Here’s some food for thought, would you spend your day working on materials that have known carcinogens in them?
I surely wouldn’t. I know it sounds a little ludicrous that I’m agreeing with Apple Inc over this, but when you start painting the situation with a stroke of reality it makes quite a bit of sense.
Sure, fixing one or two computers that have come into contact with a smoking environment might not be all that big of a deal, but that starts to become a little more dangerous when you have prolonged periods of exposure to known toxic elements. The reality is that Apple repair centre’s don’t just fix one computer here and another there. They repairs tons of them, on a daily basis, and if they were to let their employee’s become exposed to these harmful toxic chemicals on that scale, there could be some trouble.
Apple’s protecting itself from future lawsuits by employee’s who claim that they were exposed to unsafe work environments without their knowledge. Frankly, I wish more companies took this approach to protecting their employee’s instead of pressuring them to do work that could be potentially harmful to one’s health.
It’s not about a one time exposure to smoke residue, it’s about repeated exposure to an element that’s is currently on the OSHA’s list of hazardous substances. Ruth’s claim is hilariously ignorant.
SHA also lists calcium carbonate (found in calcium tablets), isopropyl alcohol (used to clean wounds), chlorine (used in swimming pools), hydrogen peroxide (also used to clean wounds), sucrose (a sugar), talc (as in powder), etc… as hazardous substances.
Hey, She’s one hundred percent correct in assuming that these chemicals are used by humans, but what she fails to realize is that we don’t sit around day after day playing in chlorine or hydrogen peroxide. Sure, I’ll apply some hydrogen peroxide to clean a wound, but I certainly wouldn’t stick my hand in it twice a day for twenty minutes.
Lets get some perspective on an issue before we launch a tirade against a company, failure to do so makes you look a lot like a whiner.
Does smoke fumes cause issues with a computer? Outside of the optical drive, I’d have a hard time seeing that as being a problem, but the refusal to work on the machine’s has nothing to do with the hardware failures and everything to do with putting their employees in harms way. I say good on Apple.
Photo Credit: myguerrilla
