Looking back over my career I can think of a few occasions where I put myself in real danger without thinking about the consequences, its only now in my aging years that I look back in horror and realise how lucky I am to be here.
Back in the day.... It was quite normal to go to the pub at lunch time that inevitably would be extended and then return to work half cut, I was a lift engineer working on major construction sites!

Obviously I wouldn't dream of doing that now, what experiences have you had?

Back in the day, Friday lunchtime was the traditionally liquid lunch day. Notable perhaps that many employers now operate sytems of compressed hours such that the working week now ends at Friday lunchtime. A win-win for the employer as productivity on Friday p.m. was never that great as I recall.

It was accepted that we could squeeze four pints of strong Larger in the one hour lunch break down the works Social Club. The Social Club still remains but I can't imagine the culture remains.

Back in the 80's when I worked on sites the steel tier's certainly seemed more relaxed working at height after a friday trip to the pub? At one country job I even saw 3 of them return from one trip to lunch in the bucket of a JCB

So, the worst job any ones done is downing a few pints on a Friday lunchtime? Not Derek and Clive is it?

I used to go up onto Asbestos Sheet roofing and clear out guttering by using a ladder to get onto the roof (not tied or footed) and chuck the waste into my dumper truck parked below (Age 16!!)

We also used to go under the floor of the factory, about a 2 m crawl space and clear out the old fat when they had a leak (no confined space training etc) (Age 17)

Flipped a dumper truck a few times (Age 16-17)

Used to climb racking to pick from the top shelves (Age 19)

Used to go into a fat Silo waist deep, rope tied around me to jet to pressure wash the drainage point when blocked (Age 17) (Drain wider than me..)

Have FLT races and play bumper trucks with them etc

Its amazing I am still alive, but it has given me an insight into the stupid things people do, as I used to do them in my youth!! So when someone tells me their version of how something happened, I can normally work out how it really happened!

I once had to clean out a warehouse that had been inhabited by pigeons for a number of years. You can imagine what it was like!

No masks or gloves.

What fun that was

Andy

Spray painting without proper respiratory equipment for 5 years was lowpoint! Not as much as kneeling on guard dog doo in the spray booth, when I was a young whipper snapper learning my trade in a dodgy car dealership 30 years ago! Grim.

Lying on my back under a wool scouring machine to change the sludge scroll shaft bearings - it was warm for a while then the damp set in and then the smell - it took at least two shampoo's to get rid of the smell from your hair - mind you I do have full head of hair at the back - must have acted as a fertiliser!!!
Same place using a 'cherry picker' as a towing truck (lifted the fork lift we could not get enough traction!) connected to the hook of a block and tackle, when lowering a 20ft shaft to the ground - with the block and tackle slung off a roof purling/truss; I was that very nervous apprentice operating the block and tackle.
Being slung up and left dangling by my harness (yes we did have one between six of us) from the crane in the workshop whilst 'various' bits of me were poked and prodded, crane pendant was just out of reach- mates for you eh?
Oh happy days!!

Diving in sewage farms to change valves in the active tanks is always character building.
Or inspecting dock gates for obstructions at 0200 when a conger eel swims between your legs!!

Then there was the time when I modernised two lifts in a council tower block.....
When replacing the platform (the bit you stand on) the nuts and bolts fell off as they were rusted through from years of being soaked in urine! Lovely!

Working in Northern Ireland gave me a unique take on risks!

Place I used to work received a car bomb threat, my boss ID'd the dodgy motor and instructed me to go and see if there was anything in the boot before the security folks arrived!!!

Needless to say I did not agree with his assessment of the risk, which was just as well as the car was later found to contain a few hundred pounds of home made!

Ah, those were the days.....

Have to agree with Tomkins this thread should be saved to show improvements made by H&S in general over the years. As it is obviously going to be locked shortly, i intend to open a new thread asking for different trades where there has been massive H&S improvements.

Worst jobs, well back in the early 70's as an apprentice part of my work was to shovel 'doo doo' for Severn & Trent - knee deep on occasions. Since then, working on the Wembley Stadium project - knee deep in different type of 'doo doo' if you get my drift.

To set the scene; Grew up on a farm in Ireland (enought said there I think)

1. Age 5 and seen as I couldnt really lift bales of hay I was tasked with driving the tractor whilst, my father and brother loaded up,
2. Age 7 tasked with climbing up a stack of hay bales to secure plastic sheeting, no ropes, fell (on the way back down) and broke my elbow of the shed RSJ,
3. Unknown amounts of stupid Manual Handling tasks (lifting bags of feed and man handling rather large cows)
4. Putting myself in serious danger blocking bulls/cows from running through open gates
5. Running around large machinery during silage cutting season,
6. Supplying the contracts who were cutting the sillage with a supply of beer (then sitting on the tractor with them whilst they were merry)

I could go on about farming!

Age 15 got my first job in a supermarket, I was the baker, no training provided, and I dono how many times I burnt myself and again untold amounts of manual handling operations.

