I have had a gentle introduction to working in Canada. Part of this has been due to arriving for work on the first day of Spring Break when many of the staff are on holiday. I visited 3 different sites in the city which have all had several Brits working on them. They have been a very useful source of information for settling into the Canadian way of life and giving advice about where to live and where to get the best deals on car insurance which is very high.
The sites that I have been to have been different to the sites I left behind in the UK. While safety is very high on the agenda there are some practices here that are very different. Fall protection training here is mandatory for anybody going on site but edge pretection is only required if there is a potential fall of more than 2.4m. It may be over the top in the UK where any height is a problem but you can do a lot of damage from 2.4m. Smoking is also permitted on the site so long as there is no construction above the person smoking.
I managed to damage my rental car on the first day I drove onto the site by hitting a pothole which was full of water on a wet day. Only a minor prang but annoying all the same.
I have now been assigned to the Forensic Science and Coroner's Court project which will be the major centre for forensic science in Canada as well as the centre for the coroners for Ontario. This will involve lots of new considerations such as autopsy suites, body coolers and laboratories with infection control risks. On my first day I was presented with around 400 drawings and a huge amount of contract information to pore over.
I attended my first design meeting with the designers today. Lots of design information has been issued although there is still a lot to come. Nothing new there. I can see that the workload will build up rapidly once I get properly involved in the job. The organisation and roles on site are very different although I have not got fully into the process yet. No quantity surveyors in evidence although I believe they may be on the way from the UK. They will find a very different situation here.
I must admit that 20-30 minutes home to desk is a very welcome change.
Early days yet. A voyage of discovery awaits.
I think I speak for everyone when I register my shock at the lax edge protection legislation.
ReplyDeleteHave you met the Canadian Quincey at the site of the Coroner's court?
On the car insurance note I heard the other day that the reason car insurance was rocketing is down to the backhanders tow truck men, mechanics and basically anyone in the system now gets if they report an incident to insurers lawyers. I can't remember the technicalities as I was driving around Reading at the time but what I understood from the article convinced me that this was an outrage.
M
Dad hasn't seen this yet. When I read it I thought it was spam then I realised it was just you! Glad to hear from you xx
ReplyDeleteWhat's worse is that you have to have signs to warn people that they are near an edge.
ReplyDeleteApparently we had an incident recently where a union man leaning over the edge was photographed but the defense was that we didn't have signs to warn him of the danger so it was a struggle to get him off the job.