The scene is straight out of a black comedy: A janitor working in a lab is driven mad by an incessant beep, so they flip a switch that kills the sound – but also shuts off a storage freezer t…
The lab apparently did have a notice on the thing with the date when they came to repair it, and a guide on how to turn the noise off, plus a “this area doesn’t need cleaning” sign. So it’s at least a shared responsibility. Yes, there should’ve been back-ups, but the cleaner had no reason to even be in the room, let alone to mess with breakers.
A sign telling someone not to do something is not a good enough control measure. It should be locked and access restricted. If this is business critical as they claim they could have done >100 things to prevent this.
I work a lot in safety. If you had a safety critical system just ‘guarded’ by a sign and someone got hurt when the sign was ignored you would be extremely liable for the damages. That sign would be no defence in court. In general nobody reads signs, ever. And that’s if indeed they even can read the signs. Was the cleaner literate? did they speak the language? Do they have comprehension of the sign’s instructions?
To give a vaguely topical example, imagine a submarine with a switch that could open the doors even underwater, that just had a sign saying “don’t press button when submerged”. That would be a truly dreadful design. A better design would have actual control measures e.g. the door motors cannot overcome the pressure from the depth of water preventing opening, depth sensors that lock out the control, the button behind a locked switch cover that only trained, competent staff members have the key for etc. A sign is not a control measure, ever.
Oh, I’m absolutely on board with it not being good enough. But I’ve had personal experience with janitorial staff just pulling the plug on the icp-ms at night as the noise was too loud. Customer kept wondering why the vacuum was so bad each morning and up to regular again right before they left, so we stayed longer and watched it happen. You can’t hide every plug, at some point people are meant to be taught what’s acceptable and what isn’t in the environment they work in.
I feel like actually flipping the breaker is a pretty intentional move. Not a “woops, we opened the door when we weren’t meant to”.
In a different version of the article the outlet and plug were locked out. That’s why the janitor flipped the breaker.
While Lakshmi waited for the freezer’s manufacturer to come perform repairs, her team added a safety lock box around the freezer’s outlet and socket. A warning was posted on the freezer, according to the court filing.
“THIS FREEZER IS BEEPING AS IT IS UNDER REPAIR. PLEASE DO NOT MOVE OR UNPLUG IT. NO CLEANING REQUIRED IN THIS AREA. YOU CAN PRESS THE ALARM/TEST MUTE BUTTON FOR 5-10 SECONDS IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MUTE THE SOUND,” the warning read, according to the suit.
The lab apparently did have a notice on the thing with the date when they came to repair it, and a guide on how to turn the noise off, plus a “this area doesn’t need cleaning” sign. So it’s at least a shared responsibility. Yes, there should’ve been back-ups, but the cleaner had no reason to even be in the room, let alone to mess with breakers.
That’s just not good enough.
A sign telling someone not to do something is not a good enough control measure. It should be locked and access restricted. If this is business critical as they claim they could have done >100 things to prevent this.
I work a lot in safety. If you had a safety critical system just ‘guarded’ by a sign and someone got hurt when the sign was ignored you would be extremely liable for the damages. That sign would be no defence in court. In general nobody reads signs, ever. And that’s if indeed they even can read the signs. Was the cleaner literate? did they speak the language? Do they have comprehension of the sign’s instructions?
To give a vaguely topical example, imagine a submarine with a switch that could open the doors even underwater, that just had a sign saying “don’t press button when submerged”. That would be a truly dreadful design. A better design would have actual control measures e.g. the door motors cannot overcome the pressure from the depth of water preventing opening, depth sensors that lock out the control, the button behind a locked switch cover that only trained, competent staff members have the key for etc. A sign is not a control measure, ever.
Oh, I’m absolutely on board with it not being good enough. But I’ve had personal experience with janitorial staff just pulling the plug on the icp-ms at night as the noise was too loud. Customer kept wondering why the vacuum was so bad each morning and up to regular again right before they left, so we stayed longer and watched it happen. You can’t hide every plug, at some point people are meant to be taught what’s acceptable and what isn’t in the environment they work in.
I feel like actually flipping the breaker is a pretty intentional move. Not a “woops, we opened the door when we weren’t meant to”.
In a different version of the article the outlet and plug were locked out. That’s why the janitor flipped the breaker.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/27/us/janitor-alarm-freezer-rensselaer-polytechnic-lawsuit-new-york/index.html