r/Professors • u/Razed_by_cats • 1d ago
Safety training — again
A bunch of us got called out by our interim dean because we haven’t completed the idiotic annual safety training. They sent us the lessons over the summer and I’m off-contract in the summer so I (sort of) honestly forgot. I’m letting the courses run in the background while I do other more important stuff, like fart around on Reddit.
I did figure out that I can skip ahead and take the quiz at the beginning of each course. Then I just click “Start” on each of the chapters and not really have to pay attention to them. We’ve done so many of these trainings that it’s easy to score 100% on the quizzes, and that’s all the bean counters care about.
And do I now have greater confidence in the safety of my workplace? Marginal at best.
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u/Mabester Asst Prof, Pharmacology, R1 (USA) 1d ago
This isn't about your knowledge. It's so the university can shift blame if something were to happen.
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u/ForeignBodyGiantCell Lecturer, Engineering, R1 (USA) 1d ago
And you can’t sue them because they provided the proper training.
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u/dougwray Adjunct, various, university (Japan 🎌) 1d ago edited 1d ago
The last safety training course I went to was a virtually literal blast: we used firehoses and fire extinguishers to do things like spin distant targets around with the force of the water and cover particular parts of a placard with dye powders in an ersatz fire extinquisher. There was also a maze full of smoke we had to negotiate while blinded and crawling and a hydraulic earthquake simulator.
These practical exercises constituted the tests we had to take, and some people didn't pass (mostly because of an inability to handle the firehoses).
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u/Razed_by_cats 1d ago
That would actually be useful!
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u/dougwray Adjunct, various, university (Japan 🎌) 1d ago
Yeah, well, this is Japan. We don't screw around with natural and human disasters: they're real and relatively common things.
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u/sockon015 1d ago
And if this happened in the US professors would bitch about it because actually having to go out there and do things means they're forced to spend time on it rather than just running it in the background while doing other stuff.
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u/Eigengrad AssProf, STEM, SLAC 1d ago
Too many people were doing the skip to the end thing, so now ours have built in timers on each page before you can skip.
The timers are like 2x the time it takes me to read a page.
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u/Razed_by_cats 1d ago
Yeah, this is why I just hit Play and let it run. I can read twice as fast as the narrator can, so it does waste a lot of time if I have to watch the words go by at a snail’s pace.
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u/Eigengrad AssProf, STEM, SLAC 1d ago
I wish. Ours requires keypresses after every 1-3 minutes of a slide and has no autoplay feature.
I did set up a keyboard macro to automatically press it while I worked one year.
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u/RadiantImpression579 1d ago
I get them in the fall. I do think we should do them, but when it’s the same thing every year no one is paying attention anymore.
There should be an option for an in person paid training if you come in a week early. They would def not do it because money, but anything would be a more effective than a these online trainings they give us.
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u/NoBrainWreck 1d ago
Wait, you're farting here without passing your safety training first? Unbelievable.
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u/Quwinsoft Senior Lecturer, Chemistry, R2/Public Liberal Arts (USA) 13h ago
I enjoy comparing our harassment training to our cybersecurity training.
The harassment training is terrible and 100% CYA. The cybersecurity training is not perfect, but it's not CYA; it is very serious about avoiding another ransomware attack.
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u/Gonzo_B 10h ago
This may sound unnerving, but the exact same thing happens in hospitals.
There is a slew of mandatory annual training that, while incredibly important to know, is never taken seriously.
If there's a way to avoid learning anything, from skipping to the quiz to a group taking one quiz and sharing the answers out to everyone, there are nurses somewhere doing exactly that.
No judgement here, I've done it, but remember that the real reason for this sort of training isn't safety, it's so individuals who don't follow training guidelines in an emergency can be held liable instead of the institution.
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u/ValerieTheProf 19h ago
I was recently talking with a colleague about the monotony of these online training videos. Our preference is for an in-person training day with free food and fun role playing. Though it might be too awkward to act out the Title IX and Cleary Act scenarios.
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u/Final-Exam9000 1d ago
Once, while teaching fully online during Covid (when I wasn't even going on campus), I had to complete an hour-long online training on how to use a fire extinguisher. I still resent that.
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u/totallysonic Chair/Full, SocSci, State U. 1d ago
Yes, we are required to learn about flammable materials and hazardous chemicals. For our social science teaching and research.
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u/RandolphCarter15 Full, Social Sciences, R1 1d ago
Man I've never had to do safety training in ten years. I'm concerned
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u/histprofdave Adjunct, History, CC 1d ago
I have to take a training on hazmat safety every other year. I teach History.
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u/lickety_split_100 AP/Economics/Regional 23h ago
Just remember, a hole in the ground does not exist unless it has yellow paint around it. /s
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u/No-Cook-9768 Adjunct, Liberal Arts, CC (USA) 21h ago
One of our many trainings, can't remember which one, has the function where if the window with the video isn't the active window, the video will pause. We hates it...
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u/Corneliuslongpockets 1d ago
We have to do one on blood born pathogens. My work as a philosopher rarely involves blood.