 | THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER | | | | | An very early start in London ... | Posted by Andrew Mitchell on 22/02/2012 @ 08:30 |
It all started with me being in London for 7:30am. My mission - if I chose to accept it - was to carry out a full Portable Appliance and Emergency Lighting Inspection. Of course I accepted; come on, it's what I do ...
 what do you mean we'd been there a couple of weeks previously? I control the diaries!
On arrival, I was greeted by a member of staff. I introduced myself and was a little taken aback when I was told that the inspections had been completed earlier in the week. Apparently, someone from my company had already been in. I knew this wasn't the case so I had a look at the pass labels attached to the equipment. On the first three items there were no labels, but then I saw some labels that showed that they had been tested in February, so she was right.
Anyway I was asked to come back later in morning to see the person who had made the booking. So off I trotted and found the nearest Coffee Shop and sat down to waste nearly two hours of my time. Hmmm ...
I returned to the office, all coffee'd out and met with my contact who was also a little taken back as there was no reason for another supplier to have been to the office - and to make matters worse there was no confirmation of service from this other company or a sign off report to say that they had even called. On checking with the company who carried out the earlier inspection, my client was advised that they couldn't confirm who made the booking but the results would be sent early the following week.
My client asked me to check the Emergency Lighting -after all, I was going to charge a call out fee - so I turned the switch and waited, within minutes I could see there was a problem; one light was very dim and after 40 minutes it died and another light did not even turn on. The bad news was that 50% of the system failed that day. I explained this and to see the look of horror on my client's face was a picture as they had been assured by the other company that the system had originally passed.
While I was waiting for the lighting to do its thing, I took it upon myself to have a quick look around the office to see what else I could find following the PAT testing. Well, the list started - appliances fitted with the wrong fuses, appliances tested which should not have been as they were sent to waste under the WEEE directive and other appliances that had not been tested but were currently in use, and -of course - My Pet Hate.
I still have to arrange a return visit with the parts I need to bring the system up to standard but I have also advised my client of the things that they can ask the other company to supply before they take any action and/or refuse payment of service.
In addition I have secured the Electrical Condition Inspection and the Emergency Lighting Testing and I think they will want the PAT Testing to be redone - correctly this time - so that they meet with their obligation to the Health and Safety at Work Act. I might even be doing the Fire Extinguisher Maintenance, so it pays to give good customer service.
In short, before you have any work carried out, get a confirmation from the supplier. Remember that the cheapest option of service may not necessarily be the safest option and ultimately, as business owners or managers, if anything goes wrong you could end up in court - or worse - detained at Her Majesty's pleasure!
Anyway, things could only get better and on my return to the office after such a challenging day, I had received a letter stating that I was entitled to upgrade my phone. Yippee! Things had got better - or so I thought.
I went and picked up my new phone and a few hours later found one minor problem. I can't make calls! So that has now gone back, the reason why? Well that could easily be another blog ...
Until next time ... 
ANDREW MITCHELL
|
 | FTS SAFETY SOLUTIONS I have been electrical safety testing for over eight years and have worked for various police forces, small and large business clients even the Royal Household and more recently the Forensic Science Services and the Fire Service.
|
|
|
