Sunday, May 31, 2009

Sharing of my experience for working in a Shipyard as a HSE Officer

As mentioned before, my first career as a Safety Officer is working at a Shipyard (no mention of which). I would say the shipyard has a very comprehensive Safety Management System. Almost 95% of the risk assessment (RA) for works being conducted regularly had been covered. Perhaps the other 5% will be special or extraordinary works that rarely been done in the yard. Although the yard has a very detailed training for all new employee, you still need to work on the vessel to really know what the books are talking about. Some of the very simple yet difficult habit to change is to understand that the usual terms we use daily will be changed. For instant, the left & right is called Port & Starboard respectively. If you gonna tell or ask people where right & left is, immediately they know you are a newbie. Even the Indians or Bangladesh knows where Port & Starboard is. Another great obstacles to hop over is to know each & every individual name for the area of the vessel. Example, Forecastle Deck is the forward top-deck where the anchor winches are.... It's really a mouth-full. Serious. That's is mine very first & most difficulty obstacles that took me a few months of daily working (and been laugh at for making silly mistakes) to strengthen my vessel vocab.

Teamwork with the seniors Fire Fighters Supervisors are equally important without doubts. I learn hills of knowledge from them as well. I learned that there are some jobs that aren't that simple as they look like. You can't ignore them too. Safety First. Remember that by hard. There will be time when even though you are resting at home, suddenly, a thought on hot work or major work comes in your mind & you will become very restless. You wish you are in the yard instantly to oversee the whole process. You will have that uncertain feeling. Only to wish that everything is peaceful when you return to yard the next morning. And when you return to work the next morning & see that everything is peaceful, you will feel so glad & lucky. Well, you sure will promise yourself that you will conduct 100% check the next time. (*grinning*) Anyway, that's the kind of pressure you will getting & experiencing.

In total, I'd been on a total of 16 repair vessels during my 9 months stay in that shipyard. 3 of them are Maersk Line. They are the most tiring vessels as the owner / Captain are stingy. They don't allow us to use the lift. (For your infor, all Maersk Line Container Vessel are at least 15 storey high from Engine bottom to the monkey ladder) So I climb the stairs till me knees pain like shit. Well, that was that. Was fun yet physically shack-out!

In summary, working in a shipyard definitely have the fast practical learning cutting edge. Thru the fast pace in the yard, you learn fast too. The other plus point will be the bonus. Very lucrative. The dark side is, you work like there's no weekend, no rest day, no free time. If you are one who are very anti-social, no friends, play PC everyday... This career may be just nice for you. If you are thinking about working in a shipyard & got other question to ask, feel free to email to me. I'll try my best to answer. Have a great weekend! Cheers!!!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Guide to the WSHO Regulations

Hi there,

I guess those who are new to this new profession or had been in this profession for sometime may not be certain on the actual responsibility and liability as a Registered Safety Officer. In a nutshell, as a Safety Officer, you must use the most practical & reasonable method (As Low As Reasonably Practical - ALARP) to ensure that the Health, Safety & Environment at the workplace is not compromised. For a more detailed explaination, click on HERE!

May this information be useful to you.

Have a great day ahead!!!

Cheers

Monday, May 25, 2009

What are the usual duties for a Registered Safety Officer

Perhaps you might be asking "what are the usual duties as a Registered Safety Officer?" Well, the duties different from industry to industry.
  1. Construction industry required the safety officer to double up as a Environment Control Officer (ECO)
  2. Shipyard industry required the safety officer to double up as a Safety Assessor (Hot work assessor)
  3. Manufacturing industry required the safety officer to double up as a Fire Safety Manager (FSM)

These are a few additional requirements/certification that you might want to consider to upgrade in order to fit into the employment criteria. All these courses can be found in our local education institution. ECO will be from NEA-SEI, Safety Assessor can be found in NTUC Learning Hub & FSM course can be found in Singapore Civil Defence Academy. I'd created a link at my homepage. Feel free to use them anytime.

Just my personal point of view, although it's important to have the relevant certificates to help getting yourself laid with a career, you might also like to consider getting auditing skill to escalate your chance further. Especially with recent increase number of company being certified with ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001, it'll be beneficial to had gone thru some basic audit training.

Yes... ultimately, you will be spending some amount of money to upgrade yourself. It aren't cheap. Trust me. No pain no gain.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Introduction

From the time I pen down this blog, I'd been working as a Safety Officer for a period of 2 years. So far, I'd worked in a shipyard & a manufacturing company. I'd yet worked in a construction company but I looking into it as the proposed salary is very tempting.

The main purpose for setting up this blog is because I really hope to help newbies. I remember the day I received my certificate from MOM, I had a mixture of feelings like, "a new start to a new career" & also "one leg standing in the prison". Well, the negative part is usually from media who jail & fine Safety Officers who make mistakes. Only on the later part, during my days in the shipyard, I learned that you (as a safety officer) are the person who make the difference. Everyone is bound to make mistakes but more importantly, we learned from mistakes. Enuff said, I'll try to include information of all kinds of possible courses which are very beneficial to all personnel who are interested in taking up Safety as a professional. Feel free to feedback, ask questions & I hope gurus out there can help us with it.