History NoOSHACompliance / Literature

** The wizarding world in general seems to be pretty lax about very weird accidents and rather dangerous beings and artifacts. Somewhat {{justified|Trope}} in that magic is inherently somewhat dangerous and you're not going to be able to plan for all the ways it will go wrong, but the fact is that nobody seems to consider taking any precautions whatsoever. Magic might be able to heal a great number of injuries, but it can't bring people back from the dead.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': The climactic confrontation in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' takes place in a screamingly dangerous candle factory, in a medievalesque parody of the factory scene from ''Film/TheTerminator''. {{Justified|Trope}} in that Ankh-Morpork laughs in the face of any kind of health or safety regulation. [[[[LampshadeHanging As noted elsewhere in the book]]:

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': The climactic confrontation in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' takes place in a screamingly dangerous candle factory, in a medievalesque parody of the factory scene from ''Film/TheTerminator''. {{Justified|Trope}} in that Ankh-Morpork laughs in the face of any kind of health or safety regulation.

** [[WizardingSchool Hogwarts]] is a really unsafe school by any standards. There is some inherent danger in teaching a bunch of children magic, so total safety isn't really expected, but there are many well-known, incredibly dangerous features of the school that serve no purpose at all, but are just accepted. Staircases fly around while also having disappearing steps[[note]]Although the former were featured in the movies, the books didn't mention moving staircases involved in the castle at all[[/note]], [[WhenTreesAttack there's a giant murder tree]] on the grounds, plus the whole place is right next to a monster-infested forest filled with dangerous creatures that include xenophobic centaurs, giant spiders, and possibly werewolves. Potions are made without even the most basic safety equipment, such as gloves, aprons or goggles. Not only does a badly made potion have a chance to explode, but an even slightly incorrectly made potion can have incredibly awful side effects. That's not even getting into Quidditch, a game played hundreds of feet in the air on sticks of wood that has heat-seeking cannon balls trying to knock off students from their brooms. Good thing Madame Pomfrey's magical remedies are enough to handle all but the worst injuries. It gets a {{lampshade|Hanging}} as early as [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets the second book]], when the school is in danger of being shut down as a result of students getting petrified. Hagrid says that parents expect injuries at Hogwarts, but the fact that students are actually being specifically attacked is too much for even their low standards of safety.

** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' features the Triwizard Tournament where the competing young wizards are given three tasks to accomplish. Apparently the tournament had been discontinued in the past due to its high fatality rate, and the modern version was intended to be safer. Considering that the first task is to steal an egg from a live dragon (which are basically just giant, highly aggressive, fire-breathing animals in the Wizarding World), it's hard to imagine how much more dangerous it used to be. Even worse, the competitors were intended to go into this challenge entirely blind, with no knowledge of what they were facing and no time to prepare.

* ''Literature/TheMangler'' by Creator/StephenKing takes place in an overcrowded, underlit laundry factory which uses an old, oversized industrial laundry press, with only a safety bar in place to protect employees. When it starts killing and maiming employees, the protagonist notes that the factory owner has a reputation for pinching pennies and the machine itself unsafe, making accidents inevitable. Of course, being a Stephen King story, the immediate problem is that a supernatural curse brought the machine to life...

* Pile-Up from ''{{Literature/Parellity}}'', a city built by bandits and marauders.

** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' features the Tri-Wizard tournament where the competing young wizards are given three tasks to accomplish. Apparently the tournament had been discontinued in the past due to it's high fatality rate, and the modern version was intended to be safer. Considering that the first task is to steal an egg from a live dragon (which are basically just giant, highly aggressive, fire-breathing animals in the Wizarding World), it's hard to imagine how much more dangerous it used to be. Even worse, the competitors were intended to go into this challenge entirely blind, with no knowledge of what they were facing and no time to prepare.

** [[WizardingSchool Hogwarts]] is a really unsafe school by any standards. There is some inherent danger in teaching a bunch of children magic, so total safety isn't really expected, but there are many well-known, incredibly dangerous features of the school that serve no purpose at all, but are just accepted. Staircases fly around while also having disappearing steps, [[WhenTreesAttack there's a giant murder tree]] on the grounds, plus the whole place is right next to a monster-infested forest filled with dangerous creatures that include xenophobic centaurs, giant spiders, and possibly werewolves. Potions are made without even the most basic safety equipment, such as gloves, aprons or goggles. Not only does a badly made potion have a chance to explode, but an even slightly incorrectly made potion can have incredibly awful side effects. That's not even getting into Quidditch, a game played hundreds of feet in the air on sticks of wood that has heat-seeking cannon balls trying to knock off students from their brooms. Good thing Madame Pomfrey's magical remedies are enough to handle all but the worst injuries. It gets a {{lampshade|Hanging}} as early as [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets the second book]], when the school is in danger of being shut down as a result of students getting petrified. Hagrid says that parents expect injuries at Hogwarts, but the fact that students are actually being specifically attacked is too much for even their low standards of safety.

