I am working security at an airport, and I see a passenger place their baby in a baby chair and then place the baby chair onto the conveyor feeding into the X-ray machine.

Me: “Sir, you can’t put your child there!”

Passenger: “It’s just for a second while I get these shoes off.”

Me: “Even so, sir, please remove the child immediately!”

Passenger: *Removes the child* “Gosh, it was just for a second. Do I look like an idiot to you?”

Me: “You look like someone who is about to X-ray their baby.”

I work in a lab, and one of the safety procedures we need to follow is to keep the door to the lab closed. This is a fireproof door for safety.

One evening, just at the time most people are leaving, we hear a weird, slow beep. We think it is coming from the flow hood as it has been having a few issues and randomly beeps at us. We get more confused as we realise that it is not the hood, but we can’t work out where the noise is coming from.

Someone gets bored and decides it is time to go home. He opens the lab door. As soon as he does that, a loud blast echos down the entire lab. The noise we had been trying to locate for five to ten minutes was the fire alarm. The fireproof door is also a soundproof one.

Luckily, it was just a test, but we did have to text others in the lab to tell them to get out. We are now having a stern talk with the safety people while agreeing that if there is a fire we are, literally, toast.

I become friends with one of the managers in the railway division and he tells me about a customer complaint that he got.

At the time, he had a pretty important role in the company; he was in charge of Rail Safety And Standards. Basically, his department wrote all the rules about rail safety and would be liable in the event of an incident. As you can imagine, he took his job VERY seriously!

One day, the customer service department passed him a complaint from an angry passenger who had complained:

Passenger: “My train was delayed by forty minutes and I was late for work!”

The customer service team had compensated her in line with company policy, but she still wasn’t happy, so they’d investigated and found that the delay was due to a signal failure outside the station. Signal failures were my friend’s responsibility to deal with, so he was asked to respond to the complaint.

My friend replied to the woman and apologised for the delay. He explained that in a signal failure, all trains into and out of the block protected by the signal would have been stopped, and no train would be allowed to pass through the block without a “pilotman” (basically a trained signaller) on board. My friend explained that, on the day in question, the failed signal was just outside the station, and since the pilotman couldn’t travel by train to the station, he therefore had to drive over and was at the mercy of city traffic. Hence, the train was delayed for forty minutes. My friend explained that these arrangements were in place for everyone’s safety.

He told me that he wasn’t exactly surprised by her reply.

Passenger: “I don’t give a s*** about safety — mine or anyone else’s! I just want to get to work on time!”

A buddy of mine owns his own electrical contracting company. He has many customers that have been his for decades. One Friday night at about midnight, he got an emergency call from an old client that converted his bar into a topless bar which required an increase in electricity use. The lights were flickering on and off, certain outlets stopped working, and others were sparking. My buddy showed up and went to the electric panel box. The pipe coming out of the top was glowing red! That meant it was heated up to an incredibly dangerous level.

Buddy: “You gotta shut this down now! This is about to burn down!”

Client: “I can’t! It’s Friday night! Do you have any idea how much money I make on Friday and Saturday nights? I will shut it down on Sunday and you start working on it then.” 

Buddy: “No, you don’t understand. This will not make it another hour, much less the night. This is a huge safety and fire issue. This is beyond dangerous, and you are putting your employees and customers in extreme danger if you don’t shut this down now.”

Client: “No, I can’t afford to do that.”

My buddy took pics with his cell phone and left. He called the fire chief’s office but didn’t get anyone, so he left a message. About three in the morning, he got a call back asking him to get back to the bar. Yep, it burned to the ground. Thankfully, everyone got out okay. A few had to go to the hospital for smoke inhalation but were released a few hours later.

Fire Chief: *To my buddy* “So, the owner said you were the electrician that worked on this just a few hours ago. What happened?”

My buddy figured they had the idea HE did something to cause this fire. He explained everything and showed him the pics.

Buddy: “Look, Chief. I knew this would go up in flames. I told him. I even called your office when I left here and left a message for you. I did no work on this because I knew this was dangerous. I tried to tell him to shut it down.”

The chief immediately had charges brought against the owner who later had to pay all the hospital bills. Plus, insurance refused to cover the loss because of the negligence. The sad thing is that this was not the only case of someone not listening to my buddy and their business or house end up burning down.

Always listen to the professionals you hire. They know what they are talking about.

My job seeking advisor once told me about a guy who failed his medical exam. He had applied to work on an offshore oil driller platform. He smoked about twenty cigarettes a day and was asked if he was willing to quit smoking. He said no and, therefore, failed the exam.

He even complained, saying that they should have a smoking room for smokers.