Two of my guys got pinched by OSHA a few years ago. They were replacing balcony rails on a four story apartment building and gaining access to the units off an 80' boom lift. While in the lift they were tied off to the cage and when on the balcony they were tied off to an OSHA approved anchor point. The inspector fined us for them not being tied off to both points while hopping off the lift onto the balcony
I explained to the inspector the instructions I gave to the guys for transferring to the balcony and he said they followed them but my method was not OSHA approved. My instructions were to stay tied to the cage while on the lift and one guy was to go onto the balcony and install the anchor point. The guy on the lift was to disconnect the two life lines and toss them to the guy on the balcony who then tied the lines off to the anchor on the balcony and the other guy was to transfer to the balcony. This seemed to me to be the logical way of transferring to the balcony but the inspector gave me his "approved" method
According to OSHA both guys have to be tied off to the boom and the anchor before they could safely transfer to the balcony. When I pointed out the obvious flaw to his logic he ignored it and proceeded to tell me how much the fine would be. Once I received the $8,000 fine I called to appeal it and got it reduced to $100 since the person I was talking to couldn't figure out how we were supposed to tie off to an OSHA approved anchor that didn't exist until we installed it :duh: