Accidents are never funny. And the picture of the broken chair can give you an idea of how serious this could have been.

I immediately tweeted her back asking why she didn’t routinely check her chair. “I need to do that?” she wondered.

I’ve worked around equipment my whole career, and it is easy to see how a lawn mower or a bulldozer can be dangerous, but you rarely think of office furniture as hazardous. Have you ever:

1. Sat in a chair with a missing wheel?
2. Rocked back in a four legged chair and balanced on the back two legs?
3. Left a file or desk drawer open?

These are the obvious examples. Teresa found out that the failure was the screws stripped out of their plastic anchor points.

Anything with moving parts wears. Mostly, wear is a slow and nearly invisible process, almost like aging. But it happens. Anything that you use that has moving parts is worth inspecting once in a while.

So before you sit in that office chair next time, take a few seconds to make sure it’s safe. I’m pretty sure Teresa will.

Each tool brings us an advantage. In physical terms, it is usually a mechanical advantage. But never a thinking advantage. Tools sometimes make us think less. We don’t always anticipate what could go wrong if we use the wrong tool or use a tool in the wrong way. A screwdriver is not a lever or a chisel. A wrench is not a hammer.

Sharpest tool in the drawer

One of the most frequently used tools in any house is a knife. A sharp edge. Table knives. Steak knives. Knives to cut vegetables or remove the skin from fruit. A knife for spreading putty. A knife used in scrapbooking. A pocket knife. A hunting knife. A utility knife, which is usually a handle with replaceable razor blades.

All these knives were designed for specific purposes. Each one should be used as designed, and the user should make sure they are always cutting in a way that does not endanger them or those around them. Use the knife that is sharp enough for the job, has the right length, and that you can apply sufficient pressure to cut with. Sounds easy enough, right?

In my experience, the utility knife is the most mis-judged knife of all those above. In using a utility knife, people frequently use too much pressure so they can get the cut done. High amounts of force, applied to a fine edge, can often lead to a slip that could result in injury. In industries where these knives are used routinely, employees are taught proper cutting techniques, given cut-proof or cut-resistant gloves to wear on their non-cutting hand, and even given careful instruction on how to change the blade when it is too dull to properly cut.

If I buy that same knife at Home Depot, I won’t get that instruction. I might read the warnings, but they won’t all come to mind each time I pick the knife up. And a cut-proof glove? They’re a little pricey for the amount of time the average home owner might ever use the knife, so they don’t get purchased and kept with the knife.

Last week, I had to replace the thermostat in my home. A simple job, but it required a couple of short jumper wires. Three inches long with about three-quarters of an inch bare wire on each end. I couldn’t find my wire strippers – the tool that is designed to do exactly this task. And it does the task well with minimal risk. I did find my utility knife, and with careful consideration and deliberate action, used that tool to strip the wires. To do it safely took some effort. I didn’t just hold the knife to the insulation and cut toward the end. Too much possibility of nicking the wire or slipping and cutting something else. Work was done without injury. It just took longer and involved more risk.

Risk, ultimately, it the thing we are willing to trade for expediency. Does that make sense to you?

The next time you are faced with compromising on tool use, ask yourself what the true compromise is. As what you are giving up or willing to risk in order to get the job done. And if you have employees that you are accountable for, ask yourself if you would be willing to allow them the same risk.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

When I worked in a facility that put these in place, I had the pleasure of working with one of those creative genius types. This guy had incredibly good concepts, and a ton of energy to help deliver them. Frequently, however, he was seen as just plain crazy.

My favorite part of new employee orientation was when he was called in to teach the importance of the safety obligations. He had a unique way of demonstrating the first obligation – We are obligated to refuse to do work we cannot do safely.

After explaining the concept of the obligations, and defining the first one, he would ask for a volunteer to step forward. He would walk over to a desk on the side wall and open the top drawer. He explained that this was new, super-safe office furniture. It had two safety systems built in. The first was a sensor that would keep the drawer from closing if something was not completely in the drawer. Second, if there were a sudden movement, as if to slam the drawer, it would lock up just like a seatbelt does when there is a sudden pull. These safety features, he would explain, would assure that no one could get their hand caught in an office desk drawer, a frequent form of office injury.