* PlayedWith in the book ''Skunk Works'' - [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rich Ben Rich]] wrote about his time at {{Cool Plane}}maker Lockheed (later Lockheed Martin). During TheFifties and TheSixties, the titual Skunk Works played fast and loose with safety regs - equipment and ladders would be stored at emergency exits, planes would be fueled as they were worked on. In TheSeventies OSHA came calling - at first Ben was able to stall them by saying that the factory was Top Secret. Cue OSHA getting one of their inspectors with a TS clearance. The stricter approach to workplace safety cost Lockheed a lot of money in fines.

* zigzagged in ''Literature/FactoryOfTheGods'', Julian mentions the risk of industrial accidents, but the factory is entirely open air and there are little-to-no precautions about approaching massive industrial drills.

** [[WizardingSchool Hogwarts]] is a really unsafe school by any standards. There is some inherent danger in teaching a bunch of children magic, so total safety isn't really expected, but there are many well-known, incredibly dangerous features of the school that serve no purpose at all, but are just accepted. Staircases fly around while also having disappearing steps, [[WhenTreesAttack there's a giant murder tree]] on the grounds, plus the whole place is right next to a monster-infested forest filled with dangerous creatures that include xenophobic centaurs, giant spiders, and possibly werewolves. Potions is done without even the most basic safety equipment, such as gloves, aprons or goggles. Not only does a badly made potion have a chance to explode, but an even slightly incorrectly made potion can have incredibly awful side effects. That's not even getting into Quidditch, a game played hundreds of feet in the air on sticks of wood that has heat-seeking cannon balls trying to knock off students from their brooms. Good thing Madame Pomfrey's magical remedies are enough to handle all but the worst injuries. It gets a {{lampshade|Hanging}} as early as [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets the second book]], when the school is in danger of being shut down as a result of students getting petrified. Hagrid says that parents expect injuries at Hogwarts, but the fact that students are actually being specifically attacked is too much for even their low standards of safety.

* PlayedWith in the book 'Skunk Works'- [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rich Ben Rich]] wrote about his time at {{Cool Plane}}maker Lockheed (later Lockheed Martin). During TheFifties and TheSixties, the titual Skunk Works played fast and loose with safety regs - equipment and ladders would be stored at emergency exits, planes would be fueled as they were worked on. In TheSeventies OSHA came calling - at first Ben was able to stall them by saying that the factory was Top Secret. Cue OSHA getting one of their inspectors with a TS clearance. The stricter approach to workplace safety cost Lockheed a lot of money in fines.

* PlayedWith in the book 'Skunk Works'- [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rich Ben Rich]] wrote about his time at {{Cool Plane}}maker Lockheed (later Lockheed Martin). During TheFifties and TheSixties, the titual Skunk Works played fast and loose with safety regs - equipment and ladders would be stored at emergency exits, planes would be fueled as they were worked on. In TheSeventies OSHA came calling - at first Ben was able to stall them by saying that the factory was Top Secret. Cue OSHA getting one of their inspectors with a TS clearance. [[RealityEnsues The stricter approach to workplace safety cost Lockheed a lot of money]].

* The cover of [[https://cosmosmagazine.com/shop/issues/the-fusion-solution/ this magazine]]: The scientist is standing right next to an operating reactor core that ''isn't even physically enclosed''.

* While it's not the site of a fight scene, the eponymous school of the ''Literature/WaysideSchool'' series of books exemplifies this trope. The setting is a 30-classroom school "accidentally" built thirty stories high, and missing a nineteenth story. The school can start to sway as a result of high winds (as per the second novel in the series, ''Wayside School is Falling Down''). The main characters, a class of students on the thirtieth floor, are led onto the rooftop by their teacher. A fire drill is also taking place, and the students believe that no one will be able to rescue them. However, it's only a herd of cows that have somehow managed to get onto every floor of the building. Poor planning, at that. You can also fall out of the window if you're too close to it and fall asleep. Luckily, the school is so tall that there's plenty of time for Louis the yard teacher to run up and catch you. (Of course, in real life, all this would accomplish would be killing the yard teacher, but the RuleOfFunny rules at Wayside.)

