… and once again occupational safety … or the limits of irony …

At least since the amendment to the Biological Agents Ordinance in 2013, the European Union's Needlestick Directive has incorporated the obligation to create safety awareness among employees into the Biological Agents Ordinance. According to Sections 8 (2) and 14 (2) Sentence 3, employers are obligated to create safety awareness among employees. In this context, presentations or images can be helpful during annual training or individual workplace instruction. However, caution is advised when using ironic images, such as images of food in the laboratory or risky maneuvers at work - such as standing on a swivel chair. This is especially true if not all employees in the laboratory have a Western background and are fluent in German. Irony always has something to do with the environment in which one grew up and, of course, with language skills. Therefore, it should be noted that ironic images should largely be avoided in presentations as part of a training session. Especially employees who aren't fluent in German or who weren't raised with a German-speaking background might not understand the images properly and even consider the situation depicted to be correct in the context of the instruction. However, if you don't want to forego such ironic images in order to convey a subject that recurs annually anyway, it's advisable to deliberately mark such images with a prohibition sign or the imprint "false." This somewhat "Americanized approach" at least protects against imitation, simply because the irony of the image hasn't been understood.