“We know we need civilization and laws and procedures, but isn’t it frustrating? Wouldn’t it be great if we could just do what we needed to do?” — Lee Child When someone thinks about a Process Hazard Analysis, a PHA, they usually think about a Hazard and Operability Review, a HazOp. And when they think [...]
“I wish we had more safety training.” — No one. Ever. Have you ever had a coworker respond, “You are so lucky,” when you told them that you had some mandatory safety training coming up? No? When it comes to safety training, isn’t the word “mandatory” redundant? Have you ever attended or even been offered [...]
“Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.” — Bill Moyers One definition of ethics is “the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior.” Which means that engineering ethics would be “the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior while performing engineering.” Most of [...]
“Because most suicides do not happen at work, many employers do not consider depression or suicide an industry problem or occupational hazard.” — Stu Kemppairnen When we were younger, my wife really enjoyed napping in the afternoon. I didn’t get it. There was so much to do, how could anyone take prime “getting things done” [...]
“I have always fancied that the end of the world will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up the globe… They [the Americans] are great boiler makers.” — Jules Verne I was recently asked about using hot oil instead of steam to heat process [...]
“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…and I also know that I’m not blonde.” — Dolly Parton See someone in glasses? They’re smart, right? See someone, especially a woman, with blonde hair? They’re dumb, right? Blonde and wears glasses? Now there’s a conundrum. These are ridiculous assumptions, [...]
“When I was young, I would sit in the bath and ideas would come to me. But I’m not young anymore, so now I just sit in the bath.” — Aki Kaurismaki “We’re installing a safety instrumented system in our existing process. Do we have to pull out all the existing instruments and replace them [...]
“Running toward danger is foolhardy. But so is closing your eyes to it. Many perils become less dangerous once you understand their potential hazards.” — Brandon Mull On Thursday, April 29, at about 2:30 pm, neighbors reported several explosions at the Manor Chemical Company in Affton, Missouri, a suburb on the southwest side of St. [...]
“All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.” — Paracelsus Have you ever noticed that news accounts about incidents in the process industries never talk about “chemicals”? No, the writer always refers to “toxic chemicals”. As though you can’t say one without [...]
“Electricity can be dangerous. My nephew tried to stick a penny into a plug. Whoever said a penny doesn’t go far didn’t see him shoot across that floor. I told him he was grounded.” — Tim Allen When I was fresh out of grad school, I had a job in process development. One project involved [...]
