Yes the company does seem dysfunctional. They are in a period of rapid growth, and also a period of rapid change in personnel. There is a lot of work to be done, and a lot of procedures that need to be established. We are attempting to right the ship.
I was hired because of my environmental experience, and also because you want an educated, intelligent person that is capable of critical thinking. I was not hired because of my safety expertise - I am not a safety expert. I am able to read the general regulations and comprehend them though. I have been using past safety audits as guidance as to what needs to be done, but I will probably require the help of a consultant at some point anyway because I lack the expertise.
I am definitely CMA. I honestly don't expect her to be employed here much longer. She seems to be butting heads with multiple people. I am getting the impression that the plant manager dislikes her, HR dislikes her, and the head of finance dislikes her. I am going to do everything I can to interject my opinion that she is incompetent and dangerous for the company, but she is already doing a pretty decent job of getting that point across on her own.
So how about more fun stories?
Yesterday she filled out an incident report for an employee that didn't injure himself. He tweaked his groin lifting something, and didn't need medical attention, but wanted to notify us in case it develops at a later date. That's fine, and it's a good idea to document it in case it does develop, so knock yourself out and fill out an incident report if you like. When I looked at the report, large portions of it were left over from the previous incident report she filled out. So I was like "uh...I don't think this information is correct, his name is at the top but the 2nd page is all about a different employee". She seemed incredulous (again) that she could have made a mistake, so I asked her to open it up and look at it to make sure I'm not going crazy, and sure enough if was filled out with the wrong information. She acted flustered and blamed it on an earache which she claimed is from the soot from furnace. After she updated it I sent it off to my boss to inform him that someone was injured (kind of) and safety sandy filled out an incident report, and I specified that I did not review it (I only looked at it to pull the employees name and just happened to notice that it was filled out with incorrect information, I did not spend any time actually reviewing it).
Today my boss responded and was basically like "wtf? this isn't filled out properly. see the highlighted sections", and there were about 10 incomplete sections highlighted. I just responded that that sounds about right for safety sandy, and that I also noticed the phone number and fax number for our company are incorrect. This isn't any type of official documentation, it's just for internal purposes, and it was created by safety sandy because she is incident report happy. I could have spent the time to review it, but I figured it would be better to have another terrible document to put in the file as justification for firing her. Also I don't have time to babysit her and review everything she does.
Anyway, yesterday immediately after she claimed to have an earache from the soot she went on and on about incident reports. How we need to write up incident reports for that time someone got chromic acid on their skin. I said hexavalent chrome is pretty bad to breath in, but it's far less serious to get on your skin. It's not good, and I wouldn't make a habit of getting it on your skin, but a single incident that was immediately washed off likely poses no risk and he is fine. She responded and "schooled" me on all the dangers, and if you read the SDS it tells you how dangerous it is and it's a carcinogen and you WILL get cancer, and that it can be "ingested" through the skin and eyes and get in your bloodstream. It's like she's just intelligent enough to read the SDS and know it's bad, and that it's a carcinogen, and to take a safety class that explains the various routes of contamination, but not quite smart enough to understand the real risk, or how carcinogens work, or non conflate ingested with absorbed. So close, and yet so far. I didn't bother engaging her any further on this, just let her ramble on. I wonder if she thinks a single cigarette WILL give you cancer?
She then moved on to schooling me about the dangers of hydrofluoric acid. I assumed this was going to be about the corrosive nature of it being an acid, but she threw a total curveball and started talking about how the fluoride can get into your teeth and bones. We have a new hire, who according to her used to work with hydrofluoric acid. He was recently diagnosed with carpal tunnel and arthritis, even though no one else in his family has arthritis. She did some research and is confident he was misdiagnosed with arthritis by the doctor, and that he actually has "skeletosis" from the fluoride from working with hydrofluoric acid, and he needs to go back to the dr and get diagnosed correctly.
On the one hand I am so sick of her and her nonsense, but on the other hand how am I not gonna sit there and listen to those stories? Every conversation with her is surreal. Can you even imagine the audacity and arrogance that someone must have to completely dismiss a medical doctors diagnosis and rediagnose someone that you know nothing about with a non-existent disease based on your internet research?
For as much frustration as she has caused me at least I am getting plenty of good laughs out of it. My wife has now started a running joke in our house where everything is an EXPOSURE. Wore your shoes in the house? That's an EXPOSURE! Our child sneezed on you? That's an EXPOSURE, you need to go to the clinic! Is that dust on the TV? That's a soot EXPOSURE! The more absurd the example the funnier the joke is to us.
