Safety Tales Podcast Season 2 Episode 4: How not to tick off your co-workers on the jobsite

Intro:

Dave & Bacon's Safety Tales, the only industrial safety podcast that brings you common sense advice on job site safety, standards, regulations, and industry best practices without putting you to sleep.

Fred:

Alright, we are back again, welcome to Dave & Bacon's Safety Tales. We did it again. We're back. So long.

Fred:

So, as long as even one person is listening, we're gonna keep recording this.

Dave:

Yep.

Fred:

I'm going to take that back, I'm gonna say as long as 10 people are listening. If there's only one person that's listening I'm at least not going to be doing it sober.

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

Fair enough?

Alright. Fred and Dave here with Quad City Safety. As I say with every episode, please reach out to us via email if you want to. It's Fred@quadcitysafety, Dave@quadcitysafety.com. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, you can reach us if you need to. We're out there.

So today we're gonna talk a little bit about newbies on the job site, and kind of how not to piss of your coworkers. I have been with Quad City Safety now for six years. Dave, how long have you been with the company.

Dave:

20. Over 20.

Fred:

So it's been a while since either one of us had a new job. [crosstalk 00:01:37]

Dave:

Yeah. It's been a long time since I've gotten that title.

Fred:

Yup.

Dave:

But nobody every likes to be that guy.

Fred:

Nobody likes to be him, though. I've been that. I worked a lot of jobs from 16 to about 22. Did a lot of stuff. A lot of short term jobs, but my least favorite one was when I was right around 21, I worked for a few weeks as telemarketer for a credit card company. It was like a big distribute-

Dave:

Which credit card?

Fred:

Couldn't tell you. No idea. I don't even know if it was all the same ones or not, but ...

Dave:

Selling credit cards? Or ...

Fred:

No, it was mostly my area of expertise was someone would call-

Dave:

Baiting and switching somebody?

Fred:

Yeah, or trying to get them into a lower interest rate. I didn't even know what I was doing to be honest with you.

Dave:

Probably just had a script or something.

Fred:

Script, yes. It was all computerized scripts, so. It sucked.

Kind of the whole thought out there was that people would say, well you sign on, and at the time they'd pay $12 an hour, at the time it was decent money for what it was, and they're like, "You can go through two weeks of training, and then basically just sort of sit in the class for two weeks of training, work like 30 hours at $12 an hour, you don't have to do shit, and then you get a pretty decent check for a couple weeks work and then you quit."

It's like almost a running thing that people would do, and people would do it like once a year.

Dave:

I have seen companies like that.

Fred:

Yeah, so. I made it a few weeks. I was not there for the right reasons. I was already going in like knowing this is not something that I am going to do long term. So when I had my script you'd go out, and I sat through my two weeks of training. You'd look at just the other straight up degenerates that are in these training classes with you like they don't have ... You maybe would have classes of 15 people, that there's a few guys that are in there that are like, they want to do this, they're taking it serious.

It's probably going to be their job that they're going to try and do for a while. Then you see the asshole 18, 19 year old kids that are in there that ... Not the case.

Anyways, when I made it through my training it was time to go out on the floor. They sit you there, you put on your cheesy little headset. You hit a button.

Dave:

You got called up to the game, huh?

Fred:

Yeah. I was on double-A, I was moved into triple-A.

You're still on probation, you still got Big Brother listening to your calls every once in a while. Your little script would come up, you'd start reading, and then you'd start with getting the hang-ups, you know? You're talking, you're mid conversation, hang-up. You're doing your talking, you're mid conversation, "Fuck you," hang-up. You'd get all those type of things. It'll wear at you. That'll wear you down pretty quickly.

So I definitely wasn't at the top of my game, but there were other people who were a little bit more combative than I was that were working there that were looking to get fired. They'd do it, they'd actually have some dialog with the person on the other end of the phone to tell them, "I don't like what you're saying to me."

You said that you also did some telemarketing?

Dave:

Yes I did.

Fred:

You made it you said a month?

Dave:

Wasn't quite a month.

Fred:

Wasn't quite a month, so you were probably in the same boat?

Dave:

It was literally almost like sweatshop labor. This is back in Kentucky, and I don't think we got the training like you guys got. I think we literally had some really shitty handwriting with about two sentences on it. It was for kind of a home improvement place. Would be like, "This is ... " I don't even know if the place is still in business, but I don't really care, but Best Window and Construction.

