Foolish Compliance: Rules Without Reason

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that you can’t wear white after Labor Day. But why?”  — Anna Cafolla and Elise Taylor, Vogue Magazine

There are few things more foolish than asking an engineer for fashion advice. But I have heard since I was a little boy, mostly from the girls and women in my life, that you can’t wear white after Labor Day. I didn’t care, but they did. If you did, the fashion police would come after you and… Not imprison you but banish you from polite society

The rule was mostly about class signaling. “We’re rich and we have one wardrobe for summering in the Hamptons, and another wardrobe for our time in the City.” That explains why there was a rule, but why white? It turns out that the city was dirty. Dirt streets, horse manure piled several feet high, and coal dust. When fall came around, so did heating season, and we heated with coal. So even for the well-to-do that could avoid going out into the dirt of the city, the coal dust and smoke permeated everything.

We don’t heat our homes—whether shacks or mansions—by burning coal anymore. Yet in some corners, the rule persists. It is a rule without reason.

We have some safety rules that are equally without reason.

Three come to mind:

• The prohibition against contact lenses in chemical plants.
• The prohibition against visitors with beards in chemical plants.
• The requirement to record burns larger than a dime.

The Prohibition Against Contact Lenses in Chemical Plants

While contact lenses have existed since the nineteenth century, they didn’t become really popular until the 1970’s. With their widespread use, some safety professionals worried about their impact on workplace safety, especially in chemical plants where there were materials that could irritate the eye. Specifically, they speculated that chemicals could get underneath the contact lens, which would then hold the irritant against the cornea. They feared that the prolonged contact would exacerbate the damage done and interfere with the function of eyewash stations.

Based on that fear, safety managers throughout the chemical industry banned the use of contact lenses while in the plant.

Eventually, though, the studies were done. It turns out that contact lenses don’t increase the harm done when irritants splash into the eye. On the other hand, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) us in OSHA 3151-02R 2023, Personal Protective Equipment that “employees who wear contact lenses must wear eye or face PPE when working in hazardous conditions.” In other words, from OSHA’s perspective, contact lenses do not create a hazard but they do not provide protection either.

The Prohibition Against Visitors with Beards in Chemical Plants

There was a time when chemical plants routinely required that anyone entering a production area, including visitors, be clean-shaven. No, it wasn’t because chemical vapors could be absorbed by whiskers. Otherwise, they would have required that not only faces but heads be shaven of all hair. Instead, it was because of concerns about beards interfering with the fit of respirators.

The concern about beards interfering with respirator fit is legitimate. But with visitors? In 1988, OSHA issued a comprehensive revision of the Respiratory Protection standard, 29 CFR 1910.134. Among other things, the revised standard requires that anyone wearing a respirator be fit tested with the respirator ( 29 CFR 1910.134(f) ), and before being fit tested, that there be a medical evaluation to determine the ability to use a respirator. ( 29 CFR 1910.134(e) )

What about escape-only respirators? A visitor might need to wear one. Generally, escape-only respirators are loose-fitting, in which case a beard should have no impact on the fit. Tight-fitting respirators, whether escape-only or not, require medical evaluation and fit testing, so are not appropriate for visitors.

The Requirement to Record Burns Larger than a Dime

There is a lot out there about which work-related injuries are recordable and which are not. One subject is on burns. Very small burns can be treated with over-the-counter (non-prescription) ointment and don’t need to be recorded. But isn’t there some objective size at which a burn becomes recordable.

Many policies state that any second or third degree burn larger than a dime is recordable. Where does that come from? It’s not an OSHA requirement.

In the 1990’s, OSHA issued a couple of letters of interpretation (24-May-1993 and 10-Jan-1994) about recording burns. OSHA deemed second-degree burns larger than a pinhead and any third degree burn as recordable. (How a pinhead morphed into a dime is mystery to me.) Since then, however, OSHA has rescinded both of those letters.

Instead, this is how OSHA answers the question “Does the size or degree of a burn determine recordability?”

No, the size or degree of a work-related burn does not determine recordability. If a work-related first, second, or third degree burn results in one or more of the outcomes in section 1904.7 (days away, work restrictions, medical treatment, etc.), the case must be recorded.

So, a burn, whether first, second, or third degree and regardless of size, which can be treated with an over-the-counter, non-prescription antibiotic ointment and a loose bandage—in other words, first aid—is not recordable. On the other hand, a prescription ointment or passing out will make it recordable.

AI Still Says These Rules Are Reasonable

The funny thing about all of these rules is a casual Google search and reliance on AI will suggest that all of the rules are still in place. They’re not. We don’t know when AI will eventually get it right. It does mean that it remains important to seek out the source of safety rules, and not rely solely on AI.

As for the rule about not wearing white after Labor Day, that peculiarly American form of class signaling, it is officially dead. Regardless of what your grandmother says. As for back as the 1970’s, Amy Vanderbilt, in her Ladies Home Journal advice column said, “I don’t know where the rule began, but it no longer holds.”