I once worked in a paper mill that had a chlorine storage tank. Because of the tank, it was decided that everyone that worked within a certain distance of the tank must pass a fit test for respirators, and could not wear beards as they affected the ability of the respirator to save your life. So imagine how interesting it was to participate in developing a rule that employees could accept, allowing those who already had beards to continue wearing them. Yep, they had the right to refuse the equipment, which in the event of a chlorine leak, would almost certainly lead to intense criticism for allowing employees to make such a ridiculous choice.

At home, no one is advising us. We have to educate ourselves on this. There are certain fundamental things you can (and probably should) do to assure your safety on the home. What seems like an unnecessary expense could be the difference between going to dinner at the end of a chore day or going to the emergency room. So here are a few ideas that I hope you will consider.

1. There are a number of types of gloves available for you to choose. Leather gloves for heavy lifting and rough materials. Cotton gloves with textured palms and fingers. Knit gloves with a waterproof coating that are good for gardening. Vinyl, latex, or synthetic gloves that are impervious to most chemicals, good for handling paints or even picking up after your puppy!
2. Eye protection may be advertised as fashionable, but few would agree. Nevertheless, whether you need goggle type for use around your table saw, or wraparounds when using power equipment in your yard, you can find a pair that meet your needs and can even fit over prescription eye wear. And don’t kid yourself that your regular glasses are “good enough”.
3. As far as ear protection goes, I prefer the small foam type that you compress and then insert in your ear canal. But there are many other types that you can find that include those tied with string and some at the end of a plastic arc that fit behind your neck.

Every task that you do is worth looking at for safety purposes. Can it be done more safely? Is the only thing that is keeping your from that next step the fact that you haven’t bought what you need? The you should prioritze getting those items, use them, and take steps to keep yourself safe.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

My friends assumed that meant the questions were along the lines of: “If an engineer pulls two socks from his drawer, and there are 33 total socks of 4 different colors, what are the odds he will pull a matching pair without looking?” Answer: If he’s an engineer, no chance.

All kidding aside, I am still good in math, so when people start to provide statistics about anything, I listen with a bit of skepticism. For example, most of us have heard news reports over a holiday weekend that highlight how many traffic deaths have occurred compared to the same weekend in previous years. Sometimes, facts are added like how many of the people who died were wearing seatbelts.

In reality, number of deaths compared year to year doesn’t tell you much. A few more or a few less is normal variability. What matters is looking at all sorts of other data, like how many people were on the road, what is the historical trend over several years, and what has changed in laws and road structure. The number who were wearing seat belts is even less important without knowing how many non-fatal accidents were recorded and the related seat belt stats to compare.

In industry, the US government established standards for measuring and reporting safety in the workplace. The numbers are calculated monthly, reported annually, and are used by some companies to evaluate their managers. There are all sorts of definitions about what must be recorded as an accident, when it becomes a lost time accident, and how to calculate an incident rate based on hours worked. When the definitions change, many managers worry it will impact their numbers.

The truth is, changing the rules of how we measure outcome won’t change the outcome. Taking action changes the outcome.

Here are the numbers that matter:

• How many incidents did you effectively investigate and resolve in the last 12 months?
• What percentage of your employees say that safety in their primary accountability?
• What percentage of your employees would welcome input from their co-workers on how to work more safely?
• What have you done to make the workplace safer this year than it was before?

These are the numbers that matter. These are the numbers that say you are making the choice for safety.

Tell us all how you make things safer where you work.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!

1. The obvious thing – sunblock. You don’t have to be a global warming fanatic to know about the potential damage of your skin due to sun exposure. Use sunblock liberally and frequently. Grease stains are easier to get out than cancers.
2. Eye protection is underrated. Sunglasses can ease significant stress on the eyes, and prevent wear and tear on all the little eye-parts that many of us take for granted.
3. Consume liquids. I saw this being followed, but maybe water to beer in a two-to-one ratio would be a little better. Too much alcohol is a compounding problem – you may get dehydrated and you may also forget item #1 above.

I saw a number of people today neglecting 1, 2, or all 3 of these rules.  You don’t want to be one of them later today. Ouch!

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

The biggest argument against requiring helmet use is that it is not preventive. Education about safe riding can save more lives than the wearing of helmets. Anyone who has ever worked in the safety field would agree that education and training are far more important than protective equipment, but they would also say that both are required.

Anyway, as the post title suggests, you don’t have to take safety precautions! If you live in a state that does require helmets, it is obvious when you are breaking the law. But what about all the other safety precautions that engineers have made for us – can we override them if we wish? You bet you can!

CAUTION – THESE ARE ALL THING NOT TO DO! You may recognize that people do them, but they are increasing the likelihood of accident or injury.

