I said a little bit..
I work as a Health and Safety Consultant in the construction industry. My day to day consists of driving to sites, inspecting the physical sites, documentation and then reporting back to my client.
Scaffold and Excavations are two of the activities with the highest associated risks. Employees do not always realize the danger they are in or they have gotten used to it due to continuous exposure.
This is especially the case with scaffold, where employees get use to the heights and no longer wear or clip in their safety harnesses. Like in this picture:
The second most dangerous area is when working in deep excavations, the employees are told to enter the excavations where the excavations are not sloped or no bracing is in place. The excavations, especially the one seen below, are prone to collapse due to vibrations, sandy soil, water in the excavations and cracking.
Enough about the depressing side
Here are some of the better pictures I took this week. We often forget just to look up from what we are doing, just zoom out a bit, there is always something nice to look at somewhere. This is one of the things I love about the Western Cape, there is not a lot of places where you cannot see a mountain somewhere in the distance.
The next photo was taken between Stellenbosch and Pniel, they are busy building a reservoir at the foot of the mountains. The reservoir will ensure that the local community has enough water throughout the drought, water will be pumped from a borehole that they drilled during the December break. I found the contrast between the disturbed earth and the untouched mountain quite interesting.
Driving long distance alone sometimes help to put things into perspective a bit. There are times that I don't see another car for quite a while and then you realize just how small far away you are from everybody.
It is worth it in the end
It is quite satisfying to see a project from the start until it is completed, especially when you know that you had a hand in making it happen. At first the progress is slow, the civil works usually takes its time, but once the foundation is cast and they get out of the ground then things really start happening fast. I'm quite interested to see what this house will look like once it is done.
There is not one job that I have heard of that doesn't have it's drawbacks, but you must make the best of the hand you were dealt. It is up to you to make great things happen in your life.
@zord189