"We're gonna be in the area and we'd love to stop by and give you an estimate." You would usually get nothing or just to kind of tie it up you would talk to someone's answering machine for about like three minutes, because you knew that after you got done you were gonna have to dial it again. Literally when you would walk in he would rip a page out of the white pages and hand it to you.

Fred:

Start calling?

Dave:

Literally hand it to you and you would start there and work all the way down. You would try, he'd want you to do a whole page. So if you could imagine in four hours trying to dial, what would there be, four rows of numbers? I mean you're literally like, "Oh, kill me now."

You didn't like what you were doing, you had a really low level of give a shit anyway, so you had to hear that on the other side of the phone. You were trying to do everything but what you were supposed to be doing.

Fred:

Yeah that's your breaks, your 15 minute breaks. Trying to cram those as close to a half hour as you can.

Dave:

Oh yeah.

Fred:

You forget to conveniently clock out for lunch so that way you're gone for an hour and a half instead of an hour, then you get back, and you say, "Oops, I actually left at ... "

Dave:

Nobody is looking, you're balancing a pencil on your nose trying to not dial someone because-

Fred:

Taking the longest poop possible that you can. Sitting there on your phone.

Anyways, I was going to say, after a few days I knew that job wasn't for me and I just stopped going. It wasn't like I put in my two weeks or anything like that, I just, "Alright, Wednesday is my last day, I'm not going back to that job tomorrow." So I went quietly.

Like I was saying, other people, they don't go so quietly, or they keep showing up until you fire them. Try to claim some form of unemployment, but their heads not in the game. They're not an enthused participant, and so ...

On a job site, kind of, with all the danger and people's safety. If you're on a construction job site the stakes are a little bit different than working as a telemarketer.

Dave:

Oh yeah. Probably the biggest thing, like when you talk about construction, is that you're talking about a dynamic workplace.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

So by the word construction, means you’re constructing or you're building. Most people go into that telemarketing or that manufacturing concern where they're doing a very consistent thing on a daily basis. It's a little bit easier to be safe in that situation than all of a sudden you're like, "Well wait a second, yesterday there was no fall hazard. Now we're working on the second floor where I can fall through," or, "There were no holes in the floor, and now there's holes, and we're cutting holes in the floor."

Fred:

"Yesterday I was using this tool, and now I'm using this tool."

Dave:

Yep. That's a good one, in that construction is not static, it's a dynamic workplace. Then trying to make sure you plan around the fact that you have a dynamic workplace.

Fred:

I think especially too that smaller companies, sometimes it's, "Shit, Dave quit yesterday. We still gotta do the Martin's job today, so Fred, you're in. We gotta hire somebody, we gotta pick them up."

Dave:

This is called a hammer drill.

Fred:

Yep. Yep. Or this is a circular saw, don't put your fingers in there. All right, you're trained up.

Dave:

You're good. You're good.

Fred:

Yep.

Dave:

Measure twice, cut your fingers once-ish.

Fred:

A lot of cases, somebody's lack of experience unsupervised can really be dangerous.

So newbies can always run the risk of causing trouble on the job.

Dave:

Or people that just don't have the paradigm right.

Fred:

What do you mean?

Dave:

If they're heads not in the game, they're going ... You know, in a lot of situations it's like if you have workers that are all on a job site that have zero level of give a shit to be there, they're going to end up hurting somebody else because they don't care. They're not paying attention to you know. Let's say they're stamping their widgets or whatever, and somehow somebody steps into harm’s way, they're not paying attention. Their heads not in the game.

Having people that don't ... How to say ... People that are in a job that they don't want to be there, long term, they're going to end up causing somebody else to get hurt.

Fred:

Yeah. Or it could just be something that they don't have experience doing. So they start, their intentions are great, they're excited to be there, but they don't know that this respirator is a little bit uncomfortable on my face, and if I just pull it up a little bit, oh, now it's more comfortable, so I'm just gonna wear it like that.

Dave:

I will tell you that when you look at incident curves, if people are trained and they show up even on a job site and their heads in the right place, typically they're not going to get hurt. Typically, because they're scared. They have that, you know, humans are scared of the unknown, so once they get to where it's known, all of a sudden they're like, "Oh Fred, screw it, you don't need to put that on. Just step out there. Quit being a wuss."

