Safety Investigations are serious matters, but they are also imperfect and frequently intimidating. People hate to acknowledge that they weren’t thinking, forgot themselves for a minute, or were just too hurried to do something the safer way.

The good investigator gets to root cause, so that a permanent fix can be put in place. Along the way, she hears many answers, sometimes to questions that weren’t asked. I won’t include the questions in the list, they are somewhat implied. (For equal time, I promise to include management’s FGAs in a future Monday list.)

1. It wasn’t my fault.
2. I told the supervisor about this problem last week.
3. I never saw the machine do that before.
4. I see the electrician do that all the time.
5. It wasn’t my fault.
6. I asked the mechanic to fix that last week.
7. The blade on the knife was too dull.
8. The blade on the knife was too sharp.
9. Joe was using the ladder, and we always use that stool to get up there.
10. It wasn’t my fault.
11. I was trying to save time and save the company’s money.
12. I’ve done it that way hundreds of times and didn’t get hurt before.
13. It wasn’t my fault.