Complacency

Complacency

We all take things for granted. Basic things, simple things. It’s normal, isn’t it? We live in a routine, for the most part, and the more routine, the more dependable the thing is, the more you stop noticing it.

For instance, you don’t really notice each time you take a breath, do you?

You don’t notice the pavement you walk on, unless you trip because something has caused the pavement to twist or buckle, right? You expect the pavement to be relatively uniform in height and so you get accustomed to lifting your feet a predictable number of inches off the ground with each step. Then you stumble because the height has changed, even just a little bit.

Routine can be good like that. It can, at its best, free up your mind for other things. When you’re walking, you can be thinking about anything you want because you already know that the pavement doesn’t require anything even close to your full attention to be able to keep on moving along.

Working safely is not easy, nor is it automatic. We have to work at it with the highest degree of awareness. If we just stop for a moment and think we all can come up with instances that we did become complacent. It happens to us because we perform many functions on an almost continuous basis.

Many of our jobs are repetitive in nature, and the more we repeat what we are doing, the better the chance that we are becoming complacent without even realizing it.

Therein lies the potential danger, the danger of complacency.

We must remember that life is what happens, when we are making other plans.

We become complacent about our personal safety by repeated exposure to situations without consequence.

We take shortcuts and with the absence of consequences, cause us to become more casual about our personal safety, in other words we are becoming complacent.

Personal safety is not like a light switch that you can turn on or off.

The personal safety switch must continuously be in the on position.

Just because we feel safe, does not mean we are safe.

On the contrary, “feeling safe all the time”, could be the biggest threat to our well being, because we are drifting into that complacent mode.

One key to avoid the complacency trap is to form “safety habits”. Habits that you do over and over until they override your former unsafe behavior and become automated. Habits such as, wearing gloves, glasses, proper foot wear, safety harness on and ready to tie off, face shield when grinding, removing tripping hazards, attending safety meetings and paying attention, using seat belts, tying off a ladder etc etc.

Is it not better to form these types of automatic habits, and let them become the norm?

There is an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt. To paraphrase, I would say that, familiarity breeds complacency.

Let’s work in a manner that we ensure we do not fall into the complacency trap.

Complacency is a self-satisfied state of mind oblivious to any danger present. We regularly experience complacency in our personal lives and at our jobs.

The key is being cognizant of its existence and the measures we can take to offset any negative consequences. The places we feel the most familiar with can be the most perilous because the menace is not so obvious to us. When we feel confident the environment is stable, we often forget things are subject to change and become precarious in an instant. We must learn to react and interact with our surroundings to ensure we are alert to the possibilities of catastrophe.

Complacency is an attitude that determines how we respond to given situations. How many times have we heard the statement, “We have always done it that way!” Of course, it must be right if it has stood the test of time and repetitiveness. Not necessarily true! The very fact it is repeated often can draw us into the complacency trap—we learn to expect proven results until one day, the outcome changes for the worse.

Complacency is a known problem and must be clearly recognized as a causal factor in accidents.

There is no cure for complacency, but we must be ever diligent in our prevention efforts.