Then, he would open the drawer and ask the volunteer to stick his hand into it so he could show how the systems worked. Sometimes, the person would just do it, and other times they would hesitate. If they said, “I refuse to do that” he would say “but it’s not unsafe, I just explained to you the safety systems that are built in”. At this point, regardless of what the volunteer did, he helped them see the most important aspect.

Even if you think you are protected, that doesn’t mean the protections can’t fail.

What people learned in this training was the importance not only of refusing to do work that could not be done safey, but also of refusing to take any risk that they don’t have to. Reaching into the drawer to help demonstrate the safety systems is not necessary. Plus, the systems can fail.

The real importance of this first obligation is recognizing that none of us need to take unnecessary risk. Just because someone in authority asks you to do something, you still need to think for yourself. Can I do that thing safely?

Well, can you?

Thanks, and lets be careful out there.

I’ve worked around big machines my whole life. Machines don’t kill people, but people die from making mistakes while working with them. Machines are totally unforgiving of human error, which is unfortunate because quite honestly, most of us are likely to err each day.

In the snow and ice we had in Atlanta a few weeks back I took this picture of icicles on my roof. Most of the icicles formed exactly as you might expect. Built by the pull of gravity, narrow at the low end with a broad base holding them to the gutter. Most were straight, and they were of varying lengths. But what about the one in the picture? Why the odd forked formation? Was it the result of an air pattern from the nearby bathroom vent that caused two streams to form? Or maybe it was the way the tree branches shaded some of them in parts of the day but not others.

If I had a goal to have no icicles form, I lost control. I would have had to put some heating wires on the roof or the gutters to assure that anything that melted didn’t re-form as ice.

If I had a goal to have identical, perfect vertical icicles, then there, too, I lost control. I may not have been able to prevent this formation, but I could have stopped it before it grew to two distinct legs.

And in safety, we try to control those things, which we have learned through experience, could result in injury or property loss. We see something that looks a little out of control, and we try to adjust it back to normal. When we are well trained, we don’t look for the failure, but we look for the potential for failure. We see things developing that could take us out of control and try to restore order.

When a person is injured or killed in a mahinery related accident, people will frequently say it was a random event. I worked with someone who received a bad hand injury reaching into a machine. He thought that he could do it safely, and had done it without incident hundreds of times. But this one time, there was a factor that was different. Not a major factor, but enough to cause a different outcome. You might say it was a random event, but what wasn’t random was his action. It was planned and reapeated time and again, just without consequence.

Do you see someone do something around machinery that makes you uncomfortable? Are you afraid to challenge them because of their experience doing the job? What if the unexpected happens? Will they walk away or is there a possibility that they could be seriously or fatally injured?

Random events. The definition is clear – you don’t know what and you don’t know when. Something is going to happen. We can’t control that, but we can control how prepared we are for possible events, and what precautions we take to stay out of Harm’s way. And to stay out of the way of his cousin, Potential Harm.

Watch out for random. Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

So why is that? Because human failure is interesting. Even when we are feeling down, we can find someone out there who had more opportunity and more advantage than we may have had, and they blew it totally.  We have FailBlog, not VictoriousBlog, and countless videos on YouTube demonstrating failed human effort.

Living in New York State in the 1990′s, we used to play the lottery quite often. Even matched 5 out of 6 numbers once for a little more than $2,000. This is in the days before multi-state lotteries with the PowerBall or MegaBall features that start at $12 million. I think the starting prize in New York was a mere $3 million.

So, my wife liked to play the same six numbers: her month and day of birth, my month and day of birth, and the month and day of our anniversary. Six numbers, easy to remember, and it was not unusual for her to ask me to stop and buy a ticket with “our numbers” on my way home.

This connects to safety, I promise.

Lottery odds are spectacularly bad, but the cost of a ticket is low. I can bet those numbers for $1. And if I won 5/6 like I did, I could make that bet for several years over, hoping to take that big win and make it bigger. I just have to buy a ticket.

Odds are long, and I played in hopes to win. But I bought the ticket, even though I am not likely to win. As they say, you have to be in it to win it.

