This page offers a little bit of a background about me and how, in particular, I view the role of a safety guy.
The content was originally intended for a website I'd planned that would circle exclusively around OHS content, so it has a very strong OHS bent to it.
Naturally, there's a shit-load more to me than 'simply' safety stuff but, for now, if you want to gain a basic appreciation of the lens I view the OHS profession view through, read on.
Though I warn you: buckle up for a bit of a read.
I am sitting on the floor (literally) on about the 20th floor of what, to me, was a reasonably swanky central city office tower, talking with John. We are discussing a potential job opportunity which could see me joining a large, international engineering and construction company; who I had not heard of until about three months before. They had recently turned dirt on a large construction project close to Roxby Downs, in South Australia.
John made no promises, but did indicate that if things progressed well enough I could expect a call from them in a short while.
A couple of months passed. Things must have progressed well enough because, eventually, John phoned.
A few more months slide by, then I find myself stepping off a plane, after dark, on a Friday night in a remote mining town in the Australian desert.
The next day will be my first day, ever, on a construction project of any size, anywhere.
No trade background.
Essentially zero construction experience. (Who am I trying to kid? Looking back, it is disingenuous to suggest I had 'essentially' zero construction experience, because that implies I had some construction experience. So, complete disclosure: I had no construction experience, whatsoever.)
I could only offer the most fleeting hint of having had any experience with workplace or occupational safety, based on a few short years of salaried work that followed graduation from University. (Where, for exactly none of those three years was I engaged in any way, shape or form to perform as a 'safety guy').
I have no experience of the Australian outback.
And I am about to check into a construction camp - without any idea about what even that simple act really means. The only camping I had done had been at camping grounds or beside lakes and rivers in New Zealand, with family or mates. I had to wonder, was "construction camping" going to be anything like those experiences?
I wake up at what I soon come to learn normal humans call 'Rude o'clock'. In the construction industry, everybody starts early: 6.00am starts at the coal-face are considered average. And to make sure you're on-site to make that start time? Reverse engineer the equation: you are always waking at 4...something.
That morning I was driven to site, which I later learnt was a tiny (very, very short lived) privilege that reflected my “He's-brand-new-to-absolutely-everything” sympathy status. That status had a shelf-life of exactly one ride into site, because the following next shift saw me bouncing to work in a gun-metal grey construction bus, along with the other thousands of workers.
I meet a few of my new workmates. Some look to be about my age but none of them appear, to me at least, to be behaving anything close to the way I was feeling at that stage: displaying a caught-in-the-headlights appearance I am convinced I was projecting in super crisp, super high definition. Others are older, with most carrying plenty of experience and country miles under their belts.
Ironically, as it eventually turns out, I learn I was not initially engaged to be employed as a safety guy. (After all: where, exactly, is all my safety experience? Circle back to my credentials, to find out). The general office chit-chat that morning concluded that I had been deployed to site to join the project's site-based employee relations team.
However, I eventually found myself buddied-up with the safety guys, an all-male crew at that point.
I didn't meet a safety female representative until about a year later.
Finding myself joining the professional safety community struck me as odd, at that point, for at least two reasons.
First, glance (again) at my credentials, at least as much as they were at that stage of my career. I was not exactly straining under the weight of expansive OHS experience, nor carrying any formal educational experiences I could directly relate to the profession.
And secondly, I feel that those who knew me reasonably well back then would immediately conclude that the absolutely last profession they could see me meshing with would be in the occupational safety space. (Tony? A safety guy? Are we talking about the same Tony here?)
Yet there I was, at the very beginning of my professional safety career. Standing within that safety team, ready to do… something.
Admittedly I did not have a clue what 'doing' safety meant. (And some would argue that, even now, that remains the case). But I quickly developed a sense of what doing safety didn't mean. Here are some of those things.
... and never has been about whaling out a work-crew because you, the observer, believe that what you observed is unsafe or simply that you feel 'you know better'.
To me, 'doing' safety is engaging with people (yes - talking to them. Old school style). Explore why they are doing what they are doing, or conducting themselves the way they are.
Safety is not snooping around a work-site, clipboard in hand, ticking off checklists. Sure, there's a time and a place for formally reviewing things - for me, that's back in the office. When I see clipboard crusaders, I wonder how they would respond if I parked-up alongside their office-cubicle and simply... watched. Voyeuristic?
So, to me, safety meant becoming comfortable enough to know enough about what I was observing to recognise the good, from the not-so-good and the excellent. Then dealing, proportionately, with the second; encouraging more of the first and certainly more of the latter.
Safety has never been about grand-standing on a subject, posturing as The Expert.
Becoming a safety guy meant understanding enough about things to appreciate I don't - and never will - know all there is to know about things, but having enough constitution to influence others, in my own indomitable fashion, to make better decisions. (Which I hope the passage of time will show to be safe decisions).
Safety has never meant allowing work to proceed only if risks are reduced to nil. That reality does not exist. Being a safety guy has required exercising professional judgement and helping work processes to prepare, as best anyone can, with the bumps and turbulence they are likely to face. Helping to build reaction 'Y' to circumstance 'X', while acknowledging that if all hell breaks loose (I'll call that 'Z'), personnel and the reactive systems are empowered and skilled and confident and robust enough to mitigate the consequence of 'Z', as best can be.
I think professionals call that risk management.
So, from my 'done-it-long-enough-to-have-a-decent-feel-for-things-while-acknowledging-that-every-day's-another-learning-day-and-I'll-never-know-it-all' perspective, 'doing' safety is not rocket science.
Admittedly, there is an element of compliance to Rules. (The Act, Regulations, Codes.... etc). Operating a legitimate business in Australia is an admission to working to those rules.
But, compliance safety is simple. If a Rule states you shall do 'n', then do 'n'. (Or, don't. But be prepared for the truly uncomfortable questions if things go south).
The other - far larger - piece of the Safety pie is risk management: to which I refer you back to my X-Y-Z paragraph.
And finally, I suggest that safety ultimately means doing whatever it is you are doing, as well as you can. Which means that in a space such as the business realm, safety is little more than doing whatever it is your business does, as well as you can. Do things safely and I believe you will, by default, be doing things well. And if you are doing whatever your business is designed to produce (or, serve) well, chances are you've got a great business.
So you won't need to think about doing things safely: but do things as well as you can.
The boffins who know way more about websites than I ever will tell me this site uses "cookies". If you're OK with that, click Accept. If not, click Decline. Either way, you can still get into the site, and nothing weird happens no matter what option you choose.
If you're reading this you've obviously found yourself here so, welcome. But... to reinforce the warning I whacked onto the home page, this site's content is likely to be beige to 99.9% of people. (And it's designed for an unusual audience of three). But, I believe it takes all sorts, so everyone's welcome here and maybe you'll find some value buried in its pages.