No OSHA Compliance/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A location is unsafe for its notional purpose, to the point where no sane regulatory body would ever let people work there.

  • Straight: Bob fights Charlie in a factory, where there are bottomless pits with no railings, catwalks that break when punched, and fire and steam belching everywhere.
  • Exaggerated: The scenery is actively malevolent towards the characters (see Malevolent Architecture).
  • Justified: The location was made for the express purpose of being a deathtrap.
  • Inverted: Things that are harmless come with overly elaborate safeguards, like a baby carriage with locks, or a three-inch drop with a five-foot railing and foam padding.
  • Subverted: The factory turns out to actually be a movie set.
    • Alternatively, there are invisible forcefields protecting everyone.
  • Double Subverted: The factory turns out to actually be a movie set, which is also horribly unsafe.
    • Alternatively, there are invisible forcefields protecting... the machinery, not the people.
  • Parodied: The building has a blueprint where all the deathtraps are clearly spelled out. ("The bottomless pit with no railings goes here.")
  • Deconstructed: The location was condemned precisely because it was so unsafe and caused so many accidents. Warning signs are clearly posted to this effect, and the characters suffer severe injuries as a consequence of venturing inside.
  • Reconstructed: A Big Bad looking for a bargain purchases the condemned property for a laughably low price and turns it into his headquarters...without making any improvements.
    • The work is set in a time before OSHA, and the factory was built by a Corrupt Corporate Executive who cared little for the safety of the workers.
  • Zig Zagged: The safety conditions in the factory vary on a room-by-room basis, with some rooms meeting every guideline OSHA has ever published and others that would give a safety inspector massive heart failure.
  • Averted: There are proper safety features in place in all the environments the characters enter.
  • Enforced: The final fight scene in the big action movie almost has to occur in the Smoke and Fire Factory for audiences to accept it. It gives the villain more opportunities to fight dirty and the hero more opportunities to turn the tables.
  • Lampshaded: "Why don't they ever put railings over these bottomless pits?"
    • the muzak is Chemical Worker's Song, Work 20 Hours, etc.
  • Invoked: Charlie deliberately rigs the location to be a deathtrap, or chooses a deathtrap for a location, in the hopes of luring Bob to fight him there.
  • Defied: Charlie deliberately installs proper safety features in his Supervillain Lair, because he's not a Bad Boss and doesn't want his minions getting hurt.
  • Discussed: "The Alpha Factory was shut down because of all the accidents. Wouldn't it suck to have to fight Charlie there?"
  • Conversed: "Have you ever noticed how big fight scenes always take place in places that are horribly unsafe?"
  • Played For Laughs: The central premise of the film is the extravagant lengths management goes to in order to keep the factory from being condemned. The cover-ups and bribes end up becoming more expensive then the repairs themselves, but management doesn't notice or doesn't care.
  • Played For Drama: The factory's unsafe conditions have caused the deaths of Bob's father and brother, so he makes it his mission in life to make the owners pay...

Back to No OSHA Compliance, if you dare. Watch your step, and the railing's a little wobbly.

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