Age 20 I worked in a hotel, and yet again manual handling tasks with no training, and I remember working a race meeting and working from 12 noon till 7am the following morning all week

Carrying out inspections and investigations at various types of smelly premises during my time with HSE wasn't pleasant in olefactory terms, though I can't be sure which types were worst - the animal rendering plants, the fishmeal plants or sewage works.

After my first visit to an animal rendering plant (which processes for bonemeal, candlewax (?) and fertiliser all the bits of animals which food factories don't want) I found that the smell had pervaded my suit and needed to take it soon afterwards to a dry cleaners. After , for subsequent visits, usually after visiting any other premises which needed visiting in the same area - I would change first into old outer clothes which could be bagged and go straight into my washing machine at home. Fortunately, though the pongy places seemed very pongy on arrival, they seemed to become less pongy during the visits because one's sense of smell accommodates and becomes less sensitive to the pongs. By contrast the aroma of freshly baked bread at bakeries and also freshly sawn pine at sawmills was always a nice part of visiting such premises!

60ft up in the air on top of two cupola chimney stacks, tied around the waist with a length of rope, my mentor tied to the other end, I was asked to shin across a spark arrestor pipe to uncouple it so that I could change the rusty length for new. That was back in the early 80's. Thankfully I'm still here but the company isn't. I have a healthy fear of heights now and pass that fear on to everyone who cares to listen.

My mentor also used to get me unblocking urinal pipes, luckily that was always scheduled in before breakfast. At least we had rubber gloves.

He also used to test for gas leaks with his cigarette lighter. He was an excellent chap to look up to when I was his apprentice. Whatever he did, I did the opposite, it served me well.

david b - thanks for the unthanks about your smell memory of a maggot farm. In turn you've reminded me of walks past a maggot farm which existed for many years beside the Pennine Way not far from its southern end in Derbyshire. Apparently it collected and used dead animals, mostly sheep, for breeding maggots for sale to anglers as live bait for fish. As fishing is reputedly the UK's most popular pastime, there is a considerable demand for maggots. The place I mention no longer operates as a maggot farm, so anyone contemplating walking the Pennine Way or indeed the northern parts of Bleaklow Moor should have no fear about having their nostrils assailed nowadays.

In turn, I've been reminded of a disgusting job which a school caretaker demonstrated to me some years ago. He worked at a newly-built school where one of the kitchen sinks had a waste disposal unit for macerating waste food. The drain pipe from the sink led to a collection chamber beneath a footpath outside the kitchen. About once or twice a week the caretaker was expected to open the lid of the chamber and kneel down to lift out a sizeable mesh cage containing larger particles of food and then decant them into one or more plastic refuse bags for placing in the school's large commercial waste bins.

Evidently no architect or designer had thought about how to lift the cage without significant risk of musculo-skeletal damage or the likelihood that the collected waste food would putrefy especially during warm weather. By contrast, the caretaker, a retired aero engineer, had tried to make the cage lifting task safer by making a pair of simple lifting irons. These enabled him to stand astride the open chamber with his back straight and then lift the cage using hooks on the lower ends of the irons.

However, though the improvised devices minimised the risk of back injury, the caretaker still had the highly messy and unenviable job of decanting the pungent food waste into bags - hopefully without any punctures - and then carrying them to the bins. In my view, the design of the kitchen waste disposal system was grossly flawed and the cage emptying task was wholly unnecessary. Ultimately this led to the removal of the macerator unit and its replacement by a simple system in which kitchen staff put waste food into a container or bag in the kitchen for direct and regular transfer direct to the large bins outside. Apparently this change was copied at other schools with similar installations, no doubt to the relief of caretaking staff who had to empty the cages. In retrospect I wish I could have had time to identify whoever had designed and approved the system and then had the power to compel them to visit the school and empty a cage or two, especially during hot weather!

It's foreseeable that similar systems may exist at some other schools and other types of establishments in the UK. Therefore, I mention this matter mainly as a prompt to forum readers who deal with such premises to ask kitchen and caretaking staff if the kitchens have waste disposal units and, crucially, whether or not they lead to chambers with cages which need routine emptying. If they do, try getting the system eliminated. The same advice applies to forum readers who are able to look at plans for new or refurbished commercial kitchens. The benefits to be achieved could well include saving your employer or client the costs of buying, installing and maintaining waste disposal units.

Haha this has just made me chuckle. Some great posts on here.

Just talking about this with a colleague last week, worst jobs were working at height when I was a welding inspector in Holland on oil rig construction, same job but in Scotland and working inside (confined space nowadays) the oil rig legs, the power would often go out and you would sit there in the dark & cold or try to find your way out following the power cables for what seemed an eternity, no record of who entered or exited, no fire fighting equipment, no rescue plan that we were aware of. This was back in the 80,s, both left me now with a fear of heights and confined spaces, mind it was good crack and good money.