You have this double edged sword. But if you have somebody that doesn't care, doesn't want to be there, you have a completely different entity. I guess that's where it gets back into the whole safety is a behavioral science for the most part. I mean, a lot of what we talk about is personal protective equipment. That's after we've identified some bad shit can happen given what we're trying to do. The precursor to that is to make sure that the behavioral based stuff is right.

Fred:

So that's something that makes it real important, is training. If someone is trained well, like you said, they're most likely going to be successful if they had the correct safety training.

Dave:

If they're trained and their not complacent, meaning it's new or it's fresh.

Fred:

Supervision. [crosstalk 00:11:25].

Dave:

Supervision, yeah. It can be ... If you have people that are, you know, "Oh, we'll give Bill the shit job." Every now and then somebody else needs to do the shit job. You need to rotate so everybody doesn't come in, that work complacency happens. Make sure it's fresh. It's kind of like ... I haven't written a bike in ... I don't remember the last time my fat ass got on a bike. I literally ...

Fred:

I couldn't tell you.

Dave:

I couldn't tell you. But I know I can look at you and tell you, "I know how to ride a bike." I'm that certain that I can get on a bike and ride it. I'll guaran-damn-tee you for the first little bit that I'm on that bike, I'm gonna have pucker factor going on. I'm gonna spill this damn thing, or I'm gonna, you know, get my pants caught in the spokes, or you know. I'm gonna go through all this stuff, and I'm gonna be paying super uber attention to everything that's going on around me.

You give me about half an hour and then I'm gonna be ...

Fred:

You would do wheelies.

Dave:

Yeah. Well I'm gonna try to do something stupid and then hurt myself because I got over the whole complacency and my brain wanted to go have a little bit of fun. You ever seen Napoleon Dynamite?

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

Where he tried ...

Fred:

Tried the ramps?

Dave:

Yeah. You want to go, that's a sweet bike, or whatever, and he goes to do the first jump and just plows himself. That'd be me.

Fred:

Yep. Yep.

I was going to say, so newbies, they do risk causing trouble on the job site, so as long as we give them the safety advice they can put to use right away, they're gonna have a better chance to be successful.

We pulled a list here, we were actually given a list. I'm gonna credit the website. Workbootsguru.com. He has a little thing that's called 9 Things About Rookies That Pisses Off Construction Workers.

Number one: standing around after ending one task instead of asking what's next. That's a major one as a business owner, I know you feel their pain with that one.

Dave:

Oh my goodness. I mean it's time to move the gravel. Start picking it up one piece at a time. I would say there's the old management perspective that the task will expand to the time given it, so it's like, "Oh, okay. You told me that should have taken an hour, so it should take an hour, even though I figured out real quickly that-"

Fred:

I can do it in 20 minutes.

Dave:

" ... there's a shovel over there, and instead of picking those pieces of gravel up one at a time I could just shovel it."

Fred:

Yep. Number two: cellphones.

Dave:

Oh god.

Fred:

Cellphones on job sites, god and manufacturing. It's a major problem if you can have your cellphone in your pocket. That's something that you're going to feel it vibrate a hundred times day. Pull it out and ...

Dave:

You're distracted and you're drawn to it. It is ... how to say, I hate technology, and I hate cellphones, but I can tell you probably once every three months I get in the car and start backing out of the driveway and I get that like ...

Fred:

Don't have it on you?

Dave:

Oh. I start giving myself the pat down. I almost become nervously sick because I don't have my phone. That's awful, but it's real.

Fred:

Number three: leaving tools on ladders.

Number four: interrupting someone when they're explaining what to do.

Dave:

Oh my ...

Fred:

That's a real major one.

Dave:

But usually it's the old guy that's just, you know, he's been doing this since he got back from Vietnam or whatever. He's got some little asshole that's just playing grab ass.

Fred:

Standing in the way when you're trying to work. We got tools on the ground. Not asking for help when you know that you need it.

I think that's going to be one that's going to really ... I mean not all of these are safety related, so that's one though that definitely fits into safety.

Dave:

A lot of them are though.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

You know, leaving tools around, you know ...

Fred:

Trip hazards, yep.

Dave:

I mean even a big one that's out now is when you're working at heights, tool tethering. Are you dropping ... It's amazing how many people are killed every year in the United States because ...

