Monday, March 31, 2008

Safety Training Video

I once worked for a company* that planned to show a training video about an employee who was killed in a forklift accident. The effect his death had on the company and coworkers was supposed to make everyone take the safety rules more seriously, as if living to receive another paycheck isn’t incentive enough. They never bothered with that, having far more stupid videos to show us, but if it was handled with honesty and dignity I imagine it would have been something like this:

Cut to a cheerful employee whistling a saucy tune and crossing an open aisle in the warehouse. An out of control forklift driven by a disgruntled heavy metal platypus on crack slams into him, first disemboweling him with the forks, then grinding his remains into paste as the driver tries to regain control, back up to see what happened, and then flee the scene. Rather than face justice, he draws an Uzi 9mm from his lunch pail, charges the guard station and goes down in a hail of bullets. I envision this part lasting several minutes and could possibly involve a hostage standoff with the National Guard.

Back in the factory, somebody notices his squished coworker and rushes to his side. “Oh, my god,” he shouts. “We have to post an ad for a job opening right away!” He then snatches the phone from its cradle and makes an announcement over the PA. “Cleanup team to the warehouse – we need a cleanup team to the warehouse.” Then the credits roll, after which they display the following helpful message from the corporation:

Remember, you are unique. If you are killed on the job, it will take us several minutes to replace you. So don’t die – we would find it mildly inconvenient.

P.S. we are docking you fifteen minutes of pay for watching this video instead of being productive. We know the video lasted less than ten minutes, but accounting likes the nice round numbers. In fact, we are now cutting an hour of your pay. Return to work, and remember to be safe.

*for liability reasons I will only identify them by their initials, BS, and say that the full name rhymes with HellMouth - both are appropriate

6 comments:

Monogram Queen said...

I know the company I know the company LOL

Suffice to say I am glad you are not in charge of company training videos!

Anonymous said...

I laughed my ass off at that!!!

Got a copy fo the film?

Tai said...

"An out of control forklift driven by a disgruntled heavy metal platypus on crack slams into him, first disemboweling him with the forks, then grinding his remains into paste as the driver tries to regain control, back up to see what happened, and then flee the scene. Rather than face justice, he draws an Uzi 9mm from his lunch pail, charges the guard station and goes down in a hail of bullets."


Grant, did we work in the same place in British Columbia and I didn't know it???
'Cus that happened to me, you know. But it wasn't an Uzi. It was an AK-47.
And I didn't go down.

Deb said...

Very descriptive, but I still prefer to watch the suicide subway fiasco.

Hrmm.

I think you're having a bad influence on me.

mwahaha...! ;)

paul said...

could it have been a manager that made the mistake of stopping to see how things were going in his area, and was (oh, so sadly) in the wrong place at the wrong time?

that would explain why they didn't show it.... don't want to give the disposable help any ideas.

Grant said...

patti - I think I could win an Oscar.

metalmom - just watch Suicide Club to get the general idea, only with Japanese schoolgirls.

tai - I thought you looked familiar.

~deb - maybe we could use Suicide Club for a training video.

messiah - management snuff flicks is probably an untapped market.