Watching parents let their kids damage their ears

[jaredr]

hired a small outfit to do some landscaping work and the guy who runs the team had brought his son along (kid looked to be in his early teens). no problem, good for him. I come up from the shop and see the kid running a 2-stroke gas powered leaf blower in the front yard with no earpro (and realize that this is what I've been hearing from inside the house for the last 1/2 hour or so). it's loud enough that I have to shout from 5 feet away and he still couldn't hear me. I walk over to the crew chief (the dad that brought his son) and mention that I've got some spare earmuffs and would be happy to let him borrow them (or he can just have some disposable earplugs, i've got plenty).

The guy looks at me a little bit like how a cowboy looks at silly city folk who asks if it's safe to ride horses. He chuckles and just waves his hand and says no we're fine... At this point, I'm thinking I've made the offer and I'm not willing to get into a (verbal) shoving match with someone over how they raise their kids, but it really bothered me that this guy was going to let his kid trash his ears like that (and if he's making a practice of running 2-stroke appliances without earpro, he's losing some hearing no question).

[Joe4d]

Ummm, since you are the landowner I take it, you may have some legal liability issues, with an underage person running power tools, and the work not being done IAW OSHA, state and local rules and regulations, Personally I would insist the guy use proper safety gear or his contract was now void and please leave the property.

FYI, I used to do contracting for a state dept of transportation, that included side of the road weadeating, we always had a clause that, all workers had to abide by any applicable laws and regulataions and must use required safety gear.

On a personal note someone that demonstrated that level of indifference I wouldnt trust to do much work for me.

[diehli]

I travel on BART (SF Bay Area "subway", essentially) daily. I'm astounded by how few parents cover their kids ears—particularly babies in strollers—let alone their own.

Deaf is not macho.

[jaredr]

On a personal note someone that demonstrated that level of indifference I wouldnt trust to do much work for me.

agree, tho my concern is not so much for my property (it's a lawn, it'll grow back) as it is for having someone injure themself on my property (your eye won't grow back so where some eyepro while you're running that wheedwacker).

my feeling at the time was that I wasn't willing to get into an argument which could end in me having to tell them to stop work and leave my property (and then pay some partial amount for work done AND have to get another vendor in to finish the job) but I won't have them back.

Diehl - that sums it up. seems like it's not uncommon for people (at least some folks) to think that it's "tough" to be unconcerned about your hearing. Screw that - I don't want to spend the rest of my life saying "WHAT?" (and I don't want my kids to have to do that either).