Fred:

Tape measure hit them in the head from 200 feet.

Dave:

I think like two people died from that last year. Not to mention nuts, bolts, screwdrivers, you know. When you look at the fact that it doesn't take something very heavy to drop a couple stories ... It's coming pretty quick.

Fred:

Yeah. I was going to say, the not asking for help when you know that you need it. That's a fake it til you make it. That's what a lot of people do. Like I got told how to do this job, I got told exactly what safety measures to use while doing this job. I forgot, but I don't want to go back and ask that question. Say, "Hey, you showed me this before. I kind of need a refresher course." Or, "You showed me this two weeks ago, I haven't done this job again, and now I'm just gonna try and do it."

Dave:

But we've talked about this in other episodes, it's the ability to go, "Uh, I'm ignorant. I'm an ignorant human being." That's okay.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

It's okay to stop, blow the whistle, and get a, "I need a consult or tutorial over here real quick."

Fred:

Yeah. Well I think I've called you when some of these topics that we talk about, and just been like, "Okay I haven't sold this in six months."

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

"I know we've talked about this before, by before I talk to a customer about this I need a refresher course."

Dave:

Yes. Let's make sure we don't hurt somebody.

Fred:

Give me the bullet points, yeah.

Disappearing for long periods of time. That's one that I've found that at multiple jobs that I have, like, "Where the hell did that guy ... " That's probably someone like me working that telemarketing place trying to take my five minute poop and turning it into a twenty minute poop.

Dave:

Yeah, yeah, you’re playing Angry Birds.

Fred:

Yeah. Those mines aren't going to sweep themselves.

Dave:

Yeah, right?

Fred:

Last one was borrowing tools and not giving them back. I know that's something that's pretty important for contractor, you gotta have the tools to do the job, and if somebody takes them from you and doesn't bring them back, it's going to be pretty aggravating.

Like I was saying, some of that stuffs not safety related, most of it is, but the main point is to get the new guy up to speed fast so that he and everybody else is able to stay safe.

Let's move on to the dumb ass of the week.

Segment Voice:

It's the dumb ass of the week.

Fred:

We'll call this guy Jared. Now Jared's a smoker, Dave, what do you got to say about him.

Dave:

Jared is a smoker, but, and this happened, and he's an arborist. Maybe not a certified arborist, but let's just put this way, he's got a chainsaw and a pickup truck. So he's an arborist. Sitting there, loves to watch him fire up his cigarette. He's immediately messing with his steel chainsaw, and fills it up with obviously the old mixed gas, petrol, I'm not sure what mixture it was, but he gets it in there.

Proceeds to go to start it up, gets it started. Gets it overhead, raises it immediately overhead. Must have spilt just enough gas, you know when why go to fill up your lawnmower or something and you spill a little bit, but you just leave it there. Well he left it there and it kinda lit up because of his cigarette. We're talking a little bit of minor facial burns, little bit of hand burns, but I don't think it was worth the cigarette.

Fred:

No.

Dave:

I really don't think it the, you know, I can remember smoking back a long time ago. I did enjoy a good camel, but I don't think it would be worth burning my face off.

Fred:

No. Maybe a cigarette while you're working, not the greatest idea. It's while they call them cigarette breaks.

Dave:

Yeah. But, again, it's matching that whole did you need it right then?

Fred:

Yeah.

I had a big tree that was cut down in my front yard, one of those ones that hangs over the house, and hangs almost into the yard, and you watch those guys start cutting them down, and you're like, "This thing could go haywire." If that tree breaks left instead of breaking right like they have it to be, I'ma feel that coming through my roof as I sit in here.

Dave:

Yeah, that's ... Those guys that are talented with that, I'll give them that.

Fred:

Yeah, climb up in the tree, they're sitting in the swing.

Dave:

They're half crazy. Yeah. They're just, it's like I don't know.

Fred:

Never wear a shirt?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

That's what, I think I've told you this story before, but the guys that came and cut down the tree in my front yard, it was a real shady deal where they kept wanting money. It was one of those we agree I'll pay half.

Dave:

Cash. Cash deal.

Fred:

I'll pay half of it up front, and then I'll pay the other half when you're done. So you pay the half up front, and then the guy comes knocking on my door on Tuesday when the tree is still there. Says, hey, he needs a little bit more to pay his guys, and I kind of have to get stiff with him, say no, "we agreed I'll pay you half up front, I'll pay you half at the end."

