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Like your thinking Andrew

So I was busy yesterday. Reaching the end of a job interview, I asked the young Safety Advisor fresh out of university, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"

The Safety Advisor said, "In the neighbourhood of $100,000 a year, depending on the benefit's package."

I said, "Well, what would you say to a package of $200,000 a year, 5 weeks holiday, 14 paid stats, full medical and dental insurance, company matching Kiwisaver fund to 10% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years - say, a red Mondeo?"

The Safety Advisor sat up straight and said, "Wow!!! Are you joking?"

I said, "Of course, .....but you started it."

You have me laughing Andrew. Great response to somebody who believes that they can demand such things! Thanks for brightening my day!

So I was giving a tool box talk the other day. You know me – constantly preaching safety at work. Decided to focus on “speed”.

“Does anyone know,” I asked the team, “what the speed limit is in our parking lot?”

The long silence that followed was interrupted when Dave piped up. “That depends. Do you mean coming to work or leaving?”

Perhaps not entirely frivolous but I just wrote a post called "Passion for Safety. Please no!" It's the first in a series I'm calling "10 Health & Safety Myths - those times we smell a rat". I suspect Andrew might have some he can add.

My post: http://public.safetybase.co.nz/passion-for-safety-please-no/

What does the Forum think about Passion. Does it have a place in safety management?

Theres only two places for passion: The fruit bowl and bedroom

And "Fruitcakes" of course.

Thank you @Simon Lawrence and @Andrew. It was only yesterday that I read a description of a H&S professional which included "passionate about H&S". I stopped and felt something wasn't quite right. Having a background in HR and recruitment, I often feel this word is over-used and mis-used. I concur - we need to be more than "a bouncy little rabbit who makes meetings last too long while everyone else studies their fingernails."

And "Cheesecakes".

that has made my morning.

So, I‘ve had a wee accident on site and need to look at my prequal processes.

Harry was high on the scaffold and walked past a bit of protruding gutter. Poor bugger – cut off his ear.

He shouted down to Larry…” Oi! Look out for my ear, I just cut it off”

A bit later Larry calls up to Harry “Hey - is this your ear?”

Harry looks down and says, “Nah! Mine had a pencil behind it!”

Was Harry that legendary builder who threw away half the nails he was using because "The points were on the wrong end"?

He's the one. But he was re-trained to use them on the other side of the timber and all ended well.

Nice article Simon, the majority of which I agree with, however I will challenge you on 'passion for safety', firstly in that there are a number of different definitions of the word passion or passionate.

I have got no issue with proclaiming that I have a passion for occupational health and safety. It is what gets me up in the morning, its what I love to do - working with people and understanding organisations to make work better, and giving it 100%.

There is no smell of a rat, there is drive, ambition and enthusiasm - I am confident this removes the need to study finger nails :)

Good on you Darach. I think it's all in the word "passion". As I said in the post, the word "conviction" works better for me. But if Darach Cassidy is "convinced" about the integration of safety into the mainstream business and he can communicate that in logical, businesslike way, he's a winner.

I'm sensing some seriousness creeping into this thread. This will not do!

So, two Corrections Officers walked into the Café. The first one says "I think I'll have a flavoured slushy H2O." The second one says "I think I'll have a flavoured slushy H2O too" Sadly he died.

Judge: Court in session, bring forth the accused. And what is your name?
Accused: Lost Time Injury Rates m'lud.
Judge: Haven't I seen you in the Safeguard Forum Court several times already? You come before me accused of deceptive practices, absence of meaning and statistical deficiency. How do you plead?
Accused: I ain't done nuffin. It's all lies, misinformation, bias, smoke and mirrors.
Judge: So you agree?
Accused: Yes m'lud. I mean no m'lud. Not guilty.
Judge: Very well then. Who appears for the Prosecution?
Learned Lawrence: May it please Your Honour, 'tis I, Learned Lawrence. Herewith, my Submission:

Lost Time Injury Rates - Dark Arts in the Boardroom

Judge: And who appears for the Defence? No one? In that case, Mr Lost Time Injury Rates, on Frivolous Friday, I will entrust the hearing of the above Submission to any members of the Forum who wish to speak to it. But I warn you that they may or may not speak in support of it.
Accused: But we've done this before. I've got some Boardrooms to go to.
Judge: Yeah, but now we've got a proper Submission. Remain seated.

