Everything you see on “Ik vertrek,” “Het Roer Om,” or whatever other moving and remodeling programs they’ve come up with: it all adds up.
These programs also do show how organized the Netherlands is and how the Dutch do not let themselves be known. Despite setbacks, they persevere. They want to do business, build something for the future, and they think anything is possible. Myself included.
Unlike the French, for example: they are quick to think it is all good as it is and generally have fewer ambitions to grow their business and achieve something.
As a result, roofers are full for years and hiring a crane only works if you know certain people, and so on.
Whether it is also fun? Yes indeed! It puts you two feet on the ground. You face challenges you couldn’t have imagined beforehand, and life is full of variety.
No more sitting at a computer every day. No more sitting in traffic jams every day on the way to work.
Instead, we are outside almost all day, buffeting in all weathers, doing physically demanding work (how about ergonomics?), and feeling stronger than ever! Because the human body wasn’t made to sit all day, and half an hour a day of exercise or sports doesn’t solve that problem either.
Changing my lifestyle basically meant; doing something other than computer work. And in the Netherlands, that alone is a challenge.
So do you want to change your lifestyle? Emigrate to another country!
Bare bottom
To be honest, I’ve been working on this project in France for a while now, and I find that sometimes I just accept unsafe situations. Both for myself and for another person.
I find that hooking up with a harness also has a very unsafe component to it. After all, you have to constantly unhook the line and rehook it elsewhere while working at altitude. Sure, using two lines is an option, but that also adds more ballast.
Or that I allowed the men to work on the floor with a handheld circle room instead of from a decent workbench, whereas I just have one. But yes … picking up the workbench and dragging it up to the second floor is also a job in itself.
Or when the shield on my new grinder, which was supposed to make the tool safer, came off very quickly and made it unsafe. And yes, the shield is no longer there.
Of course I make sure the ladder is in the right position, get someone there if necessary or secure it if I can. I’m not crazy (read: I don’t want to die). And when my father broke down the scaffolding and was balancing on two planks at the risk of his life at a height of nine meters, I didn’t like it one bit. His thought process: ‘Better him than his daughter’.
But this situation was really not acceptable, and yet I couldn’t stop him from doing it.
Of course, there is more
As a woman in construction, you have to prove yourself in everything. I’m sitting on the roof doing my weekly job of laying tiles, and a Frenchman comes along and says: Tu fais ça toute seule? and looks at me with such pity. But yes, the work has to be done and anything you can do yourself, you do yourself!
Let’s see: I lug around anything (too) heavy, because yes, the work has to be done. I am a woman who takes (okay, appropriate) risks, because I want the work done, and patience is not exactly a trait with which I am richly endowed.
So I push on, I buffalo, I struggle, even when I’m tired and sore. But oh well, it doesn’t matter. It’s always better than sitting at a computer all day. And yes, I really mean that.
Conclusion: you only really start to see unsafe situations when you roll up your sleeves yourself.
So when do you actually work safely?
If you sit at a computer and figure out for someone else how to do it, how does that help the employee who:
- does what it has to do
- must have the work done (with pressure from the manager)
- like to go home on time
- dee line will not stop (because production must go on!)
- Does not feel or even want to feel his/her body (if it hurts)
- don’t feel the long-term effects at all
- and still believes he or she is young and immortal?
From this train of thought, I ask myself: what would move me to do things differently? What can I do, for myself and for those working with me, and perhaps many more people, to do better?
So at SecuDura, I’m always looking for ways to make security fit the reality of work. Because solutions that only make sense on paper don’t help anyone.
Would you like me to take a look at your situation with you? Then get in touch and we’ll set up an appointment.