My favorite part of when they were there is he has a little portfolio that he was carrying around, like he's got all his paperwork in there, his business cards and all.

Dave:

So he's legit.

Fred:

Yeah, super legit.

Dave:

He's got a portfolio.

Fred:

Not legit. Yeah yeah, it was a business card where his name was written on the back of a different business card. It said, I don't remember names.

Dave:

Did it look like he'd printed ... Have you ever seen the ones that are like perforated so it looks like they ripped ...

Fred:

Oh you tear them off on a list?

Dave:

Yeah. Yeah.

Fred:

Yeah. This was set up like Dave's Tree Service, and on the back it said Ted, and it has his phone number on it, so I think he used to work for Dave.

Dave:

Probably said insurance and bond and somewhere, you know.

Fred:

Oh yeah. So anyways, I walk after they left one day and I just saw a little picture. It was just a normal Walgreens 5x7 or whatever picture, was just sitting there in my driveway. I kind of walked over, and picked it up and turned around and looked at it. It was a picture of a woman. Her, about chin down, chin to waist. No shirt on.

She had a Saint Louis Blues hockey team logo painted on her chest. So no shirt, no bra or anything, just Saint Louis Blues painted on her chest. Was just carrying that around with him in his portfolio. I guess that should have been the sign right there that this isn't the guy for the job, but. We finished. Little of a crack in the driveway from when the tree fell, but.

Dave:

Oh really?

Fred:

They finished. Tree was gone. Scary situation.

Anyway, that was out dumb ass of the week. So let's move on to some email questions here. Number one: can an employee wear a face shield as primary form of eye protection?

Dave:

Not the way [inaudible 00:22:51] do it.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

So basically, any time you're wearing a face shield, and it doesn't matter whether it's in an arc flash situation or you're running a grinder or, let's say that you are using it to weld. You should still have that primary eye protection on. Meaning because again it's tight, so you're trying to keep anything from, how to say ... a lot of times people are like, "Well I'm not doing anything, I'm not grinding, I'm not over the top of anything that's going to cause me to have an accident."

Well that's not what it's there for. That's primary what it's there for, but if you're walking through the shop and you're over, you know, you're across the way doing something, and something kicks out, you should have, how to say, a good coverage around your eye. I mean you're even seeing the fact that that's not good enough to where now you have the foam back glasses that are a seal fit, almost like a ... People call them a spiral or almost a goggle fit of the glass.

While I get that people would have a sense of security with that, it's still kind of a false sense of security.

Fred:

Yeah. I wonder if that's something that people ... That's like a common thing that people know? Because I when I ... I mean, when I ... I would have heard someone like you tell me that, I would have assumed I got this thing covering my entire face, I'm good. What about some of the face shields that have like a cup, or they're rounded? Like they have a chin up on them. Is that ...

Dave:

Yeah, well ...

Fred:

Does that alleviate some of that or is the standard still ... you're supposed to wear glasses, aren't you?

Dave:

Well a chin cup, you know, for arc flash, is keeping that basically the cataclysmic fire flame from rolling up under there, so it's kind of ...

Fred:

So it's only, it's mostly for arc flash you'd say?

Dave:

Well, no. I mean there are chin cups for other ... I'm just saying in that case, versus yeah, there's chin cups that are designed to keep stuff from bouncing up or whatever.

Fred:

But there are still probably ways that stuff comes from behind, or something creeps down and can get into your eyes. Dust particles. Those face shields aren't tightly fit against your face.

Dave:

Most people ... Usually let's say if I'm in welding or I'm in an arc flash, I pull it down and I do my job, and then I pull it up, and what's my eye protection from some, you know it's your primary source.

Fred:

Okay.

Number two: do traffic cones have to be stripes on a construction site?

That's a kind of sticky one.

Dave:

It's a sticky wicket just because yes and no. Part of it depends on if we're doing construction around roads, obviously we're gonna fall under more [TraffBOT 00:25:54] type situations. Theoretically the striping is more for those than anything. I guess that's one that, if we're doing any kind of construction where we're building roads or we're in roadway building something, the argument would be satisfied by yes. But if we're just out in the middle of a field throwing stuff up, then technically no.