Sadly I had to fire someone today. One of our people managed a team and a staff member lost three fingers in an electric food mixer.

I’ve done the accident investigation and I found the manager hadn’t done a proper whisk assessment.

I rate LTI data in the same way I rate "Gender Pay Gap" data.

That’s sex-ist, data-ist, paygap-ist, safety-ist and any other “ist” with which I can categorise you Andrew

- I have long argued against LTI as the focal point for measuring safety performance, because in essence LTI / LTIFR focuses attention on failures and only looking in a rear-view mirror.

I have brainstormed a number of possibilities for lead indicators based on activities organisations already are (or should be) doing, which play a part in preventing injuries. It seems many managers are reluctant for whatever reason to challenge the status quo, even though it is not really serving them, and also that many are reluctant to set targets and objectives because they are afraid they won't meet them....which seems to have an underlying lack of confidence about having safety properly managed and / or a sound grasp of risk management principles.

And by lead indicators, I mean those things with clearly defined linkages to safe operations. I have had interesting debates at times about meaningful lead indicators - numbers alone are not a useful way to measure -e.g., one former manager wanted to have a lead indicator as the number of permits issued, which depends entirely on the number of jobs being undertaken that required a permit. It might work if qualified by the number (proportion) of permits issued BEFORE work was started, but not as an absolute number.

That was the same manager who wanted me to update a 'risk maturity model' that assigned numbers - 25, 50, 75 or 100% - based on subjective assessment of completion. I refused to accept the assignment and pointed out that it was reckless and misleading to offer such an assessment to the Board as if it could actually provide meaningful data about organisational risk management!

I rate LTI data in the same way I rate "Gender Pay Gap" data

The recently completed Safeguard income survey reveals a small but encouraging drop in the gender pay gap as it exists in the H&S field. Results will appear in the next mag shortly.
Readers who don't rate such things can of course just skip that bit.

There is no such thing as a "Gender Pay Gap".

It is simply a metric that allows those who are otherwise unemployable an opportunity to work in data analytics which serve no purpose other than give moaners something to moan about and policy wonks an opportunity to create more useless policy.

So we all agree that Boardroom wonks are Boardroom wonks. And the solution is?

In response to an absence of a sense of humour and censorship there will be no more posts from me on the Frivoulous Friday thread.

In response to an absence of a sense of humor and censorship there will be no more posts from me on the Frivoulous Friday thread. — Andrew

I saw a thread a while back on if the forum needs any more sub-forums... maybe we at least need one for "Frivolous Friday" type content to separate it from the "serious" safety conversations!

And I would vote for Andrew to be the moderator for that sub-forum to keep it clean of any "too-serious" content!

Let's get this back on track for @Andrew

In the light of the frivolous discussion, all me to draw your attention to the actions of the late Spike Milligan (loosely adapted from his war trilogy in 6 parts) in book four, "Where have all the bullets gone" he refers to the setting up of a frivolous file that did the rounds of the Admin Team of the Unit he was posted to, the file grew to about 2 inches thick. Anyone familiar with the Military bureaucracy will understand hour such files can do the rounds for months even years... I now see this evolving here... long may it continue :-)

Conducting a toolbox talk I asked the assembled crew if any of them knew more than me about health & safety. One, foolishly, put his hand up. "Good, then you can conduct the toolbox", and I sat down. Lesson learned - put the phone down and pay attention in a toolbox talk.

I have a story of a site supervisor that was feed-up with people just signing the JSA without reading it, so...

One day he gathers his crew around the normal morning toolbox circle to talk about the days work, while the JSA is passed around to read and sign. Once everyone has signed on to the JSA he leads his crew around the corner to a shipping container used to store small parts for the work (valves, bolts, those type of things). Once inside the supervisor stands in the doorway, blocking their escape...
He pulls the JSA back out, hands it to one of the crew and asks him to start reading the tasks details "again"...

"All crew will report to the parts container to collect tools, equipment, parts for the days work; Hazards.... / Controls...."

Next line "Once inside the container all crew will immediately remove their clothes; Hazards - slips/trips/falls.... / Controls...."

..."Once all crew are naked they shall be requi.... :scream:"

After that day no-one on his crew would sign any JSA without first reading the entire thing!

In response to an absence of a sense of humour and censorship there will be no more posts from me on the Frivoulous Friday thread. — Andrew

Don't let the earnest wear you down mate, we'll bombard them with humour and until they bloody well laugh and get the point of this thread.