Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Salami is not a Dangerous Good

Struggling to make Transportation of Dangerous Goods legislation less stultifying for my folks than it was in the course I took, I worked to make the in-house course interesting, maybe make them laugh a little. I was working with a bureaucrat to get it approved, and it looked like we had it almost wrapped up. I sympathized with her about having to read these tedious plans, made the corrections she requested and submitted it. I think she appreciated it being not the same boilerplate as everyone else had. Then came a new e-mail from someone else, excerpted below.

Hello Mr. Aviatrix,

Please note, I have taken on the TDG review process of [your company] COM from [nice bureaucrat], and she is no longer involved. I will require a revised copy of 16-0090E prior to a full review proceeding.

[...]

There are several highlighted answers on the exam that are incorrect and others that are not of suitable difficulty for an air operator. For example, question #14 - salami is an inappropriate response as a potentially regulated substance.

[...}

All COM document submissions are considered legal documents and are fully discloseable in the event of an enquiry. This should be considered when adding unnecessary commentary.

Transport Dangerous Goods Inspector

There is nothing in my COM that I'm not proud of, including the humour. If something is interesting, people will remember it better. The administrative overhead required to give my folks an interesting dangerous goods course may be more than I can spare, forcing them to take the dull online course I took. Cockpit Conversation readers are, however, invited to suggest appropriate incorrect responses to a question asking test takers to identify the regulated substance from a list.

And I have a request for you. If you're not sure of someone's pronouns or term of address, and you can't be bothered to ask a colleague who has worked with them what it is, or otherwise look it up, don't just assume the person is a man. If you do, you might just be the lucky hundredth person to do that to that person, and eventually someone is going to invent a way to punch people through the Internet.

Never forget that "salami" is an inappropriate response.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

It all depends on context I guess.
In very few cases swine and swine products can enter the United States.... Salami and other cured deli products - Some

The classic dangerous good to watch out for is of course Dihydrogen Monoxide.

amulbunny's random thoughts said...

"The classic dangerous good to watch out for is of course Dihydrogen Monoxide."

The decision to use either still or sparkling can also be a challenge, will the carbonation that escapes change the pressurization of the cabin.

Unless your first name can be mistaken for a different gender, I believe the bureaucrat needs to apologize.

Christopher Thompson said...

Yogurt containers are always hazardous inflight. No matter how hard I try, when I peel back the foil top I get that "burp" of yogurt all over me.

Oh yes, and the CO2 canisters I use to refill my Sodastream are dangerous too.

Doug Sinclair said...

Salami sausage has been used as the fuel grain for a hybrid rocket engine... but of course the major advantage of hybrids is their intrinsic safety.