The new man was being shown the ropes.
He was being trained as a conveyer belt operator at the mine site. The belt carried fine, fairly loose material to where it was tipped onto a pile. His manager was running through the safety procedures. He said that sensors along the belt may occasionally get a reading of some foreign object. This would set off an alarm and the belt would stop automatically. He explained that this was usually caused by an oversized object on the belt or some article causing a snag. He said that it didn’t happen very often, but when it did the operator would have to walk the length of the belt and remove the problem.
He went on to explain that on very rare occasions there could be an Amber warning. When this happened several red lights would start flashing. He said that this would only happen if the sensors detected biological material. He went on to say that the need for this warning came about after an incident. It was decided that programing the sensors to detect animal tissue was important as it may well be that one of the workers could have fallen onto the conveyer and lay there unconscious. The trainee looked puzzled.
The manager said, “Is there something you don’t understand?”
The trainee didn’t want to get into trouble on his first day, but felt he had to ask. “No. It’s OK. I just wondered why it’s call an amber warning.”
The manager laughed. “Ah! Yes, I see why you ask. No, the amber refers to our Amber, she writes up all of our safety procedures. Because of the serious nature of the problem and the potential risk to human safety, she was asked by the General Manager to write a very full and comprehensive safety procedure to cover it. He was so pleased with what she produced he said she could give it the title Amber Warning.”
The trainee shrugged, still looking perplexed. “And the incident that set this whole thing off, was it someone on the belt?”
The manager shook his head. “Nah! It turned out to be a dead possum.”
The trainee looked relieved, but couldn’t help mumbling, “Sorry, still seems a bit strange with all those red lights going off.”
The manager sighed. “I know but it could have been worse.”
“It could?”
“Oh! Yes. Her boss was away that day. If she’d been here, she would have written it!”
“So?”
“Her name’s Gertrude.”