PPE Part 2: I Hate Hadedas

PPE stands for Personal Protection Equipment (and Philosophy, Politics and Economics, but not on this blog). PPE, as the name suggests, is meant to protect you from injury and long-term damage to your senses as a result of exposure to operational health and safety risks. As a female engineer, it also protects you from flattery and compliments, and can cause long-term damage to your sense of femininity and style if you’re not vigilant. This is part 2 in a series of posts dedicated to the joys of wearing PPE.

I hate hadedas.

I was reminded of how much I hate hadedas on Tuesday morning as I lay in bed, desperately trying to oversleep. I had just hit snooze for the second time when the sparrows, or swallows or cuckoos - or whatever annoying bird species inhabit the trees outside my flat - started chirping. A good sound on a lazy Sunday morning. But on a Tuesday at 7am when you’re wishing you were a beach bum instead of a diligent professional? Not so much.

And this avian sensory assault of chirping made me think of hadedas. It made me think of how when I moved to Durban to start my first job, I had a squawking wake-up call from a few of these creatures every morning. At sunrise. Sunrise! Which in Durban in summer is around 5am. (My morning routine is purposely kept to 30 minutes so that I can sleep until 6:30am at least, and 7am where possible.) Anyway, like I said I had moved to Durban to start my first job. After about a week of learning about the company values and policies, filling out endless forms for pension, medical aid, taxes, etc and sitting through a factory induction, I got issued with all the relevant PPE and I was finally taken into the factory. Little did I realise that I had just been introduced to the antidote to the poisonous sound of 5am hadeda squawking: earplugs!

I remember feeling like I was under water the first time I wore them. We had the kind that you squeeze, compress and then stick into your ear. Once they’re in you feel them slowly expand and it’s as if some invisible DJ is fading out the sounds around you. You can talk to people but you have to concentrate a bit harder and speak a bit louder. And I don’t know if it’s just me but I swear when I wear earplugs it feels like I can hear the thud of each step I take from the inside of my head like the sound is travelling up through my bones from the floor.


They become a bit uncomfortable after wearing them for a while, but – as with all PPE – you get used to it. I can’t imagine that wearing them all day long, like plant operators have to, would be too pleasant though. Hence all the poster campaigns to remind and convince people to wear them.

At some point I forgot a pair of earplugs in my jeans pocket and unknowingly took them home. I left them on my dresser and forgot about them. I don’t remember the details anymore but somewhere along the line I realised that they were the perfect answer to my hadeda horrors. So perfect that I started going to sleep with them at night to make damn sure I slept through The Squawking. My earplugs became so precious to me that I started keeping them in a little ear-ring box next to my bed. And from time to time I would “forget” a pair in my pocket to replace the ones at home.

Good news for me is that the bank has recently begun enforcing hearing protection in certain areas of the cash centres where I work now. I think it’s time to fill the ear-ring box again. Or to buy a pellet gun.

Consolatory PPE perks: Daily incentive to clean your ears effectively. Trust me, you don’t want to remove an earplug in front of people and find a blob of ear wax attached to it.

Alternative uses: (1) Sleep enablers: As I've just harped on about... Hearing protection against hadedas and other annoying birds, snoring boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses or neighbourhood kids making a racket when you’ve had a late night. (2) Stress relief: They can serve as miniature squishy stress balls that you can play with when you’re bored in meetings.