1. Clip ground plugs and adapters. This is less of a problem today than it was 20 years ago, but if you had a three prong plug and no outlets to match, the quickest solution was to clip the grounding part of the plug. You could use an adapter, but unless you grounded the adapter you were doing the same thing.
2. Buckle seat belts. Those annoying bells and buzzers can go away if you just buckle the belt behind you. At least on some cars. They keep making them smarter and smarter you know. Because we still insist on bypassing proven safety methods.
3. Buy bigger fuses. Most of us have breakers in an electrical box somewhere in the house, some still have the old fuses. If a circuit blows the fuse too often you could just put in a bigger  breaker, a bigger fuse, or better yet, a penny!
4. Bring on the extension cords and power strips. As our gadget inventory grows, so does our need for electrical power. What used to only be a problem at Christmas time can plague us all year. Most of us know that overloading an outlet can be a problem, but hey, the breaker will trip of the fuse will blow right? Unless we followed #3.
5. And while speaking of electricity, if the ground fault interrupter in your bathroom or kitchen needs to be replaced, you could replace it with a cheaper normal plug and not have the nuisance of the plug tripping out at times. Double win!
6. Power mower kill switch. Most power mowers today have a bar at the handle that needs to be squeezed for the engine to run. It’s called a dead man switch. If something happens to the operator, the machine won’t keep running. Unfortunately, the operator leaving the machine run while they moved something out of the way or reached to clear an obstacle was frequently the one injured. But don’t worry, you could just use tape or twine to tie it up. Problem solved.

OK, as I stated above – THESE ARE ALL BAD IDEAS! Do not do these things. If there is a safety measure or precaution you don’t like, do not override it. You may not be aware of every aspect that it was created for in the first place. It was not created to annoy you, but to protect you in some way. Sort of like how some people see their parents.

We all override some aspect of our personal safety. I stood on a chair recently (when no one was looking) because I had loaned out my ladder. Bad choice. How about you, when was the last time you consciously chose the less safe alternative?

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

Your personal safety is determined one decision at a time. Sometimes you are dependent on the decisions of others. Other drivers, your doctor, the guy who puts new brakes in your car. But how does your personal decision process work? Do you know? Take a moment to answer these three questions:

1. A ball and a bat cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
3. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

Each of these questions has an incorrect answer that many people quickly come to. In fact, in a study where these questions were posed to over 3,000 college students, the average correct score was1.24 out of 3.

Does this mean our intuition is wrong? It all depends on the models we have in our heads. The concept of doubling every day is a geometric progression, which is not in everyone’s day-to-day thinking. Neither is the concept of production planning. But, in the study, people who got all three answers correct were also more consistent in their risk-taking choices. Risk taking, the acceptance or denial of risk, is ultimately a decision process.

What does all this mean? Well primarily it points to the variability of being human. We are not 100% consistent in all we do, including the way in which we choose to protect ourselves. The reason Health and Safety regulations have become what they are is that people don’t always take precautions they could because they are inconvenient, too costly, too time consuming. When the government steps in and says “you must” then people fear the cost of the certain punishment over the cost of the low-probability potential loss.

Are you an independent thinker when it comes to safety, or do you rely on regulations and on the expectation that all products are designed with our safety in mind?

So you can check your scores, the answers to the three questions are here:

1. The bat is $1.05, and the ball is $0.05.
2. 5 minutes
3. 47 days

If you got all these correct, then you have some pretty clear thinking going on. I hope that extends to your choices regarding safety. Don’t forget, let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

]]> http://saferbychoice.com/2010/04/questions-your-first-answer-correct/feed/ 1 http://saferbychoice.com/2010/04/situations-eitheror-choice-each/ http://saferbychoice.com/2010/04/situations-eitheror-choice-each/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:12:32 +0000 Tim http://saferbychoice.com/?p=730

Do you know much about your own decision processes? Are you risk-averse? We think differently depending on how the choices are stated.

Consider this situation:

You have to choose between either

- an 80% chance of winning $4,000 with a 20% chance of winning nothing

or

- a 100% chance of receiving $3,000

Then look at this situation:

you can chose between

- an 80% chance of losing $4,000 with a 20% chance of breaking even

or

- a 100% chance of losing $3,000

In a formal study, 80% of the people chose the certain outcome in situation #1 ($3,000) even though the gamble had a higher payout.

In situation #2, 92% of the people chose the gamble, even though it’s mathematical expectation of a loss of $3,200 is larger than the certain loss of $3,000. When the choice involves loss of money, we are risk seekers and not risk averse.

These results are similar to people’s views of safety. The risk has to be evident and understandable in order for people to avoid the risk. If it is abstract or unknown, then people are less likely to use the provided protective gear or equipment. In my experience as a driver, for example, I can only recall two times in 40 years when wearing my seat belt mattered. So I could wear it less often and it probably won’t matter. The only problem is, I can’t predict when the next time I should be wearing it will be.

