[Annoy] What's something small that really annoys you?

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#1805142 22-Jun-2017 13:24

Geektastic:

Fred99:

Geektastic:

Still works alone because - and I quote - "young guys here today are the laziest, most irresponsible morons I've ever come across and I wouldn't let one of them near me with a chainsaw!"

That's a common attitude - and especially from "tradies" who conveniently forget how gormless and two-thumbed they were when they started.

Unfortunately, sole traders have neither the time nor the money to employ people to train, especially in jobs where H&S is a critical issue. In this case, the conversation revolved around people who claimed to have experience already, not people who had just started out.

I had a similar conversation with a guy who ran a one man band landscaping firm. He had college qualifications in horticulture and so on. Every time he tried to find someone to work with him, he could not get anyone he would accept. Time keeping was apparently awful, random 'duvet days' with no forewarning were common - and two people used to disappear to the pub at lunch and return too boozed up to safely be allowed anywhere near power tools. Another actually turned up still squiffy from the night before and lit a joint before the day began - he was off site before the first puff!

It may reflect the small pool available locally. The Wairarapa is not Auckland so the number of available workers is far smaller.

I know quite a few sole-trader business folks, I hear some of them bleating sometimes - but I don't agree with what they (or you) are saying.

One problem that these sole traders have is that they can't offer a career path for staff, some even "hold back" on training for fear the staff member will leave and start up in opposition to them, restraint of trade agreements are unenforceable in most cases.

Often crappy pay, no future, no colleagues. I wouldn't do that kind of work myself unless I was starving and even then it would be short term, I'd milk it for what I could. I would never employ someone on that basis.

IMO a lot of these sole traders need to think longer term, have a succession plan which may involve profit share / sale of minority share to their employee(s), with the employee having first right of refusal to buy the business as a going concern when the owner wants to retire. They'd end up with both a more loyal employee and a better price for the business as a going concern - as even quite successful sole-trader businesses are worth no more than the value of the ute and tools when they sell up otherwise.

"Profit share - OMG" says small minded sole-trader. "I'm not giving away all my hard work". LOL - misplaced greed IMO.

MikeAqua

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#1805256 22-Jun-2017 15:02

With the punitive measure available under the Health and Safety at Work Act, if I worked as a self employed tradesman I would be reluctant to take trainees on. If there is a serious accident you will be found to be at fault. There is always something the employer could have done, but didn't

Up to $600k fine and up to two years in prison. That could ruin your life.

Mike

surfisup1000

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#1805288 22-Jun-2017 15:40

MikeAqua:

With the punitive measure available under the Health and Safety at Work Act, if I worked as a self employed tradesman I would be reluctant to take trainees on. If there is a serious accident you will be found to be at fault. There is always something the employer could have done, but didn't

Up to $600k fine and up to two years in prison. That could ruin your life.

What I have noticed is that the government expects small traders to have the same resources as a large corporate when it comes to implementing H&S.

Fred99

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#1805295 22-Jun-2017 15:50

surfisup1000:

MikeAqua:

With the punitive measure available under the Health and Safety at Work Act, if I worked as a self employed tradesman I would be reluctant to take trainees on. If there is a serious accident you will be found to be at fault. There is always something the employer could have done, but didn't

Up to $600k fine and up to two years in prison. That could ruin your life.

What I have noticed is that the government expects small traders to have the same resources as a large corporate when it comes to implementing H&S.

Only if they're working in a risky industry.

So much hysteria - so few facts.

http://www.worksafe.govt.nz/worksafe/hswa/understanding-hswa/mythbusting/mythbusting

Fred99

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#1805296 22-Jun-2017 15:53

MikeAqua:

Up to $600k fine and up to two years in prison. That could ruin your life.

So could be being dead, maimed, or crippled due to workplace accident.

I'll wager that the total of people dead maimed and crippled outnumber the total of small employers fined $600k and/or put in the slammer for two years by an infinite factor.

Geektastic

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#1805417 22-Jun-2017 22:57

Fred99:

Geektastic:

Fred99:

Geektastic:

Still works alone because - and I quote - "young guys here today are the laziest, most irresponsible morons I've ever come across and I wouldn't let one of them near me with a chainsaw!"

That's a common attitude - and especially from "tradies" who conveniently forget how gormless and two-thumbed they were when they started.

Unfortunately, sole traders have neither the time nor the money to employ people to train, especially in jobs where H&S is a critical issue. In this case, the conversation revolved around people who claimed to have experience already, not people who had just started out.

