Still, she perseveres through the suffocating heat, earning admiration for her toughness and dedication from Stanley Copeland, her employer of 17 years. “I’ve seen her load watermelon trucks. It would be so hot, you’d faint if you went out there,”says Copeland, a third-generation farmer. Like the other workers he employs on his family-owned farm, “I guarantee she can take the heat.”
It's interesting to see how an employer (and I suppose the author of the passage) frame it as "Wow, what a great employee, working so hard that if you or I did it we'd literally pass out. This is...
It's interesting to see how an employer (and I suppose the author of the passage) frame it as "Wow, what a great employee, working so hard that if you or I did it we'd literally pass out. This is a fair and balanced situation".
Just shows the mental gymnastics required to treat human beings that poorly
The humidity this summer across the entire Eastern Coast has been so bad you can't even sweat to cool off. It persists through night and morning too without cooling down. Totally brutal and...
The humidity this summer across the entire Eastern Coast has been so bad you can't even sweat to cool off. It persists through night and morning too without cooling down. Totally brutal and unbelievable the conditions these workers have to endure.
According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 40 workers die every year from heat, most in outdoor jobs like farming, construction, and package delivery. But the official statistics don’t tell the real story, says Doug Parker, director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which oversees working conditions in the U.S. “We’re confident that’s an undercount. Probably a significant undercount,” largely because the role of heat is often overlooked when it comes to issuing death certificates for cardiac arrest and respiratory failure. Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C., based consumer rights advocacy group, estimates that extreme heat contributes to between 600 and 2,000 deaths a year, along with 170,000 injuries, making heat one of the three main causes of death and injury in the American workplace.
This is a topic I’ve been attempting to slow boil into conversation at my workplace. How hot is too hot to work outside? Is 110F too hot? If by some gift from Hell the temp is 150F, certainly we’d...
This is a topic I’ve been attempting to slow boil into conversation at my workplace.
How hot is too hot to work outside? Is 110F too hot? If by some gift from Hell the temp is 150F, certainly we’d have to agree that’s too hot. But no one can tell me how hot is deemed too hot for manual labor in direct sun. Now if it’s 110F I’d work through it best I could, however that seems like rapidly approaching dangerous and might take me 2 hours to complete an hour task. We’re out there in long sleeves to avoid fun things like skin cancer. Obviously less than ideal to keep ventilated but that’s the nature of trade-offs. On these extra hot and humid days my comprehension and general skills degrade about 5 hours into my shift. I don’t turn into a Neanderthal lol but will find myself doing a task by starting with a step that should be done in the middle of the task or something similar. Usually that’s my cue to come off the lift and hydrate in some shade for 15.
Fortunately for us, my boss goes over his boss’s head and doesn’t just bring an also-hot-case of water. He’ll load ice into a cooler and fill it with waters and Gatorade.
Pretty much sums it up. Zero empathy.
It's interesting to see how an employer (and I suppose the author of the passage) frame it as "Wow, what a great employee, working so hard that if you or I did it we'd literally pass out. This is a fair and balanced situation".
Just shows the mental gymnastics required to treat human beings that poorly
The humidity this summer across the entire Eastern Coast has been so bad you can't even sweat to cool off. It persists through night and morning too without cooling down. Totally brutal and unbelievable the conditions these workers have to endure.
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This is a topic I’ve been attempting to slow boil into conversation at my workplace.
How hot is too hot to work outside? Is 110F too hot? If by some gift from Hell the temp is 150F, certainly we’d have to agree that’s too hot. But no one can tell me how hot is deemed too hot for manual labor in direct sun. Now if it’s 110F I’d work through it best I could, however that seems like rapidly approaching dangerous and might take me 2 hours to complete an hour task. We’re out there in long sleeves to avoid fun things like skin cancer. Obviously less than ideal to keep ventilated but that’s the nature of trade-offs. On these extra hot and humid days my comprehension and general skills degrade about 5 hours into my shift. I don’t turn into a Neanderthal lol but will find myself doing a task by starting with a step that should be done in the middle of the task or something similar. Usually that’s my cue to come off the lift and hydrate in some shade for 15.
Fortunately for us, my boss goes over his boss’s head and doesn’t just bring an also-hot-case of water. He’ll load ice into a cooler and fill it with waters and Gatorade.
Army heat category work rest cycle PDF
https://home.army.mil/drum/application/files/8215/5655/1638/Work_-_Rest_-_Water_Consumption_Chart.pdf