This is a small office in a large UK corporate company. Although untidy tangle of wires would this be deemed `at risk` under health and safety.
If so is there a section or ref number within health & safety to report this? Electricians say it is ok, but then again they couldnt find the light switch to turn off a ceiling light that goes of at the mains!
Why are you so worried about something so normal?where is the danger?
From a technical point of view it may well be OK, ie safe. It just looks untidy and if any alterations are needed takes longer to work out what goes where. It's possible to tidy this lot up with various gadgets or even by coiling up over long cables and fitting cable ties. A remote possible danger is cables getting trapped & damaged.
It's a mess, yes. But what do YOU think the "risk" is?
I was expecting a load of cables running across a floor, but ffs, it is behind a desk. Please explain why this is a risk?
Yes, there is a section that says idiots shouldnt be let out of their house. Maybe you should stay at home if you see such things as a risk? -- Alan To reply by mail, change '+' to 'plus'
Trip hazards, electromagnetically induced interference to pacemakers, unclear switch designations thus leading to confusion as to which plug to pull in the case of a fire. Inability to keep clueless morons from the workplace. The list is endless!
AB
Gosh no 4/6 way blocks ! Everything has its own mains socket - thats not normal. Its untidy - but normal for work situations especially if the sockets are hardly ever accessed in normal use; the main practical issue would be accidental unplugging of devices/services so unless one of the devices has an important Safety role no issue.
In message , Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp writes
You haven't looked at the image have you? so posting generic hazards is a bit pointless.
Not in this situation, the cables are out of the way mostly behind a desk.
Any evidence that tangles of wires cause such a problem?
There are no switches on the sockets. though some labels would be useful, but mostly to save annoyance and frustration. But I imagine these are not going to be pulled unless someone is working on the kit, moving it etc.
fair enough, but it would be safer to pull them all anyway as the equipment is likely to be near each other., But when was the last time a bit of random office equipment caught fire whilst people were sitting working in the office?
what's clueless about a perfectly normal cable setup?
If you think there is a problem there you really don't want to look behind the desk I am at now!
Everything seems to have its own socket, so this is a Rolls Royce installat ion. cables are tied together and out of the way so that no trip hazard exi sts. The power bricks would be a tiny bit better if they were not dangling on their cables, but that's a 5 second fix and not a safety issue (a reliab ility one instead). Labeling the sockets would aid identification, but agai n not a safety issue and we are knit picking.
Where you have a couple of computers, phones, lamps etc you are going to ge t a lot of cables, end of. Are you wanting to return to the days of old whe re the only thing on an office desk was a telephone, if that.
There are cable tidy's you can buy to make that look a little neater, but o f course they become a problem when you want to replace a piece of equipmen t (unless keeping the same cables).
The only slight other problem that I can see is the shockingly bad workmans hip of whoever crimped the connectors on for the Ethernet/phone cables. Aga in a reliability issue not a safety one.
Philip
He must be fairly diminutive to trip on those cables, I would find it difficult to walk there.
No, apart from the PSU (see below). 100% of offices have stuff like that somewhere in at least one room, usually most rooms.
But it would do hard to by a reel of velcro cable tidy tape which can be cut into lengths and used to bundle that lot up a bit more nicely.
The only bit I deem "at risk" is the PSU that is dangling on its plug: I prefer PSUs which can get warm and especially ones with plug in leads to be sitting somewhere they will be ventilated, not get covered in papers that fall down, not get clouted when that pedastal moves and if they did overheat (happens) the risk of them setting their surroundings alight is reduced. And the PSU dangling on the cable may work the plug loose which can cause arcing and more heat.
But you do not need to report this to anyone - self help! Shove the PSU on that shelf to mitigate all of the above and gather the cables up a bit (even if you don't go as far as tying them off).
Someone in an office I once worked in decided to tidy up a similar mess, so unplugged the PSU & put it in a cupboard. Then called the Helpdesk (which at the time I ran) to complain their printer had stopped working. (The PSU was for the network print server that ran the printer.)
Someone at work has plaited all the cables running round their desk. I suspect they don't have enough to do.
Sweet - I might do that...
I don't see any risk there
NT
Yeah, I was greatly amused. It looks particularly good for the power, USB & network cables draped across their desk.
As would any normal person. But you're not an accident looking for a place to happen...
Photo?
Not allowed.
There's not much point labelling plugs unless the other end of the lead is permanently wired into the appliance. It's possible that the lead from the plug that you labelled "PC" a few months ago is now plugged into the back of the printer.
Nothing.
The moron is the person trying to produce a H&S issue where there is no risk.
People are now dreaming up health and safety "initiatives" looking for problems where they don't exist.
At my last induction I was at a civils site. I was informed that PPE including gloves and glasses were to be worn at all times, there were no exceptions.
I pointed out this was against HSE guidelines and went on to add that a badly thought through glasses policy resulted in me winding up in hospital once.
The "safety" officer agreed that their policy wasn't in keeping with HSE guidelines, but I still had to "go with the flow"
Anyone tried PLC/ HMI programming wearing gloves & goggles?
There are too many plonkers that try to find issues in situations where there is such low risk anyway that the safety measures only introduce problems and risks. AB
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