I had a similar conversation with a guy who ran a one man band landscaping firm. He had college qualifications in horticulture and so on. Every time he tried to find someone to work with him, he could not get anyone he would accept. Time keeping was apparently awful, random 'duvet days' with no forewarning were common - and two people used to disappear to the pub at lunch and return too boozed up to safely be allowed anywhere near power tools. Another actually turned up still squiffy from the night before and lit a joint before the day began - he was off site before the first puff!

It may reflect the small pool available locally. The Wairarapa is not Auckland so the number of available workers is far smaller.

I know quite a few sole-trader business folks, I hear some of them bleating sometimes - but I don't agree with what they (or you) are saying.

One problem that these sole traders have is that they can't offer a career path for staff, some even "hold back" on training for fear the staff member will leave and start up in opposition to them, restraint of trade agreements are unenforceable in most cases.

Often crappy pay, no future, no colleagues. I wouldn't do that kind of work myself unless I was starving and even then it would be short term, I'd milk it for what I could. I would never employ someone on that basis.

IMO a lot of these sole traders need to think longer term, have a succession plan which may involve profit share / sale of minority share to their employee(s), with the employee having first right of refusal to buy the business as a going concern when the owner wants to retire. They'd end up with both a more loyal employee and a better price for the business as a going concern - as even quite successful sole-trader businesses are worth no more than the value of the ute and tools when they sell up otherwise.

"Profit share - OMG" says small minded sole-trader. "I'm not giving away all my hard work". LOL - misplaced greed IMO.

In many cases they are what used to be called 'jobs' rather than 'careers'.

I've heard it from enough people round here to know it's a real problem. There are a lot of fairly well hidden issues in this region (and probably elsewhere) with drugs and alcohol, gangs and the like. They seem to affect the people who would be working locally in the more manual jobs a lot more than the ones that commute to Wellington for professional roles. You can spot the same vehicles parked for hours outside the pub on a Friday afternoon. I'm always surprised that the police are not parked round the corner waiting with the breathalyser.

In small communities it seems common for the same people to bounce amongst the same employers and so on too, which probably doesn't help. I'm forever coming across people who used to work at X and now work at Y - and then a few months/years later they are back at X. Not a great recipe for gathering experience and new ideas.

I'm not at all surprised - I can't really imagine why any person with drive and ambition who is young and at an early stage in their life would not be upping sticks and heading off to see the bright lights of the world and see what life is about rather than staying round here and sticking at the same dull things forever. Couldn't do it myself.

Aredwood

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#1805465 23-Jun-2017 02:49

Fred99:

surfisup1000:

MikeAqua:

With the punitive measure available under the Health and Safety at Work Act, if I worked as a self employed tradesman I would be reluctant to take trainees on. If there is a serious accident you will be found to be at fault. There is always something the employer could have done, but didn't

Up to $600k fine and up to two years in prison. That could ruin your life.

What I have noticed is that the government expects small traders to have the same resources as a large corporate when it comes to implementing H&S.

Only if they're working in a risky industry.

So much hysteria - so few facts.

http://www.worksafe.govt.nz/worksafe/hswa/understanding-hswa/mythbusting/mythbusting

Im a Plumber / gasfitter. If I do work in someone's house, Their house is now a construction site while Im working there. For me to do things properly, I have to put up a hazards board, give a safety induction to all people working or visiting the site, Check that they have appropriate training, Exclude members of the public from the site or take more precautions to manage them. Make sure that everyone on site is wearing appropriate protective clothing, footwear ect.

So the law expects me to dictate what people wear, what they do, and if they can even come inside their own house.

If I have employees, there is a big process I have to go through if I want to drug test them, and be able to get rid of them if they fail the drugs test. I can't test for drugs just because I want to. Even if Im only testing for drugs that are illegal.

Yet if I put an employee in a van that has only a 1* crash safety rating, and they get killed as a result. I get off scot free. (Im not aware of any cases where an employer has been prosecuted over a car crash solely to do with the crash safety rating of the vehicle) But if I give an employee an angle grinder, and they manage to chop their finger off with it. I will almost certainly get prosecuted for it, Or at the very least have to spend heaps on lawyers defending charges bought against me. Yet far more people get killed in car crashes than on worksites. Have a look at the number of Mitsubishi L300, Toyota Dyna, Nissan Atlas forward control vans, light trucks that are still on the road, been driven by employees who have no choice in what they have to drive. And which have extremely poor crash safety rating.

