As the conscientious employee that I am, I was approached by fellow conscientious colleagues who bought to my attention other matters which have cause the rise of my ire. Indeed, at the time of the composition of my original email I was not fully aware of all the issues at stake as I was blinded by my wrath at other equally important facets of the larger problem.

The risks posed by falling damage must surely be of concern - the potential for someone to be given a serious head injury from any number of pieces of tinsel, lights, candy canes and teddy bears increases exponentially with every day that we are propelled towards christmas. It is unacceptable to place employees at the considerable risk of falling damage, when the modern workplace is already littered with hazards and dangers. I for one do not relish the opportunity to have to visit a doctor owing to being unable to remove various christmas decorations from any number of bodily cavities due to random debris falling from the sky.

Others have presented the greater concern over possible lightning strikes. Almost every pod now has a plethora of highly electrical conducive material above and around it. With the unpredictable weather of late, lightning strikesare a distinct possibility. its also interesting to note, that in some countries (including Australia) foil is used for the purposes of cloud seeding, in order to make rain. One notes with some concern that the amount of foil on our ceiling lends itself to this possibility. Do we prepare for the deluge? Should we begin getting two of every kind of animal and placing them in a large wooden vessel? from an OHS point of view should we have life preservers and floatation rings placed strategically around the room? what about lifeguards? swimming lessons?

Of even greater concern is the how the company is compromising its "Green Office" policy, by allowing the addition of thousands of tiny little lights into the work place environs. How this fits with the policy remains a mystery to me. I thought the idea was to conserve energy, by using LESS electricity, not deliberately using more. Unless of course you have discovered a way to use the aforementioned lightning conductors to funnel electricty to the newly aquired appliances. can we now expect to be printing everything bo matter how trivial? will the guilt over printing emails be released? Is this a policy of convenience, to be thrown out the window whenever a convenient public holiday presents itself?

Someone has to ask the tough questions, and there comes a time in a mans life where he has to stand up and be counted. Where a man determines whether he is a man or a mouse. These far flung principles which our soldiers fought and died for should not be cast aside so easily.

Jason M. Lassey
Tester, Residential, Key & Corporate Testing
Service Specialist, Commercial & Consumer Testing
Telstra Service Advantage Adelaide