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Common Courtesy at Indoor Gyms


BigMike

4-May-2006
11:02:45 PM

On 4/05/2006 dave wrote:
>theres
>always plenty more ropes to try...

Not necessarily. I'm talking about a gym in which people stand in line for a rope, ANY rope, on certain nights ... hence my mention of peak-hour etiquette being needed.

Will look forward to popping by your nice uncrowded gym sometime! (oh sod that I'll just go do some real climbing).


brat

5-May-2006
7:39:41 AM

Quote "On the occasions when i'm trying a harder route its natural to spend while working out the moves- just as u might do on a hard route outdoors"

I must be missing something, it's plastic, move on or get off! :o)


nmonteith

5-May-2006
9:16:40 AM

Melbournes gyms are absolutely at bursting points on Tuesday/Thursday nights. There is usuallyr no
ropes free between 6pm and 9pm. Some routes can be totally of flimits because the queue is so long! I
don't like waiitng for 30minutes to climb one route. I am there to climb - not to sit around.

gfdonc

5-May-2006
10:21:43 AM

If the Unions hadn't been so obstructive, the gym at Verve (Swanston St) would be open by now.

MichaelOR

5-May-2006
11:52:44 AM

It's also those obstructive unions that minimise injuries and deaths on building sites. Workplace Safety isn't just numbers ... it's workers lives. Look at the number of recent deaths at work. Workers safety is of more importance than delays .... or do we just trust 'the bottom line' to take care of it.
Michael

Bob Saki

5-May-2006
11:57:48 AM

maybe we should acquire itinerant workers from abraod who are happy to take risks, be paid less and fear joining unions - then we may get a few more gyms up and running!

I'm sure they'd do a quality job


IdratherbeclimbingM9

5-May-2006
12:16:39 PM

>I don't like waiitng for 30minutes to climb one route. I am there to climb - not to sit around.

Showing my ignorance again here with a couple more Q's;

I assume keen gym attendees have a long term membership, but how does the pay as you go structure operate; ie hourly rates, or minimum rate, or deals for a certain number of visits/period?
On a busy evening it would not be too good paying for sitting around ...

What is the normal colour heirachy for grading climbs?

BTW I may be saved the ignominy of attending a gym in Canb. due to having the outdoors now lined up.
Heh, heh, heh.
:)


Phil Box

5-May-2006
12:49:48 PM

On 5/05/2006 MichaelOR wrote:
>It's also those obstructive unions that minimise injuries and deaths on
>building sites. Workplace Safety isn't just numbers ... it's workers lives.
>Look at the number of recent deaths at work. Workers safety is of more
>importance than delays .... or do we just trust 'the bottom line' to take
>care of it.
>Michael

Hate to get partisan here with political speak and all but that is the biggest load of crap I've heard on this site yet.

Unions do not make job sites safer nor do WH&S government officials. It is all about attitudes. In fact unions and WH&S government departmental dictates can in fact make the situation worse because they assume a one size fits all criteria to determine the legislative effort towards "Ensuring" a "risk free environment". This is clearly not working as evidenced by the spate of recent deaths on building sites. Better that the effort goes into educating people and allowing individuals the freedom to create their own safe work environments. Take rock climbers for instance, very little governement interference on an extremely high risk endeavour yet the statistics show that climbers on the whole have ownership of keeping themselves safe.


brat

5-May-2006
12:53:41 PM

My point exactly, you normally pay per days admission, or you can get qrtly, yearly etc memberships!

If someone has a climb they're working or trying to climb harder, no sweat, just go there in a quiet period and monopolise the climb, otherwise pay some of my entry fee!

Sorry Phil, we posted at the same time. I agress totally with you, OHS is trying to make Darwin redundant, and the idiots are fighting back!

I am confronted with OHS requirements every day that defy logic and standing understanding of systems,!


cruze

5-May-2006
1:42:38 PM

Not directed at you Brat, or at Bored on the rap anchors thread, but people who constantly joke about Darwinism and people using their heads are speaking out of their hole. If someone was to objectively follow another around for a day (week/month/year) I am sure they could find heaps of examples of where that person is completely oblivious to the danger they are putting themselves into. Even the most intelligent/competent people expose themselves to danger in moments of weakness. No one is above that.