But the government doesn't want to do anything about them. As the question will get asked as to why safer used import cars like R33 Nissan Skylines are not allowed to be imported. Because they supposedly have poor frontal impact safety. While Mitsubishi L300s were OK to be sold brand new up to 2014 despite not having a single airbag and virtually no crumple zone.

Workplace safety laws are riddled with double standards.

Fred99

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#1805493 23-Jun-2017 08:59

Frontal safety in a van isn't going to save you from the 1/2 tonne of tools in the back being launched at you - but yeah I agree about those crappy vans.

surfisup1000

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#1805518 23-Jun-2017 10:12

Aredwood:

Im a Plumber / gasfitter. If I do work in someone's house, Their house is now a construction site while Im working there. For me to do things properly, I have to put up a hazards board, give a safety induction to all people working or visiting the site, Check that they have appropriate training, Exclude members of the public from the site or take more precautions to manage them. Make sure that everyone on site is wearing appropriate protective clothing, footwear ect.

So the law expects me to dictate what people wear, what they do, and if they can even come inside their own house.

Fred99 appears to think compliance and regulations have an insignificant cost.

Health and safety is important, but bureaucrats should consider the costs too.

And the cost of regulations are insidious, they increase prices to consumers (housing crisis anyone?)... deter people from entering industries... depress productivity. The latter is very important as productivity growth is what can provide a country with better healthcare (since fred99 was talking about people dying) and other services .

So, if the total benefits outweigh the total costs , then fine. But, this can be difficult to measure. eg, how do you take the cost of a family that lives in a garage because they couldn't quite afford a house?

Fred99

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#1805575 23-Jun-2017 11:38

surfisup1000:

Fred99 appears to think compliance and regulations have an insignificant cost.

Do I?

I bet you can't substantiate that accusation - because it's not true.

Attacking a person with "stuff made up" in attempt to discredit them.

Something small that really annoys me.

MikeAqua

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#1805590 23-Jun-2017 12:11

Fred99:

Only if they're working in a risky industry.

So much hysteria - so few facts.

http://www.worksafe.govt.nz/worksafe/hswa/understanding-hswa/mythbusting/mythbusting

I could name example prosecutions that show almost everyone of those myths are facts. In fact most of them are either very cleverly worded to dodge the issue or self-contradictory.

Plenty of people have suffered serious harm in purportedly safe workplaces. Those events were unexpected.

But we are brilliant at convincing ourselves (with the benefit of hindsight) that the unpredicted was is actually predictable, logical, deducible even inevitable - NN Taleb provides a great discussion of this in The Black Swan.

If someone is seriously harmed, investigations occur in hindsight and with a fine toothed comb. They will find you wanting - somehow. You are now a public example.

You will probably get prosecuted. If you do, you will almost certainly get convicted so best plead guilty and hope for clemency ...

Mike

surfisup1000

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#1805640 23-Jun-2017 13:10

Fred99:

surfisup1000:

Fred99 appears to think compliance and regulations have an insignificant cost.

Do I?

I bet you can't substantiate that accusation - because it's not true.

Attacking a person with "stuff made up" in attempt to discredit them.

Something small that really annoys me.

Because you only talk about the benefits and never the cost.It is unbalanced.

frankv

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#1805643 23-Jun-2017 13:15

surfisup1000:

Fred99:

surfisup1000:

Fred99 appears to think compliance and regulations have an insignificant cost.

Do I?

I bet you can't substantiate that accusation - because it's not true.

Attacking a person with "stuff made up" in attempt to discredit them.

Something small that really annoys me.

Because you only talk about the benefits and never the cost.It is unbalanced.

Fortunately for a *lot* of people, there's no requirement to be balanced.

surfisup1000

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#1805649 23-Jun-2017 13:26

frankv:

Fortunately for a *lot* of people, there's no requirement to be balanced.

Probably going a bit off topic now ha ha. I'm tapping out on this discussion.

invisibleman18

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#1805689 23-Jun-2017 14:30

Vodafone's hold music. The same Lorde song over and over again with seemingly nothing else on the playlist. I've had to call them a couple of times over the last few days as have had issues setting up a new fibre connection. First call lasted 45 minutes and she had to put me on hold 3 or 4 times while she checked things and every time it was the same damn song from the beginning again.

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