The Pocket Ergonomist is perhaps the world's most widely distributed
ergonomics publication.
The idea arose in 1984, when I was running a long series of workshops
about pain at work for the Safety Institute of Australia and National
Safety Council of Australia. Each day I would find myself drawing
the same table on the board, showing the relationship between the part of
the body that hurt, the common activities that produce the pain, and the
most common solutions.
One afternoon, sitting at home, I drew it up as a small brochure, with
rough pencil drawings of the body, and photocopied them for my
workshops. Using that handout cut an hour off the time it took to
deliver the course!
Then two things happened. A friend of mine, Serge, who knows a lot
about exercises, thought it was quite good, and offered to print it. (He
has a printing factory.) Dr Robin Mitchell, an occupational health
physician who is legendary for being bossy, insisted that if it was to be printed, it should be perfect. So we
found a graphic artist and gave him a a dreadful time until the drawings were just
right, and Robin added his exact touch to the words.
The Pocket Ergonomist has been translated into 27 languages and is used
around the world. We had originally thought that it would only be used by
a few supervisors!
If you live in New Zealand you can get a copy free from OSH - the entire
country is licenced to use it. If you live outside NZ it will cost you
just a little to get one.
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