Safety Third

[Eclipse]

"Osha?  OCEAN!"

Ted Talk as linked here before, worth your time, but discusses Safety at about 12:50:
http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

I'm sure most of us are familiar with the show "Dirty Jobs", and the great work of Mike Rowe and his crew, championing the
unsung heroes of hard work and distasteful jobs.  In addition to "dirty", many of his shows highlight work that is both important and very dangerous.  I've had to catch my breath just watching him standing on a windmill, hanging from a bosun's chair 40 stories up, or strapped to a helicopter clamping onto a high-tension wire.

Not only is the work hazardous, but he has a full crew that needs to wedge into places that are sometimes worse than where he goes to get the shots, and in all this he's always a "new guy" with no experience and only orientation-level training.

Sounds a lot like CAP, where a good number of our members punch their tickets once on a respective qualification and never
try it again until game day.  Yet, just as on the show, preparation, vigilance, and the observation of experienced superiors keeps
CAP on a pretty straight track in regards to the safety and health of its members

Mike and company have been mentioned here before, but not recently, and after seeing his "Safety Third" episode again over the weekend, I thought it might be a good time to bring up his thoughts on the real and proper place and role of "Safety" in
environments where real work needs to get done.

I personally think he hits the nail on the head directly and squarely, especially when safety becomes the mission instead of the
mindset, which many people believe is where CAP has fallen over the last year or two.  There are now units all over the country
who spend more time on Safety training than on ES training, we require ORM classes of cadets too young to even understand
the concept, and who have no control whatsoever of the ORM situation, and in general we have turned "Safety", which in our context should be a point of pride as part of "Excellence", into a drudgery that must be "gotten through" before we can get to the real work or fun.

Mike Rowe on Safety Third:
http://blog.zap2it.com/kate_ohare/2009/11/dirty-jobs-star-mike-rowe-says-safety-third.html
http://www.mikeroweworks.com/2009/11/safety-do-i-hear-1-2-3/
"For people who look at the title and give it a very quick glance, they're going to be outraged. They're going to be outraged. But if you really look at it straight through, it's the same sort of message as 'Brown Before Green' was, which was, obviously, we don't want a sick planet; (in this case), obviously, you don't want to get hurt on the job.

"But when you say 'Safety First,' and you say it over and over and over, you create the sense of complacency among your employees, along with the belief that slowly sinks in that allows them to assume that somebody else cares more about their own well-being than they do.

"Then you abdicate personal responsibility, and you ultimately send a counter-intuitive message."

Rowe has a plan to counter this, explaining, "So we start saying 'Safety Third,' which is what we teach each other on the crew, because after 350 of these things, the 'Safety First' banner has become ubiquitous.

"So we look back at all of the safety training that we've had, the mandatory, compulsory, confined-space training on jobs that don't have confined spaces, that we have to sit through. We have footage of crew members falling asleep during these things.

"Of course, behind it all is the thousands of pages of OSHA. In the absence of authority, we look to whatever there is. And OSHA certainly has saved lives and calls a lot of shots, but it's amazing, when you really talk to workers one on one, and get to the root of their views on safety, how disconnected we were from the basic tenets of risk -- how risk has become a thing that has slowly evolved in the way we assimilate work.

"You have to fall. You have to get bruised and knocked around. Of course, nobody wants pain, danger, agony or misery, but when you build an entire philosophy based on keeping those things from happening, there's an unintended consequence. It's obviously this twitchy, jerky, sort of pedantic creature we've created that is us.

"Risk used to be something that you were compensated for, straight up. But our insurance companies and our lawyers have basically assumed the job of eliminating risk, and they've succeeded to a certain degree."

But what if we took the lawyers and insurers and the government regulators out of the equation? What if we just let people assume risks in the full knowledge and acceptance of the possible dangers, in hopes of receiving the possible rewards, but willing to take their lumps if it doesn't pan out?

"If we simply let the consequences play out as a result of our action," says Rowe, "we can then react to them and adjust or not adjust, depending on how we vote."

[RiverAux]

It is a balancing act.  The history of industry in the country shows that left unregulated companies have been more than happy to let workers get killed or injured on the job if it costs more to implement safety measures than it does to pay for the injuries or deaths.  Government regulation in this area is essential to make sure that such measures are taken. 

But, it is all about being reasonable and I'm sure that many times the regulations go too far.

However, in terms of CAP, the issue isn't really workplace safety practices.  I can't really think of too many changes that CAP has made in this area in recent years.  I've got a lot of confidence in our preventative maintenance and inspection programs.

What is driving people in CAP nuts is generic "safety training" that is totally unrelated and divorced from anything that is actually going to make a difference on the ground or in the air.  Go ahead and produce and mandate all the safety training that you can for air and ground operations and I'm all for it so long as it is very specific and applicable to what we're doing.  But lets figure out what the major risks are and focus on them rather than minor stuff that is probably never going to happen.

For example, come up with 12 lesson plans, online courses, powerpoints, videos or whatever relating to ground team safety issues and mandate that those be completed annually to maintain GT quals.  This reduces the chance that some local safety officer will waste your time on some inane topic that doesn't apply to CAP at all, (wear your life jacket while boating!) but meets the general safety meeting requirement. 

[Eclipse]

[arajca]

Safety as the mission:
Not CAP related, but looking similar.

At work, we've worked hard to develop a safety mindset. We've managed to get down to pointed safety briefings (short ones) and developed the mindset "if you see a safety issue, fix it and continue". This has become so ingrained that we don't even notice the minor safety fixes we do. Cord hanging off the work bench unplugged, coil it up and put it on the bench. Oil/water on the floor, clean it up. Happens several times each day. Now, we're supposed to report each event (fill out a blue safety incident card) and, if we don't have enought filled out, it'll affect our reviews and paychecks. The safety weinies can't understand that calling attention to all these little things that have become automatic, makes them no longer an automatic action, but a distraction.

