Fingers & Thumbs

You meet a lot of people in the oilfield, the old hands who've seen it all, done it all and lost various parts of their body in different countries. I would say you get to meet people and shake their hands, but you never know how much of a handful you're getting. I've worked with one guy we called Kit-Kat and worse was the poor sod known as Twix. Mind you, that's better than earning yourself the name of "Mittens".

Hand's Up, who wants to be a welder?

Today was my turn to do a big safety audit at one of our plants, which meant 3.5 hours of walking around a very dusty mill in 40 deg C funshine. I really felt sorry for the poor guys who work there, but then it's always good to see people whose work puts your own joy into perspective.

I managed to find between 30-40 safety issues to bring up, which is about what I'd expected. During the inspection of the welding area, I noticed the welder had on a wedding ring. I explained to him how he needed to remove it and that he didn't want to risk an injury known as "de-gloving" (I'd advise not googling images of that. Seriously, I feel nauseous now.) which can be caused by wearing rings. After all, I asked, he wanted to keep all of his fingers didn't he ? Turns out it was too late for that and he showed me his other hand, or what was left of it. He'd he stuck it in a screw conveyor at the same plant, some ten years previously.
Well, you have to laugh , don't you ?