Although not achieving his desired goal, a local washed up tradie driving a forklift has had a win of sorts this week.
Neil Coombes (52) a qualified bricklayer who took up a job at the Swadlings in Betoota’s Industrial Estate after being short of work a couple of years ago, decided to give a relatively young new employee a working over.
Despite not managing to get Thibaut Bertier (22) to look upon him with adulation, Coombes successfully made the new employee squirm for at least half an hour during the morning routine of stacking timber with the forklift.
Coombes reportedly carried out a number of manoeuvres on the piece of machinery that were definite breaches of workplace health and safety, like donuts on the 2.5 tonne vehicle, speeding awfully close to the young employee ‘spotting him’ and flicking bits of timber off the racks with the forks.
The greying tattooed binge drinker explained to us that little things like that give him a kick now.
“These kids get a tingle in their knob over using the latest apps like iAuditor so we can work safe, but you need to find the limits before you know where safety starts and finishes. I’m just showing the lad where the limits are.”
I like watching these kids out of the corner of my eye when I do reckless shit. The new ones are too scared to say anything to me and just look around anxiously hoping one of the managers don’t come out.”
“A few of them think I am a bit of a loose unit, which is always nice” he laughed.
Young Bertier explained to us, however, that he was not one of those kids.
“Jesus, I’m hungover, I don’t have an endorphin left in my body and I started at 5 am this morning. Neil being a ‘legend’ on the forklift is far from legendary. We are both just going to get spoken to” he said.
“I actually feel bad for him, we spend a couple of hours every month doing toolbox talks on a safety culture, and they inspect all the equipment, so he is just going to get himself fired when they catch him playing up.”
If this sicko builder reminds you of your own boss, and you are worried about maintaining your ability to walk, visit SafetyCulture.
