Sadly that's just the culture. I've seen apprentices laughed at by old timers and called pussies because they were taking basic precautions and wearing PPE. And then to fit in they themselves took on that same attitude.
It hurts me when I see my tradie trainee husband (at school to be an auto mechanic) skip PPE in places he really shouldn't (e.g. latex gloves when handling carcinogenic fluids). I don't really know as I can do much other than state my objections to deaf ears though.
Both my grandfather and father received identical forms of bladder cancer due to improperly handling solvents without PPE. It's preventable and stupid.
A similar situation exists with mostly men who work outside and refuse to wear hats or sunscreen but develop malignant melanoma at far greater rates than other groups.
The definition of stupid is someone who believes they can smoke 5 packs a day and not get cancer. But it's the inconsiderateness of someone who doesn't love their family enough to watch out for their own health to not leave them prematurely rather than hurry death along.
My dad worked construction from 15 to 65. I’m frankly amazed that he’s not developed skin cancer - he’s had a couple of suspicious moles removed.
He is also the only person I know who went cold turkey off a pack-a-day smoking habit, and years before indoor smoking bans and higher tobacco taxes. He gained a lot of weight that he’s never managed to shift, but he’s not touched a cigarette in over 30 years.
I’m sure he inhaled and handled plenty of other awful things on job sites without any pretense at PPE. He diligently wore a hard hat and steel-toed boots, and wouldn’t let any of his crews work without them. All I can guess is that he saw some gruesome, very preventable injuries, but vague figures on higher risk in old age just didn’t quite outweigh the inconvenience of PPE.
For several years now I cannot wear a wristwatch on my left hand because of a sustained skin reaction to a mixture of automatic transmission fluid and gearbox "oil leak fixer". Don't be an idiot like me, wear the gloves.
I think I permanently trained myself out of that by looking at some arc welding when I was about 8 years old. Looked pretty, and brighter than anything I had seen before. (sun, lightning, lasers, etc) Didn't seem to hurt or cause any immediate issues.
Realized how wrong I was when I woke up the next morning, felt like I had gritty sand in my eyes for two or three days.
I walked past a guy using a pneumatic drill the other day. It was so loud I crossed the road to get away from it and my ears were ringing for a while after I'd passed him. He wasn't wearing any form of ear protection at all.
