Health And Safety Poem by Micron

Health and safety there to protect me and you

Lots of rules to follow on what to do

As work in the metallographic laboratory

We must do this extremely safely

Health and safety top of the list for my panicing boss

From fear of prosecution and personal loss

In this place we must now take great care

We have to wear steel toecap footwear

With amusement for women we find

Court shoes with heel open top and steel cap combined

Toe caps we already wore

Just he never had really saw

Every machine listed stickered with a number

Its hazards listed in a ‘useful’ folder

COSHH sheets list the hazards of chemicals

Even of liquids solids and basic metals

But here we caused panic and confused everyone

We mix for etches to make a new unlisted chemical one

So now we are only allowed to make a few

Because our acids are acidic could cause harm

Our alkalines are alkaline and this brings alarm

A solution to our chemical area health and safety is found

Remove the chemicals they say im left dumbfound

Needless to say this we had to resist

So now we have a more instructions to list

Multiple gloves layed on high

Make things now hard to handle makes me sigh

Visors although theres a glass screen

So you cant see what you are doing cos of the steam

On seeing some chemicals they screech its explosive you know

Yes I do but with care they don’t blow

So now just to protect from error we could possible make

New measures been brought in incase of a mistake

If we need to use them now we been told

We have to have the chemist near to our hand hold

So he can stand close and watch everything

So if it goes boom instead of one two go running

Risk sheets, instruction sheets everywhere

So many they make you glaze over into space you stare

I know we need to take precautions its true

But its gone too extreme now it seems can we sensibly review?