Fred:

Do you know off hand how any of that, like the different stripes ... What's the reasoning for the super huge cones, and some have two stripes, and some have three stripes, and the colors of the different stripes. Is it just all different, usually like a DOT standard for different states? Different ...

Dave:

Yeah, visibilities, and different classifications.

Fred:

Okay. All right. The third one I got -

Dave:

Just like vests, you know you have a class two and a class three, you know, there's just different requirements there.

Fred:

Different areas require some of them have the orange striping around, the reflective striping, and all that stuff for usually different states. I feel like Illinois has to have the orange on there, and Iowa you just have to have the reflective striping. It's ...

Dave:

Theoretically it's all, how do I say ... Those are ... There's no requirement there, you just have to have so many inches of a background material with so many inches of a retroreflective. But, again, you're trying to, you know ... The whole premise is I don't want to look like a barrel. So that's kind of where class three came from is if you're a work area, and all of a sudden you're seeing these things, vests look like that, so around higher speed roadway where you have barrels all of a sudden class three. Well the barrel now has arms.

There's different ways to look at it. Heights is ... Can be a number of different things.

Fred:

Okay. Last one I got is, can we launder different types of gloves? Actually I don't know the answer to this.

Dave:

Most gloves you can launder, I mean there's gonna be stuff that obviously is not going to launder well. I would say that ...

Fred:

A leather I would think. Would be ...

Dave:

A leather ... how are you gonna dry it, because once you dry it's gonna become stiff and hard.

Fred:

Crispy, yeah.

Dave:

Here you go, you take a glove that's made of PVA, polyvinyl alcohol. You actually put it in water and it will dissolve. So there's certain things that would go, "No."

But most gloves, yeah, you could wash, but a lot of the, you know some, let's say like an aramid fiber. Something that would be Kevlar or tarwan, or, you know.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

You wash those, and they get really fuzzy, because the fibers don't launder real well. But you take a high density polyethylene, HDPE, or dyneema or you know spectra, or the billion names that are out there for it. They don't launder okay. But then it gets into how do you, when you launder it, what do you launder it with?

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

If you take an aramid fiber and you use bleach, it's the damnedest thing, but you can actually tell how much Kevlar is in ... How much of the actual compound is in there, by if you just take high potency bleach and poor it over Kevlar it will dissolve the Kevlar out of it. You can tell how pure the Kevlar specifically is in something. It will eat it.

So watching it, how to say, usually there'll be laundry specifications with stuff I guess is what I'm trying to say is, yeah you can launder it, but in those cases, certain ... Let's say arc flash clothing or clothing for NFPa2012, there'll be washing requirements that say wash in a certain way.

Same thing with some of the materials in gloves.

Fred:

Is that something that most companies, they have listed how you wash their gloves? Like cut resistant gloves, like is that something that they put in there?

Dave:

Typically if there's a requirement, they will. They'll usually say if it'll launder well or not, and then there's usually you can find. But you gotta dig for it. They don't just come right out there and say it.

Fred:

I just feel like I've never seen when I was researching gloves and like, "Here's your abrasion statistics, and here's the cut statistics."

Dave:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fred:

I've never seen launder stuff on there, so I was curious. But I know I've talked to customers of mine that have laundered gloves. That's an important thing to them.

Dave:

Yeah, no it's actually pretty common place. You know, where how to say, they get some of level of a light soil but you don't need to, you know, you haven't really killed the integrity of the glove, then why not use it again?

Fred:

Is that something that might affect the actual integrity of the glove though, washing it? Like a cut resistant glove fiber-

Dave:

That's what I'm saying, is you take a Kevlar glove, okay. And let's say it's plated Kevlar, so that means it has Kevlar in it but it's not all Kevlar. You run it through a laundry situation that has bleach, it's not going to be as cut resistant. Because it's going to actually chemically modify and pull that aramid fiber out. It's going to dissolve it.

Fred:

It's one of those things that if you're going to do it you better make damn sure you can do it with the glove that you're using.

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

And there's certain cases also, it's like, you know, I've seen situations where there may be metal shards around something and they wash it, and then the next person goes to put on the glove that's been washed, and they get cut because there's a metal shard in it. Think about all the chemicals and compounds that can be around stuff. You just gotta pay attention to what you're doing.

Fred:

But there is a possibility that if you're doing right and you have a process.

