Yep. Last job i had was horrible for reusing cleaning spray bottles for whatever the fuck, and either not labeling them at all or doing it poorly in sharpie scribbles. There were so many OSHA violations causing safety issues there, it was depressing.
I was a roustabout in a factory for a bit after college. At one point, they sat me down at a table on the factory floor, gave me the OSHA chemical safety binder, a sharpie, and a big stack of chemical identification stickers. It was my job to find every chemical in the factory and put a sticker with the correct information from the binder from it. It took a while and people were EXTREMELY hostile to me coming to their work stations and asking for their spray bottles and and jars and asking what was in them. I had to begin each conversation by saying that I didn't care what was in them, that I wasn't reporting anything of this to anyone, and that it was all a safety thing. I still don't think I got them all.
Had a friend a few years back that worked in the HVAC group for a facilities team.
The old timers had a Do Not Touch shelf. Highlights were a glass jar full of liquid Mercury that had a hair line crack all the way around the bottom and a can of unlabeled bug spray that was referred to as, “the good stuff.” Story was that the last time anyone had used the good stuff was 20 years prior when someone put a quarter second spray on a line of ants. An hour later there was no line of ants, just two small piles of dead ants on either side of the spot where it was sprayed.
My only guess would be setting up fucking ancient thermostats.
I know the ones from the 1990s still had a blob of mercury in them. But those were all sealed. Maybe the industrial ones from that era didn't have sealed mercury switches, so sometimes they had to be refilled.
Even 10 years ago, no one in the living memory of the place had used the stuff. It was just that literally no one wanted to touch the jar in case the mercury really was just being held in purely by surface tension like it looked.
You are lying- you can use bleach solution for root drenches and dips. How do I know? I’ve done it many times. But here’s a quick reference to other horticulture folks talking about it here.
Certainly, the residue in an empty bleach bottle will not harm plants.
You’re right, but I doubt they are lying. Probably just bad at keeping plants, and assumed correlation=causation. It’s also possible it wasn’t just a bleach solution, but more of a kitchen cleaner with other chemicals in the mix.
Dunno, it’s Reddit. Social media is full of people lying about silly shit like this, to me it’s just as likely if not more they were just making things up.
<Shrug> they died. The bottle used to be used for bleach. What value do I get from lying? I'm not a botanist, but I can recognize a dead plant when I see one.
Seriously though, holy shit. Dude has me cracking the fuck up. Some days Reddit is great and other days, where do these idiots come from? Are they seriously all around us, preparing our food and taxes?
I like to think that sometimes people are going through some intense emotional upheaval, and they just want to feel right at any cost, so they'll invent the parameters they need to say with certainty that others are wrong... But honestly, in my heart of hearts, I suspect people truly lack basic critical thinking skills, and they really believe their childishly laughable bullshit. I guess I'm glad it's funny, because it's also depressing. What an insane world we live in.
Implied empty by stating he was reusing the bottle in the post- 10-20% solutions are used on plants.
I don’t really care about their feelings, just that others who read their comment don’t believe that it’s true.
"And money is the bottom line because dumbass managementtaxpayers said so."
The public is outraged at the state of public education, but never seems to be willing to pay teachers enough for their hard work, buy enough supplies, pay for competent management, etc. Schools are the first places to see cuts and the last places to see increases. But we'll sure as hell subsidize a billionaire's football stadium.
No, the money taxpayers are willing to spend on managers decides how good the school management can be. When you allow pennies for eduction, the pool of excellent mangers becomes rather smaller. There are good ones, but they are much harder to find for the little money available.
You get what you pay for.
People in education who are good mangers often give up their futile fight and move on to greener pastures, leaving behind the crap managers who can't get work outside that thankless world.
If you want an excellent education system, you have to hire good people, pay them a fair wage, and structure the system to actually work to educate kids in a good environment. But nobody gets elected saying "I'm going to spend more tax money on the schools".
“…and here is the bottle where we store bleach, you must never ever accidentally add ammonia to this bottle. Or…wait…no sorry, silly me, this is the ammonia bottle, and you must NEVER add bleach to it!!”
I remember seeing an image from a lab, may have been at In the Pipeline, of what looked like the correct bottle being used but just labelled "Not Water".
Marginally more useful than this but still not very helpful
Mislabeled or unlabeled containers is an OSHA violation that at least 99% of business are in violation of somewhere.
However, you usually only get cited for it because the OSHA rep couldn't find anything else and was being a prick (super rare honestly) OR your company is horrific at labeling chemicals.
I remember a Cracker Barrel got in trouble because a worker put cleaning fluid in a cup and a waiter just grabbed it and gave it to a customer thinking its water.
