Knifes in the work place?

I work in QC at a steel mill. We have a policy on guns but not knives. The policy states that you shouldn't have a firearm on company property. But when hunting season rolls around, just about every truck in the parking lot has a rifle in the seat of rear window and no one says anything about it. As far as knives go, they don't care if you carry one but if you cut yourself with your personal knife and not a company issued one there could be some trouble.
 
Working in the tattooing industry most guys carry something. Whether fixed or a folder. Especially if the shop is in a bad part of town. My edc of choice is the spyderco yojimbo 2 cpm-s90v steel sprint run with a carbon fiber handle. Small knife packing a punch. Or when traveling some type of tactical pen. You just never know...
 
I work in a fab shop. Company policy states no weapons, pocket knife up to 3" blade length is OK. More than half of the guys carry, nothing has ever been said about blade length except for one kid who couldn't stop flipping a large balisong around. The shop foreman told him to get a "normal" knife, with a blade that was at least close to the policy. He did. ;)
 
I'm an electrician at a large paper mill. Knives are not frowned upon but there is a very short list of "safety approved' knives we are allowed to use for work related tasks. Luckily for me one model is the Klein fixed blade that is my preference anyway. An added bonus is that the mill provides us with a knife from the list.
 
I work in a hospital albeit a smaller one and actually carry 2 folders. Smaller one for most general tasks and a bigger one for handling larger chores. I hardly ever use the large folder but when I have had to I was glad I had it. I've have never(luckily) been harassed about my knives. I've even had my supervisor gimme grief about carrying 2 knives but in a friendly way. The only time I ever take my knife out is when it is needed and then I use it very discreetly. I also never use them around patients except in certain situations.

Although the other day I had somebody ask me about what I was carrying. I had a VECP folder with a custom LG Dagger clip and he thought it was Gerber. I didn't want to pull it out but the guy was really curious and he wanted to look at. Boy was he surprised. He had no clue what he was looking at but you could tell he was impressed.

The only other thing that limits what I carry is weight. I try not carry anything over 6 oz cause it can get annoying with scrubs. I can really feel it if I carry something heavy. My typical go to combo is either a lg CRK/Spyderco/Houge and I just about always carry a dragonfly gen 1 I acquired several years ago. Basically/Thankfully I get to carry what I want.

Cheers.
 
Knives of certain flavors are frowned on in public and there are more restrictions these days in many work environments compared to yesteryear. I remember many times in High School when my history teacher would come into another class just to borrow my knife because he knew I had one on me even then! Everything was quite public then and no big deal where I grew up and it still is not that big a deal as the entire county where I grew up in WV still closes schools for the first week of deer season so everyone can hunt!

But its not like that in other more industrial areas. I believe that is why I sell so many pry bars and others move them in similar ways. Its probably why some ask for me to take one end down pretty thin to 'near' knife ability but not so it can actually be called a blade. Office workers, court clerks, security personal at air ports, and investigators, firemen and more use them and of course shooters love them for prying ammo jams but the most people buying them are office workers using them to sub for a knife. That kind of tells me there are a lot of places out there that frown on them if people seek a sub. You?

I think its changing and that in the future some of these 'CQC lines and other names that indicate violence and acts of aggression are going to be even more frowned upon. Prosecutors love when a knife with such a name or use is involved and like case after case in court systems they will eat you alive if you actually use it and they can hang you with it. And at the least it involves some explaining if not potential to lose the knife at random stops that are on going on the nations highways if you travel. Last time I was traveling through TN. they were stopping people and checking them with no refusal orders so you had to let them check you out and if you had a big ole bad arse knife on your person at that time it can certainly get uncomfortable. People never think of these things that much but apparently many are thinking it because they seek alternatives to travel more freely with less hassle.

I've had some multi tools like the Mini Bear Jaws and more mailed to me to remove the blades and replace them with something else so people could fly with them and stuff like that so I think yeah, its a concern. And its growing with each violent knife use and beheading and other such things as people come to this peak of violence in our character. We see it daily on the news. Sooner or later this peak of violence in our nature is going to be eliminated or subdued greatly in a mass wave of peoples that want to get away from this violence. These conflicts and animosities we bring on in ourselves will cause use to examine what it is we carry, use, and what the represent, how they reflect outward to your neighbor and so on and I fully expect a sway away from this subdued tactical, military killing machine sales that we see going on today in ads.

When the trend away from these things and combat and fighting and killing are frowned upon by society you'll see a big change also in what people want to buy and I can only pray that is no longer includes this mall ninja noble warrior without a cause fighting and killing mentality seen in so many tactical and military knives in the industry. I think when we start making things that reflect a more peaceful inner self behind the designs the world should be a bit better brighter place.

In yesteryear when my dad picked me up from school with the guns hanging in the back window of the truck they were not AK 47s or AR15s they were shot guns and a 30/30 rifle! No one batted an eye because the next truck behind his had something similar. The only thing that has changed since those times is us. We have changed in that we can no longer trust ourselves to do that behavior. Its pretty sad really when you self examine. And it directly relates to our behavior and buying habits and to what I'm talking about. We are these twisted violent beings that have somehow survived among all the other hominids that once existed here and now we are alone no longer clashing with these other species but its just us. So you know, at least try to understand that if we wake up together to realize this and that we don't have to kill each other anymore maybe we can go back to picking up our kids and trusting ourselves to have our guns mounted in the back of the truck window again like our ancestors could! I can always hope.
 
