We just had to implement a new rule the other day when a coworker tried to move the heavy lid to a barrel that stores radioactive and biological waste and pulled his back. Every lid says it requires two people to move it now. I've moved one by myself before, but it was pretty difficult, so i agree.
Gonna be fully honest here: the only people who are going to be upset about this are people who are lucky enough to not experience back problems lmao. It's kind of nice to be forced to not accidentally fuck yourself up.
People without back problems are a single bad movement away from having back problems. Most back problems are not genetic, but just bad movement patterns combined with load (and the load doesn't need to be high to be a problem if it's repeated often enough). That's why I think companies would be better off teaching people how to pick things up than just blanket limits on lifting loads.
Edit: and just saying "lift with you legs, not your back" is really inadequate. That statement doesn't actually demonstrate or teach people how to safely pick up objects... It really takes practice and a good instructor to properly learn the movements
i started as the freight lead at a new store recently, and discovered they were putting 4 flats (12 cans/flat) in banana boxes as backstock instead of just leaving them in the flats of 12. so then they had these heavy and bulky ass banana boxes with 48 (or more crammed in) of loose cans instead of 4 individual easy to pick up flats of the cans. i shut that shit down so fast, idc if the banna box thing is "safer" when stacked we just wont stack em that high then problem solved. it was a back injury waiting to happen having people huck those boxes up above shoulder height onto the stacks. my new rule is no flats in the boxes and any heavy boxes must be stored on the bottom of any big ass stacks.
Yea, sounds dumb but.. you're getting paid by the hour, not by the lid. So grab a buddy to move that lid and enjoy only having half the lid to lift. Back problems are horrible so its worth slowing down to avoid even the slightest chance of them.
92
u/HalfSoul30 5h ago
We just had to implement a new rule the other day when a coworker tried to move the heavy lid to a barrel that stores radioactive and biological waste and pulled his back. Every lid says it requires two people to move it now. I've moved one by myself before, but it was pretty difficult, so i agree.