I’ve often wondered if a lot of the pushback against OSHA regulations and workplace safety…

come down to a matter of perspective.

When I was an apprentice electrician I worked for a company that predominately dealt in hospitals.

So after only a few days on the job I was helping wire up what would become rooms with things like MRI machines and autoclaves and the like. Now I didn’t work with them directly obviously but I did work around them.

And I saw people flipping breakers wearing welding masks and using broomsticks to touch them.

Why?

Because these things would, if you didn’t respect them, kill you then set you on fire then start your heart again just to kill you a second time.

A slight exaggeration but it instilled in me a real fear of working with such things. And a respect for rules and regulations because we all wanted to go home, and the job was secondary.

Heartlander · 80-89, M

I've always sort of thought of OSHA as just the shallow end or the casual end of safety. The depth of killer type dangers in some workplaces are only really apparent to the insiders and the best OSHA can do is make sure that there are safety placards and warnings posted, and that people are trained and warned. But even with all that, a simple misstep or a single skipped step in a procedure can can be a killer.