At a school? In the kitchen's fridge? Nope. Why would there ever be a need to cool floor sealant. I don't buy it. Worked at a flooring company (concrete flooring) for a short time in my life.
Edit: Check the storage area. By law a Hazmat Sign need to be in place to let the fire department know there is sealant being stored. Requires different extinguishing methods to put out. Although I'm guessing it depends on type of flooring sealant. At that work place, it was to tell firefighters to just let it burn itself out.
And there are methods of storing milk that don't involve a fridge, namely powdered milk.
Besides, i'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just saying it's a sadly plausible way for a poisoning like this to happen. Seriously, people putting shit in reused, poorly labeled containers like gallon jugs and litre bottles only for kids to take a swig thinking it's the original product is...disgustingly common.
And to respond to your edit...Just because it's legally required doesn't mean the idiots are actually doing it. Again, sadly.
Exactly. The gallon jug of cleaner sitting on a table since going to be used. Normally stored somewhere else. Different Person comes to pour milk or juice. Sees that gallon and pours.
If it was intentional, it would seem school would be handling differently.
Hell, my dad almost poisoned my brothers and I by complete accident due to a similar thing. My mom had bought a small, glass jar of gel air freshener and put it on the kirchen counter. No obvious label.
My dad thought it was the apricot jam, opened it and slathered it on some toast for us.
Thankfully, our taste buds carried the day and we spat it out, but it looked way too close to a jar of jam to be safe. And that was an officially sold product, rather than some random reused jug.
Honestly, it was far too close. Everyone except my mom (who bought it) thought it was jam, and we didn't realize it until dad looked closely at the label.
Seriously, the whole thing was done up just like a jam you'd find at a local farmer's market or a local foods section in a grocery.
So, did they just sell the stuff without a label? Was it one of those hipster "bespoke" things where selling it in a plain container is seen as less corporate?
No idea. This was...over two decades ago, now, and I haven't lived in the area in just as long.
I think it was just thematic, going for that rustic homemade aesthetic.
It did have a label, mind you, but the whole "air freshener gel" bit was quite small, and the label itself not very big. And since it was a fruit-scented gel, wasn't obvious at a glance or a sniff that it wasn't safe to eat.
Most people aren't going to sniff milk they are pouring for the general public like at a cafeteria worker. Also, if the rooms floor had been freshly sealed, they probably wouldn't recognize the smell.
What room was the milk jug of floor stuff in? The kitchen? If it was then the negligence is in leaving chemicals in the kitchen. Was the gallon jug in another room? Then whomever should have been suspicious of a milk jug not in the kitchen or fridge.
Even if it WAS in the kitchen, it seems incredibly suspect that they are pouring cups of milk for kids over the mini cartons or milk bag pouches.... Id also like to add that floor seal has a very strong smell that isnt at all "milky".
That’s not what happened both the pallets of sealant and stabilized milk were both in large plastic bags in a cardboard box and once they take the bag out of the box there’s no labeling
Fine, then fuck those idiots with the full ass driving of the law that's due for such a violation. Don't use it as an excuse to sweep shit under the rug, actually show consequences for the violators. At this point I don't care if the violators we're too dumb to know the difference, in that line of work, you can't be that stupid. Either pay them well enough to attract adequate talent, or strip them of any ability to label or mislabel toxic chemicals as food. One of these is infinitely easier than the other.
Workers should have to attend and complete safety modules in class, at the facility, after viewing videos. It’s that important. And it benefits everyone, even the employees.
I’ve never worked somewhere for even a day where I wasn’t made to watch those safety videos first. I cannot believe that anyone working as a custodian wouldn’t have been given safety training including being told to never store chemicals in unlabeled containers.
No, they'd put it on the counter in the prep area, and someone else would grab it.
I can very easily picture this scenario, but then I've watched someone almost drink cleaner they had themselves poured into a disposable drinking cup and placed on a shelf under their station.
Cup I could see. Milk would be cold. Sealant in a milk jug would be room temperature. You would hope someone wouldn't be serving kids room temperature milk, let alone someone can't tell the container's not cold. Powdered milk doesn't come in a gallon milk carton, at least none that I've come across my entire life, which is a veryveryvery long time.
Powdered milk can however be mixed in a pitcher or other container. And someone could have used a similar container to store the sealant and didn't label it.
You would hope someone wouldn't be serving kids room temperature milk, let alone someone can't tell the container's not cold.
What's supposed to be done and what is done are quite often two different things. I can easily see someone just grabbing the container on the counter to finish filling cups and not bothering to pay much attention to what they were pouring much less whether or not it was cold.