The fact is that OH&S regulations are a step in the right direction. How they are administered is the problem. People feel that OH&S regulations adversely affect their working day and the way they are used to doing things so they resist the change. I would argue that people that are unable to accept change on a daily basis are the ones we should be selecting out in society. I work in a chemistry laboratory (for about 7 years now) and while OH&S means I can't do things that chemists did 10,20, 50 years ago, I am glad I can't. The OH&S push in the last 20-30 years has resulted in a higher standard of working enviroment for the vast majority of workers. And, yes, per its MSDS, dihydrogen monoxide is an asphixiant. Rant over.


billk

5-May-2006
1:43:11 PM

On 5/05/2006 M9iswhereitsat wrote:

>I assume keen gym attendees have a long term membership, but how does
>the pay as you go structure operate; ie hourly rates, or minimum rate,
>or deals for a certain number of visits/period?

Pay as you go for one visit gets you in for as long as you can keep holding on or until they shut the doors for the night. At my local swimming pool they throw in a toaster to get the stragglers out. Maybe at the gyms they cut the ropes or put on even worse music than usual.

>On a busy evening it would not be too good paying for sitting around ...
>

You said it. Of course, you often need to depump for a while.

>What is the normal colour heirachy for grading climbs?
>

No colour hierarchy that I'm aware of. One space may have several different routes and these will be in different colours.

>BTW I may be saved the ignominy of attending a gym in Canb. due to having
>the outdoors now lined up.
>Heh, heh, heh.

Half your luck!

>:)

:)


brat

5-May-2006
2:12:26 PM

Hi Cruze, my OHS experiences are with rigging, scaffolding, rope access, elevated work platforms, craneage, high and low angle rescue in which I hold qualifications. This combined with climbing over 30 years I feel generally qualified to look at OHS and it's application relevant to construction and mining (of which I have extensive experience), yes work practices of 20 yeas ago are no longer tolerated, nor should they be. However there is an attitude of "the lowest denominator" that will cripple Australian industry if it continues unabated!

I was attempting brevity with my reference to Darwin! However the fact remains that I have been forced to act in a unsafe manner due to OH&S requirements.

Situation A: working inside a tank in a man cage attached to a crane, using a radio for comms, I wanted to use a whistle as back-up in case of radio failure but couldn't as whistles were banned on site as you weren't allowed to wear any jewellery etc from your neck! I said I'd carry it in a plastic bag in my pocket (acid environment). The answer "no" as I may swallow contaminants if I used it!

Situation B: building a 15m High scaffold inside a tank we had to wear safety harnesses, even though it's accepted that harnesses are dangerous to the wearer (scaffolder) as a tripping hazard, plus we could not get an anchor that wouldn't cause pendeluming and further injury???

Situation C: Forced to wear incorrect lanyard in a Elevated Work Platform (Fall restraint rather than work positioning) as the OH&S officer was lacking in knowledge as the uses of each type of restraint! This has happened on a number of sites I've been too!

I'm sure I do things that someone else may see as dangerous, what annoys me is that someone uses their personal fears as a basis for employing safety standards!


cruze

5-May-2006
2:35:20 PM

Good examples there Brat, which satisfy both our concerns. In my post I made the point that OH&S is a step in the right direction and that the problem is in "how they are administered".

Taking your examples, the problem is not the OH&S standards but their inflexibility in relation to their application. Taken on the whole it would appear that your OH&S officer is operating to the letter not to the task. Jewellery around the neck can lead to strangulation around moving machinery. (Our laboratories have whistles everywhere covered in plastic bags and trust me, acids are the least of our concerns.) Is a pendulum into the side of a structure worse than falling 15m? It appears that you work in one of those occupations that will almost always have strong inherent risks associated with it. If you have a good OH&S officer then they will be open to suggestions and learning. If not, talk to your boss about it.

Another note on OH&S: it is as much for the individual as for those around them. A person acting stupidly 15 m up might drop something on to the most competant/experienced/intelligent person below them. Killing them. In this case, catering for the "lowest denominator" is utmost in importance.


brat

5-May-2006
3:00:06 PM

Quote "If you have a good OH&S officer then they will be open to suggestions and learning."

OH&S is driven by economics, not concern!

The situations I outlined are a few of many, I'm a contractor going to a dozen sites a year, the only defining point is that the job must be done, within a set of rules that are "one size fit's all"!

