Today, I am mostly opening cans of worms....

Today I decided that I needed to flag up the fact that in the 6 years I have been here, no equipment has been PAT tested. I know it isnt a LEGAL requirement but it certainly is important and as we have a few children who have recently started trying to dismantle equipment, I thought it prudent to point out that currently we couldnt say that the kit had been tested for normal usage.

...turns out the Site Manager has been given alll the training and the kit to do the PAT testing, and he did start it once but never finished.

Whoops, will I be in the dog house when he finds out who 'dobbed him in' :(

Better safe than sorry though!

Heh, BTDT.

"So where's $foo?"
"Er... what's $foo?"
"$foo is thing we have to do or we get hit by big sticks until we do it"
"Oh........."

At may last school I got into trouble with the caretaker for removing potential offensive weapons from a corridor child-height shelf and putting them in the office.

We had one child who regularly went for people with anything he could get his hands on (though a cricket bat was his weapon of choice). I felt that leaving a large hammer and a saw unattended where they could be easily seen and reached wasn't a great idea... the caretaker felt otherwise and I was definitely in his bad books from then on... I'd rather that than get injured though.

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Originally Posted by elsiegee40

At may last school I got into trouble with the caretaker for removing potential offensive weapons from a corridor child-height shelf and putting them in the office.

We had one child who regularly went for people with anything he could get his hands on (though a cricket bat was his weapon of choice). I felt that leaving a large hammer and a saw unattended where they could be easily seen and reached wasn't a great idea... the caretaker felt otherwise and I was definitely in his bad books from then on... I'd rather that than get injured though.

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"Where's my saw gone? I'm sure I left it in the corridor. I wonder if the other handyman's got it......"

Wouldn't it be safer to put the violent kid on a shelf out of reach of other kids?

I'm guilty of leaving a tube of superglue in a classroom with the children. I ran back thinking I'd be greeted with the sight of a room of kids all glued together. Amazingly, not one of them had touched it.

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Originally Posted by witch

...turns out the Site Manager has been given alll the training and the kit to do the PAT testing, and he did start it once but never finished.

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Apparently, we used to get a local firm in to do it, but the cost became prohibitive, so we bought the kit to do it ourselves, with the Site Manager undertaking the job. At some point along the line, it became an "ICT job" to test our own kit....

Boring job is an understatement :sleep:

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Originally Posted by theeldergeek

Boring job is an understatement

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So far, we've done 650 items in physics, the biology technician's done 700 (she's finished, we haven't) and chemistry are doing theirs in the summer. This excludes ICT, and video stuff in the main, and IEC leads aren't counted, but they are tested.

Have you any paint I can watch dry?

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Originally Posted by witch

Today I decided that I needed to flag up the fact that in the 6 years I have been here, no equipment has been PAT tested. I know it isnt a LEGAL requirement but it certainly is important and as we have a few children who have recently started trying to dismantle equipment, I thought it prudent to point out that currently we couldnt say that the kit had been tested for normal usage.

...turns out the Site Manager has been given alll the training and the kit to do the PAT testing, and he did start it once but never finished.

Whoops, will I be in the dog house when he finds out who 'dobbed him in' :(

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I've done something similar while giving site survey tours to cabling companies before. Taking them around showing them the dire state of our network cabling and explaining that it was all done on the cheap and installed badly by the caretaker, suddenly realising that the caretaker is behind a pillar and had heard every word :p

Pretty sure he doesn't like me that much ;)

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Originally Posted by Andrew_C

Have you any paint I can watch dry?

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Gawd, with that much testing, you'll be watching the paint drying on the paint that was drying and has since been repainted! Mind numbing!

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Originally Posted by witch

...we have a few children who have recently started trying to dismantle equipment

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Let them continue. You can identify which items of equipment aren't safe by a process of elimination that way, e.g. electric shock = failed PAT

Or aren't we allowed to do that to our children?

:rolleyes:

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electric shock = failed PAT

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You would think so. I got a shock last week from a computer that passes a pat test the week before.

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Originally Posted by FN-GM

You would think so. I got a shock last week from a computer that passes a pat test the week before.

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Sssshhhh, someone will suggest shorter intervals between testing.....

I found a laptop PSU on my desk that had been passed on a PAT test, only prolem was the brick>laptop portion was well and truely knackered, bare wires and all. Shame the tester had finished.

We've got over 1000 PAT tested items in our asset database, took ALOT of time doing it ourselves, and when asked if people could leave things out of cupboards for us...they didn't. Tend to do a building per holiday along with other jobs that need doing