional resume into an evergreen resume. Consider the updates the steps with which you are building the ladder of success.
In war, the Maccabees, constructed huge ladders to climb walls and conquer their enemies. In business, trust the ladder that you yourself have built.
Wittgenstein -discussing language and meaning-said, “he must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.” My recommendation is keep the ladder, for there’s always higher heights to reach in the financial heavens.
Some attractions in La Digue
Posted on | February 21, 2010 | No Comments
If you have chosen La Digue as your vacation spot, you are very lucky because there are a number of attractions in store for you there. Peaceful and green, La Digue is ready to offer you one of the best moments of your life. Hire a bicycle and follow the trails to embark on a sensational adventure that will forever remain alive in your mind. Well, La Digue has a lot to give to those who want to explore the island. You could head to Grand Anse where you will find an immense pink granite rock which takes you down to the sea. Also, travel to the Old House which stands as proof of colonial wooden architecture. The Old House is situated in an inhabited zone of La Digue, so you might get there easily. Although most people speak Creole, a good amount can converse in English or French. Therefore, ask for help if you are unsure where to go. On the other hand, simply buy a map and follow the trails. Moreover, a great thing you could do while in La Digue is rock climbing. As La Digue is surrounded by superb granite structures, it proves to be a superb destination to practice rock climbing. Actually, rock climbing is one of the main attractions on La Digue. The huge and high granite blocks can offer some breathtaking climbing sensations. Should you opt for a less physical activity, hiking can be just what you desired. You could move across the granite cliffs and mix into the nature. In brief, you will experience the untouched aspect of La Digue. The thick forests will simply amaze you. Whenever you trip to a tropical island, you need to bring along your swimming equipments. Likewise, they will come handy on La Digue. Actually, the shores of La Digue will become the perfect snorkeling playground for you. All you need to do is to get into the water and do what you do best! High calibre diving facilities are in addition to readily available in La Digue. In case you are just an amateur diver and don’t want to swim in the deep waters, deep-sea fishing can be a great pass time for you. In fact, deep-sea fishing should be tried by everyone who visits La Digue. You will catch the most unexpected creatures and will be overjoyed by what you’ve achieved!
Waco Biplane into Time
Posted on | February 21, 2010 | No Comments
Parked in a meticulous, seemingly-measured row, and angled away from the wooden fence on the rolling grass field of Bealeton’s Flying Circus Aerodrome, the N2S-1 and –3 Stearman, Fleet, and Waco biplanes, all accommodating single pilots and either one or two passengers, had been poised for imminent flight, deluding me into believing that I had somehow stumbled into a barnstorming era scene frozen in time. Fully slipping through its cracks, I would take to the sky in one of these 1930s-,open-cockpit, single-engine, fabric-covered biplanes on this clear, blazingly hot August afternoon in central Virginia.
The Waco aircraft scheduled to return me to history, a dark blue-fuselaged, bright yellow-winged biplane registered N229F, had sported the Army emblem on its upper wing and the designation “US Army Air Corps, Maxwell, Alabama” on its vertical tail.
Access, along the left wing root, led to the forward, two-place, padded bench seat cockpit immediately behind the small, Plexiglas windshield and featured basic instrumentation, inclusive of an altimeter, a compass, a turn-and-bank indicator, an engine gauge in revolutions-per-minute, an airspeed indicator, a rate-of-climb indicator, a temperature gauge, and the rudder pedals. The pilot sat in the single-place cockpit behind me.
After fuel injection into the exposed-cylinder engine, which turned a single, wooden propeller, the biplane, bathed in slipstream, released its brake and followed an identical blue-and-yellow Waco type across the rolling grass over what had sometimes been used as the short, diagonal, cross runway, and then turned toward the east.
Making the 180-degree left turn after the lead aircraft had become airborne, biplane N229F unleashed itself over the grass with a full, 1,900-rpm throttle application and, after lifting its tail wheel off of the now blurred carpet of green, surrendered its two, fabric-covered wings into the sky at 70 mph.
Banking right to a 030-degree heading at 300 feet, the aircraft settled into a 200 foot-per-minute climb in the hot, flawlessly-blue August sky over central Virginia’s rolling green canvas, a view which would have been equally seen by any 1930 barnstorming flight. The expanse had formed the basis of as many “runways” as its pilot had fancied to land on in order to find passengers seeking rides.
Banking left to 210 degrees, a compass heading which had been almost double the brutal, 120-degree air temperature, the aircraft settled into its 600-foot aerial plateau. Dark green borders of trees had framed light-green, velvet-appearing fields, like modern, geometric art patterns. Silver hay silos triumphantly rose from them.
Well cocooned in the forward cockpit, yet still bombarded by the propeller-generated wind, I had been aerially suspended. Removed from earth and surrounded by a 1930 aircraft design, I had somehow felt as if I had eclipsed all ground-based time references, the equivalent of a temporary soul release to a former era.
Mimicking the earlier-departing Waco biplane, aircraft N229F commenced a series of figure-eights over rectangles of dry, almost-golden fields, their plow marks appearing like textural brushstrokes.
The soft green ridges of Shenandoah National Park, like waves, crested in the distance well ahead of the blurred propeller.
Buzzing the Flying Circus Aerodrome’s grass field at 200 feet, the biplane aileron-leveraged itself into a climbing right bank through the compass’s 360 degrees in order to position itself for a power-reduced sideslip over the ever-enlarging trees toward the field, gently settling on to the grass with its two main wheels and executing a brief deceleration roll.
Taxiing toward the “Biplane Rides” tent behind the wooden fence with its throttle in the idle position, it swung round to the right with a brief burst of power and a full rudder deflection.
Removing my noise-absorbing headset and climbing out of the cockpit, I followed the wing root, stepping back on to the ground and simultaneously back through the tare of time to 2008.