Saturday, July 17, 2010

Industrial Safety Posters of the 17th Century #14

"You cannot seriously expect me to shut up shop and switch off the Wheel, just because some sticky-beak pencil-pushing bureaucrat from Wellington thinks he can do my job better than me," prominent industrialist John O'Fortuna told our reporters. "The Wheel creates several dozen desperately-needed jobs and contributes significantly to closing New Zealand's trade imbalance. Also my brother-in-law knows the Minister's secretary."

But this did not deter the Brave Little Occupational-Safety-&-Health-Inspector, shown at the lower left. He is trying to stop the Wheel in time to prevent further castle-and-sail-related deaths, with assistance from the friendly scythe-wielding skeleton (who has been helping him ever since the earlier episode of the story when he rescued its ribs from use in a xylophone). If the two of them together are still not strong enough, he will invoke the powers of the magical Hazard Abatement Notice vested in him by the Workplace Safety Fairy (lower right) in accordance with the Act of 1992.

When the truth comes out that the supposed jobs created by Mr O'Fortuna were all filled by undocumented Saracens without temporary work visas or receipts for their Accident Compensation payments, the industrialist bombards the media with tweets blaming government over-regulation for the company's failure. Then he changes his name to O4Tuna and resigns to spend more time with his bank account in the Maldives.

There are many versions of the Tale of the Brave Little Occupational-Safety-&-Health-Inspector. A skilled story-teller can add episodes or take them away and spin the story out for as long as the audience keep buying him drinks, until the part-time barman at the Ngawi Arms closes the bar and turns off the pie warmer, and changes uniform for his other part-time job as Ngawi's traffic enforcement officer.

7 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Is that A.K. in the upper left corner?
~

tigris said...

Life is just a series of thematic apperception tests for you, isn't it?

mikey said...

Clearly, wind powered castles, later to be commonly known as 'sailcastles' were in their earliest development phase at that point, and the tethered testing was not going at all well.

In those days, test pilots were a hardier bunch, hence the rapid accumulation of dead test pilots on the ground below is no cause for bringing a halt to the test flight or forming some kind of commission to analyze what went wrong.

Obviously, they are yet to discover that the tether is far more effective when tied to something large and immobile, rather than having a demon tie it to a barbary coast pirate who is then tasked with sailcastle retention.

Oh. In an unrelated side note, you can see our good fiend ZRM there in the lower right, with his T Square and Orphan Annie 'Do. You might think he's encouraging them to let him redesign the wheel so it will operate more efficiently, but in actuality he's imploring the man turning the wheel to put on some trousers, fer fucks sake....

Substance McGravitas said...

The Wheel creates several dozen desperately-needed jobs

Well obviously. Where would OSH inspectors be without lackadaisical capitalists treating human flesh like gear-teeth? Bring on the exploiters and let freedom grind!

Smut Clyde said...

Occupational Safety & Health Inspectors and the Ruthless Industrialists who Love Them.

Also, Worst perpetual-motion machine EVAH.

M. Bouffant said...

the part-time barman at the Ngawi Arms closes the bar and turns off the pie warmer, and changes uniform for his other part-time job as Ngawi's traffic enforcement officer

NZ speed traps sound more efficient than Yank ones. Smut should probably keep to The Old Entomologist.

Smut Clyde said...

Life is just a series of thematic apperception tests for you

By way of an epitaph, my gravestone will bear a series of DSM-IV(r) categories.