Now where have I heard that before?

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In one of my English classes today I was talking to the operations manager of a large shopping centre. For the past three days the auditors have been in, not for a financial audit but for an environmental and health and safety audit.

The man was complaining about the lunacy of the things he was being asked to do. He was happy with the need for someone working at height to wear harnesses, safety gear etc. but he didn't understand why there should be a second person on the ground to watch the worker. "Is he supposed to watch the man fall or, maybe he's supposed to catch him?" He had other examples.

Strange; we Brits think that Spaniards are very cavalier about H&S yet here's a professional setup making exactly the same complaints about the over complexity and inadequacy of the safety demands being made.

I used to have similar conversations with H&S people myself - imagine the look of bewilderment, of disbelief "You want a risk assessments for adults to walk from one classroom to another?"

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