In safety, we have nearly the same issue. I can perform unsafe acts that all have long odds in terms of resulting in injury, and I’m not likely to ever get hurt. I could hold the knife incorrectly and cut toward myself. I can use a chisel without safety goggles. And when I do that, I’m buying a ticket. I’m buying a greater chance to be hurt.

Lottery – Highly Improbable Favorable Outcome (HIFO), I have to consciously decide to buy the ticket.

Safety – Highly Improbable Disastrous Outcome (HIDO), I consciously and unconsciously buy tickets.

In Part 2 – What if I bet the wrong number?

Here are the tools I have seen mis-used the most in my life.

1. Screwdrivers – This simple tool is designed to translate force to rotate screws into and out of materials. there are several types, the most common being the phillips head and the slotted or regular. We use them as a pry bar, especially to open paint cans or put a bike tire on its rim. Not a good idea. At times we use them for the right thing, but we hold the object we are working on in a way that when the screwdriver slips, we could get a cut or even a puncture wound. Ouch!
2. Hammers – One person I know calls a hammer a “16 ounce wrench” because he uses a hammer to adjust things – to beat them into submission. Again, we use this tool mostly for what it was designed for, but many people don’t take the time to don even an inexpensive pair of safety glasses to provide protection from flying nails or materials that chip when they are hit.
3. Pliers, Channel-lock pliers, and any adjustable wrench. These tools are great, but their misuse can lead to aggravation. The biggest problem is using these tools for working with nuts and bolts. Anything other than socket wrenches, open-end wrenches or box wrenches used on a bolt head will compromise the geometry, making it harder to ever use the correct tool and creating sharp burrs. They also are prone to slipping, which leads to knuckle injuries.
4. Kitchen knives – When used to open that UPS package or as a pry bar to get those AA batteries loose from the remote, you are damaging the integrity of the blade, and making it less reliable when called upon to do the work you have it for. And that is when the knife slips off the green pepper and into your finger.
5. Scissors – Do you have one of those drawers in your house that is the repository for miscellaneous tools? I’ll bet the scissors in there are the most mis-used tool in the drawer. Mostly because they are used so frequently that they end up becoming the easiest thing to grab. Generally mis-used the same way a knife is. Here, the danger is in how we handle them when we start using them for alternative purposes.

Getting the right tool for the job is critical. Using it correctly is just as important. Do you have an experience where you didn’t think about the misuse of a tool until an accident happened? Let us all know about it, you might save us from injury.

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!

If he had fallen a little bit to one side or other of the roots, he may have been bruised but OK. Bad luck was hitting the roots, bad choice was trying to reach too far. We should have gotten down and moved the ladder to where we needed it to be. I think of this every year when I get out the big ladder to do my Christmas lights.

Anyway, there are a few moments of personal safety that I would like back. None of them had serious consequences, but the outcomes could have been much worse. I can’t be lucky forever!

1. When Mikey Franco encouraged me to take the short-cut path down the hill to the valley by my childhood home. I tumbled, rolled, and screamed, and in the end I had a few scratches and bruises. It was not a short fall. It could have killed me.
2. When I drove my VW hatchback into the side of another car that had spun out on the freeway in a snowstorm. By the time I saw the other car, the best I could do is try and steer between the car and the guardrail, but steering wasn’t really working. I was driving too fast for the weather. Seatbelts saved my life.
3. When I was installing some new equipment early in the engineering part of my career. Long hours and frequent changes to machine adjustment led me to reach in where I shouldn’t have. I walked away with a contusion, and I’ve seen others lose fingers doing the same thing.
4. Driving in another snowstorm 10 years later because we had tickets to see a play in Schenectady. Nothing happened. It was just stupid.
5. Driving after alcohol consumption. I did it, more than a few times. But one time in particular I’d like to have back. Not because of anything that happened, but when you don’t remember how you got home, and you realize you drove, that’s just wrong. That was over 30 years ago and taught me a lot.
6. Oh yeah, and the time I picked up the hot end of a just-burned-out sparkler. You never do THAT twice, but wish you had never done it in the first place.

