2nd Day of my Apprenticeship ~ Tuesday 30th July 2013

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30/07/2013 2^nd Day of my Apprenticeship
Another day finished in the Arch Agilisys building! Today there were a bunch of presentations we went through. Firstly, we went though Health and safety in the work place. I always knew about the general health and safety in a working environment, but being able to discuss and talk about it as a group made me more aware of the dangers and how important it is for a person, especially if they are new to the working environment to understand more In depth and learn about the regulations of health and safety.

Fire procedures were one of the few topics within health and safety we were educated on.

Ever since primary school till College ,I was always told by teachers that whenever we were to hear the fire alarm to go off to always line up and head straight to the fire exits. And as the fire alarm continued to ring its shrilling cry, everyone would all be outside treating the 30 minutes wait as a bonus break thus went to find their friends and socialised. We all wondered why we had to wait outside in the rain for almost 30 minutes, as we all secretly knew that the fire alarm had went off either because of burnt toast from the English department, or some silly kid had just hit the fire alarm for fun. Thus we never ever treated the ringing of the fire alarm seriously because it would never be a real fire, as much as we had hoped to see our school burn down so we never had to go in ever again. I’m going  off track but basically, the point I was hoping to convey through my little anecdote was that throughout my entire education life, we were never really taught about the consequences and the importance of why we go through the procedures we go through when the fire alarm does go off. Therefore, going through the presentation today and watching the film clip of a fire, has finally after all these years made me realize and understand why we never faff about for our personal belongings, delay any time to head straight to the fire exit and the importance of signing in and out in the log in book.

The second half of the presentation was about first aid. I learnt that even the smallest of cuts should be reported to our first aider, as it’s better to make the first aider aware that you have been hurt which may have not been your fault; it could have been the cause from a product or electrical device that may have been faulty, thus can be replaced to avoid any future problems.

I have learnt that it’s not only our employer’s duty, but everyone including ourselves to ensure the health and safety of our work area and everyone in it. If we were to find any possible hazards, also known as a near miss; an incident with potential to cause some sort of harm, we are to immediately tell our trainer or any member of staff to get it sorted out, thus preventing any accidents that may occur from it. The presentation has made me realised that any of actions, small or big, can cause harm to another individual for example, if I were to be stressed about an upcoming test and unconsciously started to play with the computer wires as they provided me with some sort of comfort, the consequences of my actions could potentially cause another individual to trip over and hurt themselves. Therefore, it’s very important to be aware of our surroundings and to observe our work space to check whether it is safe to work in.

After lunch, we took a break from all the presentations which we would soon resume back too sooner or later and played a memory game! The game helped all of us avoid nodding off to sleep which happened ‘a lot’ yesterday after lunch time. We played the ‘I went to the market and bought…’ hahaha xD just thinking about it makes me laugh, it just reminds me how competitive I can get sometimes. It was interesting to learn how we all remember things, for me, I learn by associating words with pictures. For every single word I recited I had to point at the individual that had said it, and no, I was not being intentionally rude and just pointing because pointing is rude! It just helped activate and stimulate my brain to remember the long sequence of words.  I am proud to say I was the third runner up in the first round! As for the second round, I did just as great…..not. ;D We then did another memory activity which involved us looking at a set of words on the board for 15 seconds (which was hard for me especially since I’m practically blind) and after had to write down as many words we could remember. We did this twice, the first set of words were all jumbled across the page and the second set of words, were all organised under sub headings. Such a simple game has taught me how easy it would be for me to revise and memorise if I were to organise everything into sections. My life is now officially sorted.

The last presentation we went through was titled Equality and diversity.

My definition of Equality and diversity: Each person is treated fairly and given equal opportunity regardless of their race, background, gender and disability.

Under the equality and Diversity act 2010 which covers many areas such as: bullying and harassment, age discrimination, civil partnerships, sexual orientation, gender identity and religion or belief, it has underpinned the importance of a work environment free from all the elements as listed, to not be used against individuals who work within the work place or are being interviewed for work.

Today’s session has been very overwhelming with the amount we had to take in but it has been very interesting to learn and to listen to. Towards the end of the day we were told that we would have to start a blog, and record down the day to day events of our apprenticeship! So here I am writing up this blog post at the moment and I am very much enjoying every minute! It’s almost like a diary, well a digital diary of what has happened; it’ll help remind me of what I have learnt that day, as well as make a great book to be published in the near  future so that’s cool.

J