I admit it, I’m a klutz! There are times I trip while walking for no apparent reason and I’ve been the victim of a few strange accidents. It occurred to me that quite a few of my calamities have taken place in the workplace and thought maybe you could benefit from or at least be entertained by my experiences!
A few weeks ago, I was trying to lower the horizontal blinds in my office. The lock at the top of the blinds was stuck and as I pulled on the cord to get it to release, the entire unit came of the wall and landed on me! Despite all the rain we’ve had in recent months, there were 6 days of glaring sunshine until the blinds could be re-installed…just my luck.
The repair man advised me that blinds move up and down easier if the slats are in the fully open position. He also said the unit was a ½ inch too short for the brackets, so it was not really my fault 😀 For those of you who wish to avoid a similar window treatment mishap, now you know what to watch out for.
At a meeting in someone else’s office, I pulled a chair out from the conference table and watched it shoot across the room, not realizing the chair had wheels on it. I’ve had similar experiences where the chair shot out and I fell to the floor, but not this time!
Then there was the time I fell down the stairs at Teltek’s old Baltimore office. This was a combination of not paying attention to where I was going and not picking up my feet as I walked.
Don’t forget about the dangers of getting sick at work, Ben wrote about preparing for flu season back in September and you can read his article here.
Slips and falls are the most common workplace accidents, so keep that in mind. Situational awareness is key, along with common sense. Drawers and cabinets that are left open longer than it takes to place or remove an object will cause an accident… trust me. Another tip, don’t allow phone cords or lines to lay exposed around the office; instead have them properly installed and secured behind the drywall. Also, keep electrical cords out of the traffic path and make sure walkways are dry and free of clutter.
The world is a dangerous place; let’s keep the workplace as hazard free as possible!