All things considered, I’ve been pretty lucky when I’ve made bad choices. How about you? Any do-overs?

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!

When my son was first driving, he told me he thought he was a good driver. I told him he was, but that the real test is how he would handle the vehicle and himself when the unexpected happens. A tire failure. An animal runs in front of the car. Driving in a snowstorm. Now he’s 27, and he’s a better driver than he was before, because he’s gained experience and learned from that. He’s had many “moments of choice” when he had to call on his knowledge or experience to turn into the skid, or ease slowly to the side of the road, or take whatever maneuver the situation may have called for.

If you are in a job that has anything to do with people, especially leading or training them in any way, safety is part of your profession, whether you acknowledge it or not. You are in a position to help prevent accidents and injuries. For you, the moment of choice is happening constantly. You are looking at the equipment, the machinery, the workers, the office, the conditions all around you and trying to make them all flow together in a way that is good for your business. And the safest possible way is good for business.

Have you had a moment of choice today? I’ll bet you have. It may have been a choice regarding taking that cell phone call in the car, or even considering reading or answering a text message while driving. Maybe it was walking through a factory, you saw someone doing something that could be done with far less risk, and you took the time to point out the alternative, or you chose not to.

Did you have a moment of choice this week that you can point to as one that made a big difference, either for your own safety or those you work with? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

1. Litigation. There are lots of sites that tell you of the stupidest warning labels on things. Like the stroller warning that tells you to make sure there is no child in the stroller before folding it for storage (find this and similar warnings here).  As a result things are made safer all the time, and we become less sensitive to failures that could happen. Good that things are made safer, bad that we become less responsible for outcomes.
2. Legislation. Safer cars, safer braking, safer restraint systems – all good. OSHA regulations – also good. Thinking that as long as I follow the rules all the laws protect me – not so good. There will never be enough legislation (I hope) to force everything to be idiot-proof. As I’ve heard it said, we are always making better idiots.
3. Over-Parenting. How much is too much? Almost every parent finds themselves in a situation where their child is hurt and wonders what they could have done or should have done differently. I didn’t make a point of stepping in the way of my kids for everything they wanted to do that I felt was not totally safe, but I did say “NO” when they wanted to play on a friend’s trampoline, which the parents had placed way too close to the side of their house. Even when you try to prevent something, your child may try it anyway and will then learn that you were correct or that you were just too cautious.
4. We’re busy. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of hearing about texting while driving. It’s a bad idea, don’t do it. But in the rush to get through our busy day, it can easily feel like sending this one very important message can be done safely. Busy-ness is not a good excuse for safety shortcuts.
5. Convenience. I’ve stood on chairs hundreds of times in my life. But now when I need to clean the ceiling fan or change a ceiling light, I get out the ladder. It takes more time, but it is markedly safer.

We can’t eliminate all risk. But we can learn to do a better job of assessing risk and making choices that will lead to safe outcomes nearly all the time.

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!

In the skit, the SNL anchor is interviewing another pilot who acknowledges Sully’s heroic effort, but is a little bitter. Why? Because he learned how to avoid the birds.

I’m not a pilot, but I would think that if Sully could have avoided the birds, he would have. This was not a 4-wheel drive truck going 35 miles an hour when a child’s ball rolled into the street. This was a massive airplane. There is no traction in air for quick maneuvers or an easy way to swerve away from the danger – I don’t think. But the idea was still interesting to think about.

In industrial safety, as I have written before, an accident is frequently discussed afterward with the use of the word “luck”. Sometimes good luck is at play, and sometimes bad luck. It was bad luck that the flock and that airlane were on intersecting flight patterns. It was good luck that Sully happened to be a student of exactly that type of landing. Another pilot may have been able to do the same thing, or maybe not.

The pilot on SNL seemed to think that the skill of avoiding the birds is what should be acknowledged.

Do you have someone with a knack for not getting hurt? They seem to avoid the dangers? Or maybe they just know more about spotting the problems and steering clear. It might be that you have something to learn from them.

Oh, and for the record, I think Sully is a real hero. Not for making the landing, but for being ready to do just that. For caring enough about his work to know what to do when the unexpected happens.

Let’s be careful out there.