As you pointed out, "Jewellery around the neck can lead to strangulation around moving machinery", ask your nearest friendly rigger/scaffolder/dogman how much moving machinery they work with....none, by definition it must be isoloated before we get near it! The jewellery rule is because of process workers!

The harness rule is because of untrained/unsuitable personel or unsafe environment, not because riggers/scaffolders/dogmen have a poor safety record!

Sorry but we'll agree to disagree on this forever, and I'm not Robinson Crusoe!

mockmockmock

5-May-2006
5:44:47 PM

Mr Brat may have been using brevity.. but I am a firm believer in Natural Selection. I see candidates all day, every day. A lot of them are 'educated' people, pity you can't get a cert IV in Common Sense...

If people were working anywhere under people working at heights, aren't they required to wear suitable head protection?

Back to thread Hi-jack

Ralph


hangdog

5-May-2006
6:21:23 PM

For what its worth. I am now living in Vienna Austria. The bouldering and climbing gyms here charge
an entry fee that relates to the time you are in the gym. Not a flat all day fee that most Oz gyms
charge. Some are per hour and some per 2 hour sessions. You pay on the way out.This does seem to
control the traffic flow however it doesn't change the attitudes of rude ignorant people.The gyms here
are small compared to the Indoor Climbing Temples that exist in Sydney and Melbourne and as a
result although crowded people seem to be pretty friendly. The strange thing here is nobody checks
your belaying. I have never been asked if I have belayed before or been to any induction. They have
just as many gumbies here yet they don't appear to have a problem with climbers being dropped. You
provide your own gear (apart from the rope) and just go for it. Most belay devices if provided by the
gym are figure 8s or the eastern euro preference the munter/italian hitch (they love this method!). The
most popular gym here has a single karabiner clip in. They all looked at me strangely when i put a
second biner on and stared when i attached my skinny belayer to a floor anchor so that when i got air
time i wouldn't drag her through the pulley.
I always thought a "dickhead" charge could be applied to some cases. I worked for a printing
company that would put 10percent on the invoice if the customer was a pain in the arse.
Some dickheads can be spotted at the sign in (if i hear "this is were i sign my life away" one more
time !) or they will reveal themselves at the belay induction. They are the ones who come in some
sweet young thing and half way through the demo take over and proceed to get it all wrong and step on
their dicks at the same time. Often its a case of give em enough rope and .....


DaCrux

6-May-2006
3:07:49 AM

I can understand your discussion about occupational health and safety and that some people lack common sense – but what do the unions have to do with it? And why do some people assume that all unions are bad? The National Occupational Health and Safety Commission is a government organisation – it’s not a union. And the OH&S act provides regulations, policies and legislation so that people adhere to the same standards. The only OH&S policy I can remember which was introduced by my union was the “no lifting policy” – thanks to which there are hardly any nurses with permanent back injuries nowadays. However, thanks to my union I can enjoy having 6 weeks of annual leave, penalty rates, 15 days of paid personal leave, job security, and actually earning decent amounts of money after studying at uni for 4 years, so before you start bitching about unions and how they are to blame for some stupid gym not being open get your facts straight.

BoaredOfTheRings

6-May-2006
4:12:05 AM

get back to work!!
Didn't I just hear one of those machines go T over S?


PreferKnitting

6-May-2006
4:13:03 PM

I would have to agree with DaCrux. Unions are beneficial because they act a voice for workers.

Currently, the RMIT union is under reconsideration and the university intends to get rid of the student union by removing their funding. This, I think, is quite detrimental and those students that don't voice their opinion now are pretty short sighted and may not realise the benefits that they will miss out on later.

Anyway, unions are an important 'organization' (for want of a better term).


Sabu

6-May-2006
10:59:39 PM

i've always had the idea that the unions cause a lot of hassle then again i've never had anything to do with them.
Maybe they act on behalf of the workers but sometimes take little things too far, oppinions?

Back on topic, what i find annoying in the gym is when people tie into a rope to climb a route that isn't meant for that climb, ie they don't have the sense to look up and see where the climb finishes. then you either end up with someone climbing up behind you when they shouldn't be or having to wait until they come down sometimes taking a loooong time!! this is one downfall of hardrock having lots of ropes so close to each other as i think someone said before.

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