I think our company has a 3" rule but I've never seen anyone hassled for it. Now if you stuck a 5" tactical fixed blade on your belt, yeah you're going to get a talking to, but most rational people are going to understand that's asking for problems. No different from if you're sitting in a business meeting habitually flipping a knife open and closed.

Same for when I as carrying an assisted knife, it was right around 3", but once people started coming by my office to see my "switchblade" I stopped carrying it. It just attracts too much negative attention, same for flipper only knives, most can't be opened slowly and controlled so to the common person they appear to be an automatic knife as well, but they attract unwanted attention, some people like that kind of attention. The same people that open carry without a retention holster that I see in line at gas stations, grocery stores, and walmarts that if someone wanted to they could relieve them of their firearm and beat them with it before they even knew it was missing.
 
I work at a bookstore on my college campus, not sure of the knife rules here but I carry anyway. Usually small spyderco folders or a necker.
 
I am lucky enough to work out of my home office, so I carry whatever I feel like. But, back when I used to work in a corporate office, I typically carried a small Sebenza in my pants pocket and had some sort of small fixed blade in my attache/brief case. Now, when I have to attend a business meeting outside of my home office, I typically carry a SAK Cadet and either an Endura 4 FFG, a Manix2 Lightweight, or a Sage 1 or 2. And in my attache case I still have a small fixed blade and a full size multitool to boot.
 
I always carry a folder of some sort with me, safely secured in my pocket. There is always a fixed blade in my desk though. Perks of running your own business.
 
I always carry a folder on me at work. I'm a network admin at a college so I'm always pulling it out using it, whether opening boxes, cutting wires, etc. and nobody, even campus police, have had any issues. I've pulled out a Kudu, which isn't a small knife, in front of my boss and he wanted to know where I got it.
 
I drive roll-off for a private sanitation company. I carry a ZT 0200. My boss could care less.
 
Every single job I have had i have carried a knife. In about 75% of the cases It was in the employee handbook that "weapons" werent allowed. I can only think of one or two incidents where people put up a fuss simply because they could and nothing really came of it. Honestly in probably 90% off all situations the knife would go unnoticed. On the rare times I had to use it a bit of discretion went a long way. I found that If I didnt make a big deal about it most others didnt either. Honestly in most cases where I hear of people complaining that someone took issue with their knife it almost always boiled down to them not being discreet. Note I didnt say hide. If you look like your hiding something people catch on. But if you do what you got a do and do it quickly and put the thing away rarely have I seen it be an issue. Its the guys who got to work going "I have a right to carry and use a knife in public" and announce their latest tacticool gadgetry with the cutlery equivalence of Jazz hands. Ill never forget the time a guy on one fo the forums was complaining that he got flak for his griptilian. He made is sound like he was a victim and later it came out that he actually decided a crowded public park with children playing and old people walking their dogs was the perfect place to set ups shop making paracord lanyards and kept his knife on display while doing so. My motto is, use your head and you will be fine even if you are bending a few rules.
 
I work as a superintendent for a construction company. Nobody cares if I carry a knife, so I usually switch between a large sebenza, zt0562cf, or a zt0454. It's nice being able to carry the knives I admire the most:D
 
Being a Fire Control Forest Ranger, you had to have a knife for numerous chores you ran into daily. Carried Case folder, Buck Folding Hunter and a Randall Made knife at various times in my career. Couldn't get along without one. When I was hired in the early 70's I was told I had to supply myself with a watch, snake bite kit, a pen, and a knife.
 
Office IT with a "no weapons" policy so anything larger than my 2.25" Kershaw OD-2 draws attention.

But the large Stanley Retractable Knife with a 6" 18mm blade in my tool case is okay cuz it's a 'tool'.

Funny, the administrative assistants can walk the halls with a sheet cake and a 14" serrated bread slicer and no one bats an eyelash. ;)
 
If you are not carrying at least one knife when you come to work, you better start job shopping:D!
 
I work mostly in hospitals this time of year, and I don't pay attention to the rules or laws - for the most part. I don't carry weapons, I only carry tools. With that being said, I've only been hassled about a Gerber Mini-Covert FAST that I carried for about a year. It's tactical looking, despite being small. But it's black, assisted, black combo-blade, etc. Though yesterday some old lady commented on my brown Delica, lol. I left the PM2 at home for that very reason. Since carrying the Gerber, I have a yellow-handled BM 556 for the days I don't want to deal with any issues. Being yellow, it appears much less threatening, IMO. Your mileage may vary. For the most part, when I'm in small towns, I can carry whatever I like, as the majority of people are country/hunters/etc..
 
A knife is a tool is it not? Why would a company ban a personal tool? Some see them as "weapons". But seriously think of all the other acceptable stuff you wear or carry that could be used as a "weapon"...pen, tweezers, belt,..etc. this politically correct, offend -no -one -culture is making us give up some pretty basic freedoms.
 
It's not about the reality of whether or not it's a "tool", it's about the feelings of the most scared and paranoid employee.
It's one of those "it's easier to make the 99% of people change their ways than to argue with the pain-in-the-ass 1%".

If one sissy employee complains and claims your knife makes them "uncomfortable", how are you gonna dispute that?
 
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