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Perhaps we're a little to protective here:jester:I've seen some wacky things in my time abroad.
India:
Company I used to work for built a plant out in the sticks, and they brought the plant on-line even though the government never ran power to that town to power the production equipment. How'd they get around mixing acidic products in their brand new tanks? For each tank, they had 3 or 4 "workers" jump in and wade around in a circle. No joke. There's even video of it. How'd they pump their drain system up out of the sumps? A daisy chain of women with bowls full of chemical sludge on their heads walking up a ladder, and dumping it into the waste processing tank.
Jamaica:
In 2001 I did an inspection on the Spanish Harbor power plant's generator number 1 (generator 3 blew up the prior winter, and they wanted to be a little proactive on this one). The plant was also doing an inspection on the main turbine condenser (about the size of a large house) and remove the scale buildup. In the US, there'd be atmospheric testing, fall protection, retrieval lines, ventilation fans. Nope. Shut the turbine down, wait 4 hours, open the hatch, and 8 workers run in. Not even a rope around their waist.
Brazil:
Coworker was part of a project to build a paper mill on the Amazon. In the US, we'd use scaffolding and fall protection to work on tall structures. In Brazil, they walk into the jungle and cut down bamboo-like plants and tie them together with vines and fronds and whatever else is growing nearby, and you climb the "scaffold" like a tree.
China:
In the US, contract tollers are companies that make fine and specialty chemicals for you on a toll basis in their chemical plant, kind of like cost plus. In China, they do the same thing, but they make the chemicals in their kitchens in the same pots they cook food in.
