There can be a lot of pretentiousness in H&S. I am all for both health and safety and any real progress is to be applauded.
I worked in a high voltage industry and could be subjected to both extremes of the pretentious side of H&S. I once came back to the office for a cup of tea, having just tested a circuit breaker at 500kV in the open air, in a test area whose interlocks had never worked in the twenty years that I was there - we used to hope that people knew that the hum really did mean instant death and some of us used to wedge chairs under the door handles, as an extra precaution. When I got back to the office (having not killed and set fire to anybody), I was told that I couldn't use the kettle because it hadn't been PAT-tested.
Eventually, the Health & Safety Executive could stand it no longer and insisted it be fixed - "We'll install a permit system", they were told, and the HSE agreed to that. Some days later, I wanted to test another item and asked for my permit. I was told that I didn't need it - I asked who else had permits, as I wanted some help with some parts of the test - "Everybody that works here has a permit", I was told, "they're all in a drawer in Personnel."
As far as I know, it was never fixed.....
I also got electrocuted in a substation, having asked the chap that was putting all the various different coloured cones and flags out "Is everything off?" - "Yes!", he told me - I got a belt off the first very first thing I touched and fell six feet onto the gravel. "You must have touched the heater, we always leave the heaters on"
I told him that I would ask him again in five minutes "Is everything off?" and, if he lied to me again, then he'd better hope that it killed me next time, or I would kill him, using as many of his special cones as I could fit in.