Dave:

Yeah but I'm just saying that all of a sudden this guy that's over here dipping his hands in methyl ethyl ketone, he doesn't need to throw his gloves with everybody else's gloves. Does that launder out? I don't know, but I'd rather not, you know, all of a sudden have it leaching into my skin.

Fred:

Rather just toss that pair.

Dave:

We're all gonna die at some point, there's no reason to really speed the process up.

Fred:

So back to a little bit of the new guy on the construction site. Seems like the new guy always gets a nickname. I know being named Fred, I started a job, I was working at a Lowe's, and for some reason, the little 18 year old kid working around growing [inaudible 00:33:30], they all just decided to call me Derf. That was just my name backwards. Just Fred backwards was Derf.

Dave:

I don't think I've heard you tell me that one before.

Fred:

And so I got to be Derf for like nine months. You go out to a bar and you're trying to hit on a girl ... I actually met my wife at that job, and I was Derf. So she was able to overcome the fact that my nickname was Derf when I worked at that job.

Some other nicknames I've had in my life ... I was Tank as a baby.

Dave:

See I don't see that because you're not really ... I mean, somebody would look at ...

Fred:

I was a skinny kid.

Dave:

Like if we were sitting there and they were like, "Which one of us was named Tank," I would get Tank.

Fred:

How big of a baby were you though?

Dave:

Not really big.

Fred:

Yeah, see I was like a nine and a half pound ...

Dave:

I didn't swell til later.

Fred:

Right. I'm working on it, I'm trying to get up there. I was always a skinny little kid, but I was Tank.

Dave:

And then you're always Left when you're a left handed athlete. You get left a lot. I had a boss that called me Flintstone for being Fred Flintstone.

Fred:

Fred Flintstone.

And then my last name is Radunzel, so any time that anyone in the history of the world has ever read Radunzel, immediately Rapunzel comes to their head.

Dave:

That's probably one of the first ones I remember messing with you about.

Fred:

It's either Freddy Krueger or Rapunzel. Or, "Radunzel, let down your golden hair." Something to that aesthetic. What about your nicknames?

Dave:

Well I'm Dave White, so obviously I got ...

Fred:

White Dave?

Dave:

White Dave. Whitey.

Fred:

Whitey. Lots of plays on your last name.

Dave:

Lot of plays thataway, but let's see here. Piggins and Pork Chop because I was always just kind of the chubby kid.

Fred:

Okay. Bubba. Were you ever a Bubba?

Dave:

I was never a bubba. But probably the one that I go to my college age and I was referred to as Sticky. That was ... I never really got it, but sure.

Fred:

You don't know how you got the nickname Sticky?

Dave:

There's a lot story but I don't feel good about getting into it.

Fred:

That's what I ... I had a brief ...

Dave:

There's always reasons, there's always a reason.

Fred:

I had a brief period where I was called Bub and I'd prefer not to get into why that was a very odd thing.

Dave:

There you are.

Fred:

I got some famous of my favorite nicknames. Most of these are sports, but I guess some nonsports ones, you've got Duke, right?

Dave:

Yep. The Duke, right?

Fred:

The Duke, yep. So there's some musicians out there that probably have some good nicknames, I don't know why none of them are coming to head. My sports ones I've got Babe. I like the Iceman. George Curvan and The Fighter, Chuck Liddell. So the Iceman. Magic of course. The Round Mound of Rebound. I like Johny Football. That's one of the, I think that's a good nickname.

Dave:

I do like the Mailman.

Fred:

The Mailman.

Dave:

That's a good one.

Fred:

Doctor J. I know a guy that went by Doctor J in high school, he was a guy that loved weed. We called him Doctor J.

Dave:

Did he have the whole 70's afro thing going on?

Fred:

No he didn't have that. White blonde curls.

Dave:

Oh okay.

Fred:

Always called himself Doctor J. The Rocket.

Dave:

Nothing's worst though than when people give themselves their own nickname.

Fred:

He didn't. I don't think he gave ... He might have given it to himself, decided to be Doctor J. Just liked to be it.

Dave:

I'm just gonna be that guy and say, "No you're not."

Fred:

You're not Doctor J, dickhead.

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

Yeah. The Rocket. Roger Clemens. I love White Chocolate. You know White Chocolate? Jason Williams.

Dave:

Jason Williams, but did Fran McCaffery maybe get called that a little bit too?

Fred:

Was he called White Chocolate?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

I thought White Jesus, wasn't he?

