“Squeezing a balloon in one place makes it expand in another.” — Bernd Debusmann Finally. 2020, the worst year in living memory for most of us, is over. 2021 promises to be much, much better. Let’s make it a year when workplace safety gets better as well. To do that, though, we can’t just keep [...]
“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is dead shark.” — Woody Allen, in Annie Hall The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases their workplace fatality statistics in December for the previous year. So, here [...]
“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” — Walter Mosley Have you ever known someone who seemed to have more than their share of incidents? Ever worked with such a person? Supervised such a person? The idea of an “accident-prone” worker poses some special challenges, especially in a workplace where [...]
“The future depends on what you do today.” — Mahatma Gandhi “How intensive is the view on safety in the engineering, manufacturing, and industrial world?” As this semester closes, one of my students asked me what I thought personally about safety. He graduates in a couple of weeks, and went on to ask, “What is [...]
“As the pandemic drags on, following COVID-19 prevention guidelines can feel like more and more of a challenge.” — Jay Maddock, Professor of Public Health Tired of the pandemic? Tired of social distancing, of wearing a mask, of avoiding crowds? Who’s not? Get over it. The Covid-19 pandemic has come roaring back in the United [...]
“Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.” — Nelson Mandela Why are people unsafe? Why do they engage in unsafe behaviors, especially in an industry as hazardous as the chemical industry? Most of us are confident we know why. When asked, most people – over 80% – attribute the [...]
“It is so refreshing to have somebody approach education rationally.” — Adam Cooper There probably isn’t anything as refreshing as a shower. Especially after hot, dirty work. Not even refreshments are as refreshing. Yet, the English language is so twisted that we call the repetition of training that we’ve already had “refresher training,” something that [...]
“It’s everything you do and nothing that you did.” — Steve Cash Poly-America is having a bad week. Last Wednesday, August 19, at around 1 am, a massive fire started at the Poly-America plant in Grand Prairie, Texas, outside of Dallas. Local news reports on that Wednesday stated that the black plume from the fire [...]
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” — Maya Angelou Many St. Louis drivers view stop signs as suggestions; they don’t see a full stop is either required or expected. And this isn’t just young hooligans in muscle cars. It includes little old ladies in [...]
“What if this is as good as it gets?” — Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets, directed by James L. Brooks The year 2009 was first time I ever studied a graph of work-related fatality rates in the U.S. The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was available for [...]
