COME TAKE A LOOK AT THIS IDIOT!

Every so often I scroll through the posts on my feed looking for interesting articles. Most of my contacts are from the safety profession, so it’s a pretty regular occurrence to find a post about a new OSHA regulation or a debate about industry best practices. While those topics are usually helpful and even interesting sometimes, I also stumble upon the “what’s wrong with this picture” thread more times than I would like. Through these armchair quarterback exercises people who work in safety tend to perpetuate the “Safety Cop” stigma we all say we’d like to escape.

If you’re unsure of what I’m alluding to, just think of any “Darwin Award” or “Safety Fail” slide show you may have seen over the years. The kind where some unsuspecting worker is being held upside down by his ankles on top of a roof or using a 5-gallon bucket for a hard hat. Today, the picture that caught my eye was a worker holding a chop saw. He was looking down at some new concrete, apparently preparing to make a cut. He deserved some credit for wearing a reflective vest, but no other signs of PPE were visible in the picture and his pants looked closer to the pajama variety than workwear. While I do believe that pictures can be powerful learning aids, and its true that examples of what not to do can have a big impact, there seems to be a couple things wrong with the tone of these types of posts.

Aside from the fact that it’s pretty disparaging to take a picture of “some idiot” doing something unsafe, the first problem I have with these internet discussions is the fact that there is even a picture to discuss. I remember sitting in an OSHA 10-hour class years ago while the instructor (an OSHA compliance officer) clicked through his prized collection of violation photos. One particularly cringe inducing image showed a worker in mid-fall after having stepped through a floor opening. The instructor explained that the worker landed two levels below and ended up with two broken legs. As he revealed in how it was a one-in-a-million shot and perfect timing, one student raised his hand and asked, “why didn’t you yell at him to stop?”

The second issue I have are the smug assumptions of all my fellow enlightened safety professionals. Most of the time, the analysis of these images comes from people who weren’t there and don’t know the context. Amazingly, however, they see fit to pass judgement. I won’t say that some of the observations of egregious safety issues are incorrect and I certainly wouldn’t try to argue that the person in any of these given photos isn’t being unsafe. My point is that it seems to be in our nature to judge action independent of circumstance. When it comes to a person’s health and safety in the real world, that mentality might just mean a missed opportunity to coach, learn, and maybe even prevent an injury.

The takeaway from this might seem a little obvious, but as we start off a new year I think it’s worth mentioning. It shouldn’t need to be said, but occasionally we all need to be reminded to simply to meet people where they are. You may notice someone doing something unsafe, incredibly stupid, or even idiotic but there’s always a reason for that behavior. Stop the person from hurting him or herself, but then try to figure out why they were behaving that way in the first place. Approaching safety “violations” with a questioning attitude will always yield a better outcome than condemnation. You might even learn something unexpected along the way.