14th December 2010 - Near miss

I remember a number of years back when I was working with Susie's cousin, we engaged a health and safety consultant to assess our working practices. One aspect he noted was the 'near miss'. This isn't actually an accident, simply an accident waiting to happen! Today at work the window cleaners returned for their monthly glass cleaning session. The offices extend over 8 stories and the central reception/lift shafts are connected to Tower 1 (left) and Tower 2(right) by a series of glass clad ariel walkways. These connecting walkways get very dirty and are part of the monthly cleaning program. As they are suspended above the ground and there is no way of getting from the walkways to clean the glass this has to be done from the outside. The cleaning crew use a portable scaffold tower which they build up to reach all 8 stories (approx height 100 feet). However, they are not completely mad, they do tie it onto the ariel walkway, well at least to one of the glass walkways...using string. Although this isn't the worse 'near miss' of this whole exercise, it is the cleaner who climbs off the scaffold tower and walks along the top of the glass walkway with a mop, washing the glass on top, with nothing more than an orange jumpsuit and a pair of oversized wellies on, now that really is an accident waiting to happen.