What did your choices to the situations above tell you about your risk aversion? Do you think that your answers were all about the benjamins? Would you have a different view if the content were about four fingers or three fingers?

Next post, we’ll look at two more situations with more serious implications. Will your answers or approach change? We’ll see…

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

Safety is also a word often used to imply security. And many times we feel secure because there is no information to tell us otherwise. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be more secure. Lately, I’ve been thinking about steps and actions that might improve my security, or my safety when it comes to finances. Some are the ones I have been using myself, and others are only more recently coming to mind.

1. Account security. Online banking is great. But how secure is your account? Do you change passwords regularly? Do you use easy to determine passwords? Do you use a common password for most of your accounts or logins? I have had some sort of palm or smartphone device for years, and when I lost one in an airport, I had to set about changing all my passwords, because there was an outside chance someone could crack my password file, and thus get all my passwords. I realized then how weak my plan was. Now I still keep a file on my phone, but it has a password that you couldn’t guess before the file auto-destructs. And all my financial accounts not only have tough passwords, but they have different user names.  Overall, I feel pretty secure.
2. Auto financing. Most people understand that they typical new car loses value when you drive it off the lot. Depending on how much you put down on a car, you may owe more on the car than its re-sale value for the first  two to three years of ownership.  I have a Ford Focus philosophy about cars. What is the least I can spend on a car that is sufficient for my commuting and traveling needs? Keep it maintained, and plan to drive it for 10 years (or longer), and you end of with a pretty good value. I can afford a much nicer car, at least in terms of current cash flow, but every extra dollar I spend now is one I am not saving for retirement.
3. Every extra dollar I spend now is one I am not saving for retirement. Yeah, I know I just said that, but when I consider the implications on my various monthly services – internet, cable, phone, wireless, lawn care, heat, electricity, water, trash removal – I am sure that I could pare those down a bit, and maybe work one or two months less than if I spend at the level I do today.  Spending less now equals more financial security – if I do the right thing with my saved money.
4. Consider the size of your house and mortgage. For me, these two have been increasing through 6 moves over many years. Thirty years of home ownership, and I currently have 24 years left on my mortgage. It doesn’t have to be that way. Its an old paradigm. My wife hit me with this one last week with one question: Why did we buy the house we live in today? I knew the answers, and every one of those answers no longer matter. We have fewer people in the house, we have no interest in the schools, and we have more rooms than we need. Yes, I can continue to live here and pay the mortgage and build equity, or we can find a smaller house that fits our current need, go to a mortgage that is half the size of the current one, and be paid off in 7 years. Not as much equity, but now I can save the money I was paying each month, and not one dollar of that goes to someone’s interest earnings on the money they loaned me.
5. Diversify. We all hear this, and it makes sense, but you need to pay attention to it carefully. Not all savings in one bank, not all investments in one stock. Life expectancy is increasing, spending power of dollars weakens over time, and social security just might not be accurately named – at least the “security” part.
6. Prepare for college, or raise your children to know exactly how they can get college paid for. Here in Georgia, my youngest is benefiting from the lottery in the form of a college scholarship. That means he can use what he and we saved for graduate school, which he will likely consider. There are all kinds of approaches today from 529 plans to pre-paid tuition. Understand the options, and don’t wait too long to decide what your approach as a parent will be.
7. Kick the gadget habit. “I don’t need an iPad, I don’t need an iPad…..”

There are many other important purchases and income opportunities that help define our financial safety. You are in control, every day. Do you have a particularly smart strategy for improving your financial security and safety?

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

It became such an important issue for me that later in my career, when I had a team of about 80 people, I didn’t let a meeting go by without some discussion about safety and the importance of challenging each other over potentially unsafe behavior. One day I began talking about the cost of an accident and one of my people told me he thought that maybe that’s what I was concerned about, saving money. I replied that regardless of what you think of my intent, I offer every employee the opportunity to stop doing work they consider unsafe until we can mutually resolve the issue. How can that be a bad thing?

So at the risk of being all about the money, I recognize that sometimes saving a few bucks is a good motivator for folks. Here are a few ways in which safety can save you money!