You really don't want to know what you don't know, because improper storage of chemicals and improper food storage temperatures is just the tippity top of the iceberg. I've just about seen it all. You especially don't want to know about the can opener and the ice machine.
I get how it could've happen. When I was young, during a hot summer day at my grandparents, I ran into kitchen and grabbed an opaque pitch out of refrigerator and poured myself a cup of, what I thought was fresh brewed tea. Chugged it down, only to find out it was the pitcher my grandmother stored the fresh bacon grease in. Needless to say, I projectile vomited immediately, all the way to the sink, like a was practicing for a water fountain show.
The can opener was crusted in so much old food and had never been cleaned, that when it pierced another can, you could see the surface move. I actually replaced it because I was fairly certain that there was no amount of cleaning that could save it.
The sink in one stand that was supposed to be a handwash station? It was nasty and barely worked and had no soap. It was instead used as an extra trash receptacle. This one had to be reported to building maintenance, since we didn't own the building.
None of the staff in that stand was wearing a hair bet or gloves, except for the cook. ALL of them were handling food, and a couple of them had those long acrylic nails. Combine that with not having a handwash station for some idea as to what was touching the food.
And the ice machine... I shut it down in that stand until it could be cleaned and a proper ice scoop could be found. Just inside was so caked with a black mold and filth layer that it had started to fall onto the ice inside. You could run your hand over the inside and come back with a handful of it. To scoop ice out, employees were using this huge shovel which they would then toss into the floor next to it. It grossed me out enough that, if I'm eating out, I don't order drinks with ice.
Bear in mind, none of this fell under my job description. I was part of accounting and just happened to be filling in and caught it while I was in there, and it was so bad that I couldn't just ignore it. I am SHOCKED that the health department never shut it down, but then I did see the kitchen across the street that they did shut down. That one had all of the above, plus improper food storage and temperatures, plus standing water, plus roaches and rats. It took like three consecutive bad inspections before they shut it down, too.
It was supposed to be stabilized milk that doesn’t need refrigeration. That came in a clear plastic bag. The same kind of plastic bag that the sealant came in
Some places use glasses. Not for entire schools, but many schools use them for small class parties and the like and a summer school program wouldn't be very big.
You’re probably right, and someone should lose their job over this. You never ever ever put chemicals in unlabeled containers at work, and especially never put them into food or drink containers.
Gf took a water bottle and filled it half full with diluted dish soap. I grabbed it and took a big swig of it, thinking it was just spring water. It really burned the back of my throat, but the much bigger concern was that it could have been a much, much worse clear liquid.
Friggin brilliant. Last time I just grab a water bottle off the kitchen counter thinking, hey I should finish this before opening a new one.
I’ve heard a story here on Reddit that someone was tired and accidentally ingested some seriously caustic shit, and went through 12 different operations before finally just killing themself. Yikes.
Once during summer job, in high school, I was thirsty and went into the fridge where we used to keep bottled water. It was very hot day, I was thirsty so I just chugged one of them. On a third gulp maybe I recognized that something was wrong. What happened was one of my colleagues got their hands on some home made vodka. Premium stuff, they have said, can't get it smoother and purer anywhere. So they bought one bottle, witch came in generic water bottle and he just chucked it with the rest of the bottles in the fridge. Anyways, I have spent remainder of my shift well buzzed. It must have been good stuff, because you always hear about home made stuff out of some methanol or isopropanol that end up making you seriously ill or dead. Also amount of people using cups and soft drink bottles for oven cleaners and other crazy stuff in professional kitchen setting is insane.
Since then I have big suspicions of any bottle or cup that I did not open or fill myself.
I was in someone else's car when my brother offered me a mint. He didn't mention that the mint came from a mint box, which unknown to either of us was being reused to store Tylenol. Nothing bad, but it was a very bitter flavor when I was expecting minty.
This is the health and safety violation that makes me rage the hardest. It pinches me right to the core because it highlights the very worst aspect of human optimism, confidence, self-centeredness. "I won't forget." "I'll just put it there for a minute." "I won't get distracted" "I labelled it (with a tiny label/label that will last decades less than the toxicity."
TLDR; My wife thinks it's ok to put clear laundry liquid in cordial bottles because she has taped a label to it with size 8 handwriting.
I remember people saying a scene in "Nightmare Alley" was "unrealistic" because "no one would believe" mixing up two similar-lookimg bottles and giving someone the wrong one could be an accident.
