Is There a Label on that Vodka?

Yesterday at work I had the honour and privilege of taking WHMIS training. WHMIS stands for Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System. Every employee in selective departments got to take 90 minutes out of their productive days to sit and learn about the dangers of improperly labelled bottles. According to the training video, it is quite possible for someone to confuse industrial cleaner with hand soap. Maybe the problem is that most of the dangerous substances in the video are pink. We were reminded that everything from Windex to Liquid Paper is a potentially hazardous material. Needless to say, a few of the "real life case studies" presented in the video were laughable. For example, the lady who spills coffee (a hazardous substance in itself, at least where I work) on the carpet and uses two different substances to try to clean it. The chemical reaction of the two substances causes a vapour to form and the woman is overcome by the fumes, passes out (in a Razzie-worthy performance), and suffers permanent lung damage. Or the lady who carelessly drops her pen into a garbage can, puts her hand in to retrieve it, and gets stuck by a hypodermic needle that was carelessly disposed of. We had little quizzes after each module, and a final quiz at the end that we had to pass. We learned all about the little WHMIS and consumer product warning symbols, and had fun with the kindergarten-level test of connecting the symbol with its description. Everything covered in those 90 minutes can be summed up like this: If you don't know what it is or how to use it, read the label and follow directions. If it doesn't have a label or all the necessary information, stay away from it and call someone on the Health & Safety Committee to get the proper information. If you read the preceeding two sentences, I just saved you about 89 minutes and 50 seconds.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I've ever seen any kind of instructional or informational film that didn't make me laugh. Whether it's improbable situations, overmodulated narration, cheesy music and graphics or dated hairstyles, I usually find something about them to be entertaining. One of my co-workers, Dave, is conducting a forklift training session this weekend, and he has one such video, with a guy in a suit and tie introducing examples of forklift accidents. If you didn't know better, you'd think you were watching an ad for a personal injury lawyer. But then Dave came across Klaus the Forklifter. This is actually a German parody of a safety film. Even if you don't speak German, you will still appreciate it if you aren't queasy about its graphic nature. It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. Check it out.

Fortunately, I won't be taking the forklift training. I get to stay home and watch Tiger and Monty go at it.