[Thom]

Safety as the mission:
Not CAP related, but looking similar.

At work, we've worked hard to develop a safety mindset. We've managed to get down to pointed safety briefings (short ones) and developed the mindset "if you see a safety issue, fix it and continue". This has become so ingrained that we don't even notice the minor safety fixes we do. Cord hanging off the work bench unplugged, coil it up and put it on the bench. Oil/water on the floor, clean it up. Happens several times each day. Now, we're supposed to report each event (fill out a blue safety incident card) and, if we don't have enought filled out, it'll affect our reviews and paychecks. The safety weinies can't understand that calling attention to all these little things that have become automatic, makes them no longer an automatic action, but a distraction.

Two points of response here (from a guy who deals often with Industrial Safety in the PetroChem industry):

1. It's a pain to fill out those cards, but we NEED the data about those 'Near Loss Incidents' that almost became an accident. Otherwise, you guys could be out there silently (and professionally...) avoiding a thousand incidents a day with, say, slippery worn out stair treads, but if we don't hear about it we'll never go out and replace the traction tape on the stairs. My personal ideal: A speed-dial number on your cellphone, when it answers it says "Safety Near Loss (beeeeep)" and you just say what the issue was. 15 seconds to 2 minutes, whatever it takes, then let the computer (or somebody in an office) transcribe it to useful text. Minimal hassle for the guys getting the work done. (I should patent that...)

2. The problem with getting Safety to be an Automatic Response: That deals very well with known, understood risks. Think of driving home, and you go on auto-pilot for miles at a time. The human brain is great at some things, but it absolutely needs intentional thinking to deal with new data and situations. The reason we emphasize to work the ORM matrix on paper, to go through the SPSA/2 Minute Drill/whatever before each task is this: You don't know what is new or different unless you look, with the conscious human mind. The ingrained response to simple safety issues that you and your guys have developed is awesome 99.8% of the time. The other .2% you NEED to be actively looking, examining, thinking, and evaluating the possible risks. I agree that this is one of the hardest sells in safety, to tell folks that now that you are safe, you still have to go through all the steps, evaluate every action, no matter how many times you've done it safely. But, as Pilots isn't that just what we do with Checklists?

I realize that developing a safety system to deal with 0.2% of the time is a pain in the ass, but if you want to have 'everyone go home safe' then that is what it takes. (Besides, at this point, the American legal system and all of its lawyers won't let us get away with less...)


Thom

[PHall]

A prime example of how CAP has followed in the footsteps of the Air Force.

[CavScout]

"Mission first." 

[SunDog]

I have lately begun to think that time spent on pseudo-safety compromises safety. There are limited hours to study, read, etc.  Better for me, as a pilot, to spend that time on high value tasks, like a last look at the weather, or a quick call to the last guy to fly the plane.  I don't think any pilot taxis into a light pole or fuel pump because he didn't complete a web based course on hyperthermia.  We now lose an additional few seconds assuring  the FRO we have removed the tow bar before flight. Seriously, that's a real FRO question now. 

Safety isn't truly any organization's first priority, else no one would do anything. And elevating the trivial to the essential doesn't work for humans - it overwhelms and numbs us to the eesential.  A few years ago a check pilot nearly flunked me because I couldn't remember if runway signs were red with white letters, or vice versa. He was shocked when I told him I didn't care.  My point was, I knew a runway sign when I saw one, which was the essential fact. I also didn't care what the form number was for carrying a non-CAP passenger. Again, the essential thing was to know the form was required.  On the other hand, I can recite emergency procedures for engine failure from memory.  Sadly, the current state of safety gives equal weight to form numbers and engine failures.

[Storm Chaser]

"Mission first." 

I would say, "People First". While our mission is very important and there are inherent risks associated with what we do, nothing we do is so critical to warrant jeopardizing our people's safety and wellbeing.

[lordmonar]

"Mission first." 

I would say, "People First". While our mission is very important and there are inherent risks associated with what we do, nothing we do is so critical to warrant jeopardizing our people's safety and wellbeing.

Then you have to define what you mean by jeopardizing our people's safety and wellbeing.
Asking our people to come to a weekly meeting exposes them to safety hazards they would not face if they remained at home.  Ergo  "People First" is just as asinine as "Safety First" or "Mission First".  The whole point about ORM is "A balance between mission, safety, people".

[Storm Chaser]

Then you have to define what you mean by jeopardizing our people's safety and wellbeing.
Asking our people to come to a weekly meeting exposes them to safety hazards they would not face if they remained at home.  Ergo  "People First" is just as asinine as "Safety First" or "Mission First".  The whole point about ORM is "A balance between mission, safety, people".

First of all, I can really care less about these mottos or sayings, so I don't really use them in real life. Now, I believe my post was very clear, which leads me to believe that you just want to argue. I said, and I quote, "[w]hile our mission is very important and there are inherent risks associated with what we do, nothing we do is so critical to warrant jeopardizing our people's safety and wellbeing." (emphasis mine)

"Asking our people to come to a weekly meeting" as you say, does NOT jeopardize their safety or wellbeing. But you know that already. Here's an extreme example to what I wanted to illustrate: I would not send a cadet to rescue a victim trapped in a down aircraft, which is hanging from some trees, while fuel is leaking and there's a small fire in part of the wreckage. A similar question came from one of my cadets during a safety education briefing.

Of course, that seems like common sense and most of us would agree with that. But there are other less obvious instances where some members are so eager to get the mission done that they may do stupid things that put themselves or their teammates in danger. That should never happen in CAP. And yes, ORM should always be used.