Wednesday, January 18, 2006
The work side of things...
Good morning. I thought I'd take some time to outline what I actually do with the Olympics group. As I you may have heard me say before; working for NBC at the Athens games was the hardest I've ever had to work yet the most fun I've ever had working. Sounds a bit cliché but true.
This time (in Torino), will likely be more of the same. So far it's more fun because of the group that I'm sitting/working with: Venue Operations. Venue Ops is made up of 5 permanent NBC Olympics employees, 1 Intern and a Runner. They work their asses (sp?) off and have a great time. I'm very lucky to be stuck with them. (Or are they stuck with me?)
It will be more work (not too bad yet) because I am much more integrated in the overall operations of the entire business. I am being brought in to more meetings, asked for my opinion on more issues and more people know who I am am/why I'm there.
Just like in my regular job, I report through the "operations" segment of the business, but need to support all functions (engineering, production etc.). So I'm used to that. My manager (Sr. VP of Ops) is a big supporter which makes it easier to get people's attention and get things done. This is mainly due to the fact that my manager has made it very clear to other VP's & Directors why I am on-site. (I am getting a lot fewer people saying: "are you that safety guy from GE?" than I did in Athens.)
So what do I do, other than visit venues and take pictures of cool stuff?
- Monitor operations - I walk thru the IBC quite a bit to try to spot hazards and bad practices, and correct them whenever I can. Our activity with the highest risk is use of scissor lifts, by employees, contractors & sub-contractors. The first few days were spent constantly reminding workers to stay INSIDE the lift or stop working. They are getting better, but now they are using the lifts in areas with a lot of pedestrian traffic (hallways etc.), so I am worried about people getting run-over or getting hit by falling tools. I'd block-off the areas, but then no one could get to where they need to go. It's a balancing act.
- Deliver training - this morning (7 am) was the first Hotel Warden training session. We are going to repeat this for every hotel, venue and at the IBC. Overall we must have over 100 wardens.
- Review equipment installations - some departments ask me to take a look at equipment/systems that are being installed. The most recent review was in the kitchen that is almost ready. The kitchen needed to be installed in a large tent attached to the building, so it needed heat. The heaters had to be re-installed at ground level because they weren't providing enough warmth at ground level. They were worried about installing on the ground because of the risk of fire or burn injuries. (I think we found some good placements so the workers are neither burned nor frost-bitten.)
- Assess high hazard areas - the camera crews and cabling crews often need to work at height (above 1 m), and are asked to access some questionable platforms/walkways etc. Today I will be visiting the Main stadium to check out some areas that the Sr. Technical Manager (ours) thought might be dangerous. Happily, I am here a month earlier than last time. I actually have a chance at getting them fixed before we need to use access them.
- Accident Investigation - nothing to investigate. So far...
Alright. That's enough for now. I'd love to post some pictures of the dodgy (sp?) stuff that I have seen, but it might not be such a good idea to share them on the internet. :)
jay
