As a SysAdmin I am used to being around potentially dangerous situations like people working with high Voltage\/current power feeds<\/a>, fire suppression<\/a> systems, heights and dealing with heavy<\/a> equipment. The cost of a mistake can be serious, and possibly fatal. However, these are all jobs where you need to hire a trained professional to do it.<\/p>\n There are plenty of other hazards to deal with. I have had several computers burst into flames, dodgy wiring (230V has a bite..), and there was the time a Doberman try to attack me on a site visit. There are also the less exciting\/entertaining little cuts and bruises, tripping hazards<\/a> and the ever present stress.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let face it, getting injured sucks and is usually pretty easy to avoid. So, what can you do? There are the obvious:<\/p>\n And the things we know we should do, but never do:<\/p>\n The big, silent danger in every IT team I have worked with is stress. In the short term stress is normal, and can be healthy. Long term stress however takes a toll on your health, your relationships, and can lead to burnout. Matt Simmons<\/a> (@standaloneSA<\/a>) has written some great SysAdmin specific pieces on Burnout<\/a> and Managing Stress Before it Kills You<\/a>.<\/p>\n This hasn’t been an exhaustive list of hazards we deal with in IT, but it should get you thinking and be a start. Work with your team and find solutions to prevent hazards you may have experienced. Use the opportunity to re-think your workspace and how you can make it better.<\/p>\n I know reading about work place safety isn’t the most exciting topic. Well done for making it this far. Now go surf Reddit<\/a> and XKCD<\/a> for a bit. Tell your boss I said it was ok.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It could have killed you As a SysAdmin I am used to being around potentially dangerous situations like people working with high Voltage\/current power feeds, fire suppression systems, heights and dealing with heavy equipment. The cost of a mistake can be serious, and possibly fatal. However, these are all jobs where you need to hire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[26,12],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-better-sysadmin","tag-better-sysadmin","tag-sysadmin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2duNU-2e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burn.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}But I don’t want to die!<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
The Elephant in the room<\/h2>\n
Well that was a downer<\/h2>\n