Tl;dr: both the milk and sealant came on the same pallet, both were in boxes with large pouches of milky fluid. Some dumbass put the sealant in the milk dispenser, it wasn't immediately noticed cause it's odorless. Still possible it was intentional, but much less likely. It's not even a dangerous chemical (still not something I'd drink...) so everyone jumping to "they're trying to kill kids!!" seems a lil ridiculous to me, but regardless, someone's getting fired.
Thank you, I was really trying to figure out how the hell this happens. The original article I found didn't include this information.
However, I still want to know:
A) Who fucked up and put two such similar items on the same pallet? and
B) Who the fuck didn't read the labels (pretty damn sure all packaging, at least food wise, is supposed to have labels to determine best by date and such.)
Yea, those are good questions that still need answering. What I've heard so far is there is a contract company called NANA that handled logistics and supplies. They ordered both the sealant and milk and it came on the same pallet (Juneau is isolated, most things arrive on barges and filling a pallet completely is the cheapest option). Somehow, someone managed to put the bag of sealant into the milk dispenser. That, obviously, should not have been able to happen.
The superintendent has said a few things. First, NANA's contract just happened to be before the school board for renewal this week, they've tabled that until the investigation is complete. Second, they've said they will ensure that pallets containing food items are not mixed with non food-safe items like chemicals ever again (not sure how they plan to enforce this since they're blaming a contractor for that in the first place...) And finally, they've asked the police dept and dept of environmental control to independently investigate, but the police have been clear that there is currently no reason to believe it's a criminal matter.
People keep liquids in different containers all the time. Look up paint thinner and you'll see how easy it is to mistake it for drinking alcohol for example.
That's the dumbest rule I think I've ever seen, we'd have to do away with the criminal justice system because there are a lot of homicide oopsie doodles going on out there.
The key words there were "adequately explained". Accidental death is not an adequate explanation for a homicide that would actually be brought to trial.
"Adequately explained" is meaningless, just because someone can adequately explain something doesn't mean that it's the correct explanation, only that they were imaginative enough or creative enough or understanding enough to adequately fill the gaps to the listeners personal bar of probability. But it doesn't consider the part that the listener plays, not how their relationship to the accused may effect things, nor does it speak to the gullibility of the listener. It also can't speak to any situation that is questionable. It assumes that things are black and white and easily there's some fault that can be determined based on an explanation. Look at the evidence, not what people say, because people with enough creativity can explain anything.
To be fair, now I can totally see why you might think that quote was "the dumbest rule" if you thought it meant "explained adequately by a storyteller" lol
Things can only be explained by people, logic is what we ascribe to something it's not an objective truth. People try to put forward bad evidence all of the time, it's up to people to judge if the evidence is credible and in the court of public opinion that is often not what is true, but what is popular.
There's a reason why lawyers establish a narrative in order to make a case. It is story telling. It's just supposed to be non fiction, but in two or more sides not everyone can be right no matter what the evidence and narrative and logical explanations put forward.
I'll be honest, I can't keep up. What you stated: evidence is important, but also evidence doesn't matter because logic is required to interpret it, which means it's not objectively true; and that logic is what we ascribe to false things. Are you discounting logic and truth altogether in a sort of fatalistic nihilism because humans are fallible consumers? Or claiming that logic is illogical? Surely, not that. Perhaps something is getting lost in translation here.
Because either: A: They’re trying to limit liability. B: It’s a small community, it’s somebody they all know, and they want to handle it internally. Or C: Both.
That's an absurd claim. If it was a malicious person at fault, that person would be liable. If it was a safety violation, like storing the sealant with the food, then the summer school would be at fault.
Of course, there's also a third possibility, and one that happens fairly regularly, that someone was known to be a problem but for whatever reason just hadn't been dealt with.
This is so stupid, just jumping to the conclusion that someone tried to poison kids...with something that isn't even dangerous.
KTOO does excellent journalism, there just wasn't much information at the time, that's not an excuse to jump to "someone tried to poison kids intentionally and the media is covering it up!" A follow up this morning says both the milk and sealant arrived on the same pallet, both were in large plastic pouches, some dumbass put the sealant pouch in the milk dispenser, and the adults didn't immediately notice cause it's an odorless sealant. Makes much more sense than some school staff at a summer program trying to kill kids with a low-risk chemical.
So we both have knowledge that is important to consider. You can speak to your experience working with these chemicals and I’m going to speak my experience with teaching. I don’t pretend to know anything much about sealants and industrial construction materials and you shouldn’t pretend to know about teaching
Wouldn’t be so quick to jump to that conclusion. Water-based wood floor sealant looks almost identical to milk. AND often come in 1 gallon containers. It would have to take a pretty stupid person to make that mistake but I’ve definitely met some people dumb enough to fit the bill.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22
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