Comments on: Office Rat-A-Tat: Dangerous Jobs

By: JT

JT — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:55:00 +0000

I used to work in research in BioPhysics and Physiology.I had to take a course in Radiation and it’s containment so I could work there.
Our test subjects were rats and those dudes have really sharp teeth I know , I’ve been bitten more times than I can remember plus , there was always the radiation hazzards and we worked with some very sharp tools such as microtomes which are used in slicing frozen prepared materials such as brains and other body parts.I’ve lost count on the number of times I have been cut from the microtomes and those cuts are so sharp you just don’t feel them. We also had a cryostat in our lab we work with and if you got any part of your body to touch it,it would immediately freeze that part!In our lab,we had Anhydrous ether, xylene,toulene,several kinds of acids and oxygen tanks…enough to have blown the floor above us to smithereensalong with ourselves amd our entire floor too!
The lab next door had liquid nitrogen tanks almost as tall as I am.I can remember one day when I came out of the animal room and saw a lazy white cloud coming out of one of the labs on the fifth floor,the one above ours. I knew what they used in that lab was hydrogen cyanide and that IS what makes that kind of WHITE cloud. I had to run back into the animal room and get a fan,plug it in and blow the cyanide cloud out of the building.
And those were just ordinary days.
I can remember many times one person would enter our lab smoking a cigarette and totally ignoring the fact I had placed a sign warning I was using ETHER in the room. I had to order him out of the room immediately.
Sadly,they do not pay very much for those jobs so,I decided to quit and find other employment. — JT

By: Jena

Jena — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:28:34 +0000

Wow, I think Ari wins the award. Scary.

By: sfs

sfs — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:49:25 +0000

Danger is common for pyrotechnicians (fireworks guys). We’re always tossing around shells, cutting fuses and inserting highly volatile electric matches, and generally playing with explosives. The only downside is that we don’t get hazard pay for it.

Working in live sound has been interesting too, as there have been a few times I’ve had to re-wire sound racks live – with 20,000 watts awaiting me if I let any wires touch. I hear that’s bad for you, although I’d sooner take the 20kW than a 6″ fireworks shell blowing up in my face.

By: Dianna

Dianna — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:24:22 +0000

I am a high school teacher – when I was in school, you had a fire drill and a tornado drill once or twice and that was it. Now, we have 10+ fire and “civil defense” drills per year and “codes” – we have to prepare for someone coming in and trying to do harm or worse a student starts trying to do harm. The stress alone of dealing with many of our students is enough.

By: Courtney

Courtney — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:37:35 +0000

It IS really unsafe to work in Alaska. As an employed Alaskan resident, I can promise you that. I mean, I got a paper cut handing someone a receipt at Carr’s the other day–AND I have to lift 12 packs of soda sometimes!

By: Janel

Janel — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:47:17 +0000

I work in a pharmacy, which may not sound so bad, unless you count the crazy people who will hold you up at gunpoint for Oxycontin. We got robbed in March or April. Luckily I wasn’t there because my shift had ended.

When I worked at the public library we had a bomb threat once. That was an adventure too.

By: cm

cm — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 01:57:57 +0000

I think I’m the only accountant ever to be injured on the job. I fell over my audit bag (a large briefcase) the day before the tax deadline and broke my arm. I’ll never forget lying on the floor (with a skirt on, no less) seeing feet all around and everyone asking me if I was ok, and being unable to get up. I cried in front of everyone (every woman knows that’s a CLM – Career Limiting Move). It was so embarrassing. I’m no longer in the field.

By: Anita

Anita — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:22:55 +0000

Shari – they say most accidents happen in the home, but I don’t think that’s what they meant… ;)

(And no, I don’t know who “they” are. But they do have a lot of nifty sayings!)

By: Shari

Shari — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:10:02 +0000

Does your job count as dangerous if it is you who is doing the killing? I am a stay at home mom and although I love my kids like crazy sometimes I want to put a gun to my head and just pull the trigger if I have to hear one more argument about who is the better ninja :)

By: Anthony

Anthony — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:05:13 +0000

I used to work for a plastics company in the R&D department. I did destructive testing. I melted plastic, shot lasers at plastic, shot darts at plastic, ripped plastic, etc. It was actually kind of fun, but I didn’t really have an appreciation of how dangerous it was. I was 18 at the time and working with dangerous chemicals (toluene, benzene, xylene, etc.), heated hydraulic presses that could easily crush any body part that got caught in it, and the plant caught on fire fairly regularly. This is especially worth mentioning because one day, I was working away when I heard a faint buzzing sound. I walked around the room to see if I could figure out where it was coming from. I eventually isolated it to high up in a corner of the room that shared a wall with the hallway. I couldn’t tell what exactly the sound was coming from, though, so I called my supervisor over to see if he could tell. He stood there for a bit and proclaimed it was coming from the fluorescent lights overhead. I accepted this and went back to work. About ten minutes later, I went through the climate control doors and into the hallway where I discovered that the sound was actually the fire alarm. It had been going off for about 15 minutes and the entire building had been evacuated.

Except us, of course.

In another incident, a guy I worked with was sitting in a chair when someone dropped a tank of liquid nitrogen near him. A few drops of the liquid landed on his arm and across his crotch. And yes, it did soak through his pants and got on Mr. Happy. He was ordered to go to the doctor immediately. The doctor asked where he was splashed, and Ken pointed to his arm. The doc grabbed a scalpel and dug the dead tissue out of his arm, just like that. The doctor then asked if there was anywhere else. Ken said “Nope. Noplace at all.”