I have been informed by my work yesterday that I may no longer be allowed to carry fluorescent tubes in my van due to EU Legislation, I may be forced to carry them on the roof of the van in carrying tubes however as I have 150+ tubes  there is no way I would get them all in roof tubes plus how much of a ball ache is that Everytime you need a tube having to pull a load out of a 6" roof tube.
2D lamps and CFL lamps would need to be put in air tight boxes. I told the guy in the office where to go but not in those words and said if I have to do that load of BS then I can't do my job, I may aswell go and apply in Mc Donnalds!
Has anyone else got any info on this or heard anything similar?

That is nonsense (well, I would rather use another word, starting by "bull" but that won't be that acceptable here in public...).


We (historically a Catholic country) have an old saying (translated) "He is more popeish than the Pope"...

If that case in EU, they should ban the general public from getting any fkourescent tubes of some sort what it
Seems like. What a load of crock of poo here.

That means it look like Kev need hitch a trailer onto the
Van to haul tubes, more bouncing around and lamp breakage too.

It seems the habit of using the "That is an EU requirement" as an excuse for own stupidity is really spreading terribly fast. I thought it is just here, with our local politicians, but it seems we do not have the exclusivity for that anymore...

There is no way my boss would want me to stop carrying fluorescents on my van as he will be making less money. I'm not going to do it anyway they can F*** off as far as I'm concerned.

Be careful, he is your superior, the lamps and van are his (or company's), so he is the one giving orders and then (if they were not against the law) responsible for the consequences (breakages, productivity loss,...). So explain him your view and why do you think it is a nonsense (the profit loss, higher risk of injury when handling things on the vans roof, higher risk of accident when something fell off the roof while driving,...), ask him to give you specific instructions how he want you to handle the lamps according to that "rule" and especially how you should mitigate the risks (so when following them, you can not be held responsible if it breaks due to that stupidity) but if he still insist on it, just better obey it.

If he (as your superior) gives some order, which is not against the law, nor your contract, ignoring that means once he would like to fire you, you give him a legal ground to do so without any compensation otherwise required by workers protection laws (as violating a safety measure would be viewed as severe breach of the work discipline) and you may have troubles getting another job with that in your "working history"...

Lol I have a good working relationship with my boss and he is a friend. I bring lots of work to the company and loads of the places I look after specify they want "me" to do their work and not other engineers on the company. I would have to do a lot wrong for him to fire me.

never heard anything like this  But what I have learnd during our years in EU, the problem is not always regulations itself but the people who are deciphering those regulations locally. sometimes regulations and rules are quite complicated so people might just missunderstand real meaning.

What a load of crap. I hope for your sake it's not true.

I've seen the way you drive Kev, maybe they brought in the rule just for you lol 😉

Lol I can think of quite a few laws that should be brought in just for me! 

If it's an EU law, ask to see the law in writing (laws should be public documents). That can sometimes aid in distinguishing "laws" from real laws (or "regulations" from real regulations).

@ Medved : Re : We (historically a Catholic country) have an old saying (translated) "He is more popeish than the Pope"... In the French speaking Catholics of Canada, we use an expression that is very similar : "He is more Catholic than the Pope" (Être plus catholique que le pape).

Lol I have a good working relationship with my boss and he is a friend. I bring lots of work to the company and loads of the places I look after specify they want "me" to do their work and not other engineers on the company. I would have to do a lot wrong for him to fire me.

I expect that (luckily I have good relationship as well, though within a rather large company). But when that request is a result of some moron pushing on him (and using whatever excuse to harm) and he want to "buy a time" to strike properly back, you may complicate him that (you may give that moron an "ammunition" against your boss...)... It could be quite nasty politics in the background, so better talk with him about that - I'm convinced either he will lift up that requirement, or explain you what is behind - and there do not expect anything related to technical reasons...

Ban the EU that's the answer it gets worse every year

This is some hoax, nothing like that does not exist. But the truth is, if some i***ot in power believe that, you have not much options than obey, until someone "shoot him down" from that position. It could be just some local safety inspector or someone like that, these positions are notoriously sensitive to stick to such hoaxes, mainly when that is means profit for someone around (someone want to boost LED sales, so by convincing that inspector he want to make the fluorescents more expensive to maintain)...