Dave:

Maybe that's what it was. It was, somehow he was ... Well I mean, did he come from Florida State or whatever?

Fred:

Who? Jason Williams?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

Florida.

Dave:

Florida. You watch some of the crap that he did and it's like yeah.

Fred:

Yeah, it was a perfect nickname.

Dave:

You can be called that, yeah.

Fred:

Yeah. I love The Flying Tomato.

Dave:

He's ... I'll tell you, in just got done watching the Olympics. I want the long hair back. If the flying tomato is gonna do it, I don't need his cleaned up, I mean ...

Fred:

Although my wife did say, "When did Shaun White get hot?" I come back like, "He's not ... That good looking."

But yeah, so it might be working for him. Maybe he's got some better numbers.

Dave:

I don't think he's got to worry about that.

Fred:

No, I'm sure he's got enough loot and ...

Dave:

He's got street cred.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

With all the people in the half pipe.

Fred:

It's a good nickname. It's a perfect nickname.

Dave:

But I mean, that guy's gotta be, what is he?

Fred:

31 or 32.

Dave:

Is that it?

Fred:

Mh-hm. He started in-

Dave:

That was his fourth Olympics or something wasn't it?

Fred:

Yeah I think he was like 18.

Dave:

Well, 4x4 is 16, so that's not going to ...

Fred:

I'm telling you he's like 32. He's 31 or 32. So maybe he was 17?

Dave:

Wow. He had to be 12.

Fred:

Or maybe it was his third Olympics?

Dave:

I don't know.

Fred:

Yeah maybe it was his third one.

Dave:

But he got it done.

Fred:

Yep.

Dave:

Got it gold.

Fred:

Pistol Pete. That's gotta be the greatest nickname of all time.

Dave:

And why did his career end early?

Fred:

Pistol Pete?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

I don't think it did, did it? I know he died pretty young but I don't think his career ended.

Dave:

Maybe that's what it was.

Fred:

His life ended early.

Dave:

Yeah, he wasn't ...

Fred:

But I don't think his career. I think he was on the list as most points in NBA history I think.

Dave:

Yeah it was stupid but, one of those guys that could just make it from anywhere.

Fred:

And he's college, right, isn't he college all time leading scorer or did that get passed then? I think he's still ...

Dave:

I think division one, I think one of those kids in like division two or something-

Fred:

Passed him up?

Dave:

Passed him up.

Fred:

And then I got my The Pillsbury Throwboy. That's your Kentucky boy, I'm surprised you don't ...

Dave:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fred:

Lorenzen, Jared Lorenzen. Pillsbury Throwboy.

That was my list, I got some ...

Dave:

The only 325 [inaudible 00:39:27].

Fred:

Have you seen any videos of him any time recently?

Dave:

Nuh-uh.

Fred:

He's playing in some semi-pro league in Kentucky, and he's like 350 pounds playing quarterback. They just show guys trying to tackle him. He's like Thrun, people try to pull down the 350 pound fridge.

Dave:

Well he's like a fat Ben Roethlisberger or whatever.

Fred:

They can't throw as well because he can't move his joints.

Dave:

Right.

Fred:

Anyways, that's going to be it for us today, so we highly suggest telling the new guy on your crew how to find this podcast. We got a lot more for him and you in store, so hopefully stay tuned for next week's episode. Just want to help a few more people make it home safe tonight, so if we can make safety kind of seem like a common sense thing that one person, that something everybody can talk about, then that's good enough for us to go to our dinner here.

Dave:

Yeah, it's gonna make me happy.

Fred:

Yep. So once again, thank you guys for listening, we'll be back next week, but if you need your fix before then you can visit Quad City Safety blog at blogcitysafety.com. Tell us what you think in the comments. Ask your questions. Jump into any of our social media conversations and really get involved. We'd love to hear from you. Don't worry, we'll cook up enough bacon for everybody so safety's got no quitting time. We'll see you next time.

Dave:

Take care.

Intro Speaker:

Thanks for listening in to Dave & Bacon's Safety Tales, brought to you by Quad City Safety. Send us your questions on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, at quadcitysafety, #safetytales. Or email them to fred@quadcitysafety.com. He's the guy keeping this mess of a show in line. And if you liked this show, please rate and review us on iTunes. It's a kickass way to show that you care about safety.