1. Practicing good methods around the house with knives, ladders, electricity and stairs can almost guarantee a much smaller chance of heading to the emergency room for a related accident. And under no current or emerging health plan would that be an economical chance to take.
2. Keeping things clean and clutter free not only enhances the value of your home, but reduces the chance of injury and again, those same ER visits.
3. Speaking of clutter, those partially used gallons of paint from all the projects you’ve done over the years could be a problem waiting to happen. Every year or so, someone in your area is having a free disposal day for items just like that. No cost to get rid of them, and no extra fuel for fire or explosion.
4. You know that wobbly old step ladder you got from your grandparents’ house when your father helped them move to a smaller place? It might be the most expensive free thing you have in your house. Throw it away and buy a new one. Yes, this is going to cost you, but think of it as cost avoidance.
5. Have a pest problem in your home? Hire a professional to take care of it. Again, this may sound like a cost, but when you start trying to handle this yourself you are starting by treating the symptom. You may not know where the nest or hive or burrow is. I watched a neighbor go after a hornet’s nest with a power washer one summer evening. It was hanging from a second story eave, just out of reach of the stream, so he imrpovised methods of positioning himself higher. He didn’t get stung at all, but he came so close to falling from the fence he was perched on and it would not have been a minor injury. He was lucky.
6. I know you’ve heard this before, but check tire wear and inflation on all your vehicles regularly. Change those tires before they fail. Don’t wait until the day after the big rain storm when you lost control of the vehicle, do it now.

Safety, like quality, is free. Every dollar spent, along with the right discipline, will save you much more in the long run.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

Before I moved to the Atlanta area, I connected in ATL dozens of times. You don’t even have to travel to or from the south to still find your way to the Atlanta airport as part of your trip. I met a passenger the other day who started her morning in Jackson, MS and was trying to get to Omaha. While it might seem logical that she was in Atlanta at that point, she got there by way of Memphis, and from Atlanta was headed to Milwaukee. Obviously, this is not the path from her original ticket, but once her first leg of the trip got disrupted it went downhill.

Yesterday I was heading to Milwaukee via commuter plane to catch a flight home. We were a little late pulling away from the gate when the attendant informed us that we still had to go through de-icing, and so some of our connections were in jeopardy. Almost everyone on this flight was connecting to somewhere else, and there was this collective groan that emerged with the announcement. It was a groan of discontent. I heard the person behind me ask his row mate, “Do you think that’s really necessary?”.

It was sort of painful to walk up to the gate in Milwaukee and see the jetway pulled away from my Atlanta-bound flight, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

When I buy a ticket, or when my company buys me a ticket, the money spent isn’t just for transportation from point A to point B. I am paying for the gate agents, the airport gate fees, the maintenance of the plane, the luggage handlers, and most importantly, the experienced experts who make the calls regarding the safety of a flight. In a weather situation like yesterday’s, I pay them to make the decision to de-ice, even though it will create scheduling ripples throughout their system. They don’t want to delay flights, but they don’t want disaster either. I sincerely believe that if the people on the plane yesterday could vote on the de-icing process, I would have been on the short end of the vote.

On the other hand, why the airline books tickets with a 25 minute connection, in Wisconsin, in February, is beyond me. The boarding process is underway before you even get there.

Do you have a peeve about safety practices that you believe don’t protect you? Would you want to put plane de-icing up to a vote?  Not me, thanks.

The words rang true for me today: Let’s be careful out there!

Luck is a funny thing. We use the terms good luck and bad luck to signify opposite concepts, but when we use the term “lucky” it is always with the connotation of having good luck. Like when Dirty Harry said to the punk, “you have to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ “.  But are we either lucky or unlucky?

Today I offer a list of things that have remote odds of happening, yet if they do it is usually attributed to good luck or bad luck.

1. Winning a big lottery, like Powerball or Mega Millions. You initiate your luck by buying the ticket first.
2. Having a cancer detected early while still treatable. You have to be proactive with your health.
3. Winning American Idol. You have to have the talent, you have to audition, and you have to outperform (for the most part anyway) all the other contestants.
4. Getting struck by lightning. Your home getting struck by lightning. I knew someone who had that happen. That’s just plain bad luck.
5. Having really bad weather on a day where it is very inconvenient to have bad weather. Your wedding, for example. You can have a plan B, but it still feels like bad luck. My parents were married in Cleveland in the first week of January. It was in the 60′s that day. Good luck I guess.
6. Having a tire go flat on your way to somewhere important like a job interview, a final exam, an appointment you have already had to re-schedule three times. Bad luck, unless of course you knew the tire was low and you had been having problems with it. Then it’s just bad planning.
7. Being in a 1960 Chevy with 8 other kids one night when a driver plows into you from behind at a stoplight. Actually, possibly another case of good luck. Everyone walked away uninjured, probably because we were so tightly packed in there.
8. Getting invited to Tiger Wood’s Apology Conference.

We use “luck” to explain the long-odds outcome, or the unexplainable. But you can’t count on luck. In most bad-luck scenarios, you can look at them afterward and identify the one or two things you could have done differently to avoid the unlucky outcome. Or the things you did that paved the way for luck.

Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!