* ''Literature/OracleOfTao'' has Yazim Jianne's house, which the group visits on two occasions. During one of them, the building is filled with oozes and chimeras as well as one room that closes in and traps everyone in a room without air. During the second, he makes it "safer" by only making the alerts sound if the door is not knocked and having more traps than monsters. In both cases, the traps are often in places that would make life terrible for the person living there, because there is one near the fridge that drops boulders, another that swings a giant blade when you are trying to sit on the toilet, and another that drops a pillar on someone trying to sleep in the bed (not to mention a group of arrows launching from the walls unless the person presses stone plates in the KonamiCode). Needless to say, you'd better hope you don't sleepwalk here.

** [[WizardingSchool Hogwarts]] is a really unsafe school by any standards. There are many well-known spots, such as a disappearing step, constantly shifting staircases, or [[WhenTreesAttack the giant murder tree]] on the grounds, around the castle that nobody bothers to fix or at least warn the students about. Potions is done without even the most basic safety equipment, such as aprons or goggles. Not only does a badly made potion have a chance to explode or get in students' eyes, but also cause massive (painful) growths, catch everything on fire, or turn everybody into cats. That's not even getting into Quidditch, a game played hundreds of feet in the air on sticks of wood that has heat-seeking cannon balls trying to knock off students from their brooms. Good thing Madame Pomfrey's magical remedies are enough to handle all but the worst injuries. Plus it's right next to a monster-infested forest filled with dangerous creatures that include xenophobic centaurs, giant spiders, and possibly werewolves. It gets a {{lampshade|Hanging}} as early as [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets the second book]], when the school is in danger of being shut down as a result of students getting petrified. Hagrid says that parents expect injuries at Hogwarts, what with all the underage magic going on in there, but that these particular attacks are too dangerous even for their relaxed standards.
** The Ministry of Magic possesses a vast storeroom of magical artifacts, many of which are apparently quite dangerous, that are just haphazardly stacked on flimsy shelves. They also have a veiled archway which is apparently a direct portal to the afterlife. Said archway is simply left sitting on a dais without so much as a single railing around it to prevent someone from accidentally stumbling through it.
** The wizarding world in general seems to be pretty lax about very weird accidents and rather dangerous beings and artifacts. Somewhat {{justified|Trope}} in that magic has a mind of its own and you're not going to be able to plan for all the ways it will go wrong, but nobody seems to consider taking even the simplest actions to reduce the possibility. Magic might be able to heal a great number of injuries, but it can't bring people back from the dead.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': The climactic confrontation in ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'' takes place in a screamingly dangerous candle factory, in a medievalesque parody of the factory scene from ''Film/TheTerminator''. {{Justified|Trope}} in that Ankh-Morpork laughs in the face of any kind of health or safety regulation.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': ''Literature/DeathStar'' the novel by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry. Bureaucratic incompetence and ''slave labor'' combine to create a really unsafe Death Star. Are you going to make your evil master's starbase safe?
** The architect character almost always lampshades this when she's shown at work. It's even implied that the station would be even more of a deathtrap without her input.

* In ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'', it is mentioned that "some fool tampered with" a large nuclear plant, and, depending on the edition, either leveled or contaminated half a city. An earlier story featured a badly repaired station doing the same to half a planet.

* The Chicago meatpacking industry in Upton Sinclair's novel ''Literature/TheJungle''. The ''whole'' industry, for the record. Not just a single plant. In fact, it was so graphic about things like this, that when President UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt read it, he had inspectors investigate and found that Sinclair's claims were true. Roosevelt was so enraged that it led to sweeping safety laws and regulations for the meatpacking industry being passed, which eventually led to the creation of the FDA. One steel manufacturing plant also gets its due. In turn-of-the-century Chicago there were very few non-hazardous industrial jobs, since there are few if any capitalist motives to keep low-level employees safe and healthy. As soon as one worker got sick or injured, there were hundreds if not thousands of desperate immigrants lined up at the factory gates to take his place.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': In ''Literature/TheFellowshipOfTheRing'', the Fellowship has to cross the bridge of Khazad-dûm in Moria, which is right above a huge chasm with no rails or walls, wide enough for just one person. It's justified since the route was just the "back door" and the bridge is a defensive measure against orc or goblin attack. The attacking army would be forced to go single file at a snail's pace to avoid tripping, while the dwarves could pelt them with arrows from a safe position. The main entrance has a massive, magically reinforced gate instead.