Career Path > Safety

Safety

<< < (9/18) > >>

Already Gone:
Oh!  That one gives me heart burn.  Even back in the Navy, when I wasa assigned to my third boat, I came up against a lot of unorthodox practices that were a problem to me (and later were a problem for the NPEB too) that everyone pulled out that tired old line to justify.  To this day, every time I hear it I go apoplectic.  Really, if "that's the way we've always done it " were a legitimate reason for anything we would be:

-heating our homes by burning lumps of peat
-plowing fields with mules
-throwing our excrement into the gutter (out the window)
-healing our ills with leeches
-writing with sharpened feather quills
-reading by candle light
-washing with lye soap
-churning our own butter
-doing laundry in a stream with a rock
-carrying water into the house in a bucket
-dueling with flintlock pistols because somebody said something we didn't like (smiting is so much more civilized)
-dueling with swords because pistols were never invented
-bathing weekly -- or never
-dying of old age at 40

There are a lot of things to be said for progress.  But, "that's the way we've always done it" isn't one of them.

Already Gone:
Someone just reminded me that there are about 48 different hazardous chemicals or chemical compounds for which dosimeters are available.  So, you can survey the concentrations with Draeger tubes, hang a passive dosimeter on the workers' shirts, quantify the risk level and exposure to that risk.  Pretty much follows the same argument.  You can measure and track exposures to health hazards, but there is no meter to quantify the exposure to risk of someone who is exposed to a bodily-injury hazard.

Already Gone:
Yeah, I get it.  You can measure just about anything.  My point, which seemed obvious to me before, but not so much anymore, is that immediate risk to life and limb cannot be quantified or tracked with numbers, therefore are not as highly regarded as risk by the workers.  The paradox is that while a worker will take measures to prevent his dosimeter from alarming, he will expose himself to a greater, more immediate risk without consideration for the consequences.  If it can kill you dead right now, you'll do it.  If it has a statistical probability of 0.00000000001 of increasing your probability off illness, you'll make me show you reports, permits, surveys, sample results, and measurement data and STILL claim that I'm hiding some information that could affect your health.

I have literally had a crew of nearly 100 people stop work because they were in a condenser and someone told them that Hydrazine is used in the feedwater that eventually finds its way into the turbine as steam and then into that same condenser.  Every one of them left the condenser and sat in their trailer until I explained to them the minute details of Hydrazine use in nuclear power plants.  Try to get a single one of them to wear a harness or even check the confined space permit for the ACTUAL hazards that affected them directly.  Not gonna happen.

let-it-ride:
My experience with 'safety' is that even though it is talked about almost every day and having monthly safety meetings when everyone has a free lunch, it is only followed when there is no other choice. Mostly this is with the DOE. (a totally corrupt organization, in my view)
I was on a job when the safety person called a stop work because of safety concerns involving high levels of ammonia. The supervisor told the safety person to leave the area. Then called another safety person to get the results that he wanted so work could continue. This is only one example, and I can give many more when the people working for the DOE do what they are told. Mainly because the workers are 'locals' and will do what they are told to keep their job.
That also goes to the so called "RCT supervisors and RPM's. I worked at a site when both of them said they will do what they know is wrong to keep their job.
Hey,when you are making more than $2000 a week to just show up, why should they care what happens? They are there for a pay check. After all, nothing bad will happen, things ALWAYS get swept under the rug. It has been like this for years.
I know, I know, this isn't what many want to hear, but this is what goes on from the East coast to the West coast.
The bottom line is to get the job done because everyone that lives in the area hates you and expects you to make them feel safe and happy, because they want the area to be made like it was when no one was there.
Am I wrong??

mostlyharmless:
I agree to a degree. The percentage that will do the right thing regardless is small.We have a term where I work:"load the boat". It means to get as many people and levels of management involved with the decision so that responsability is spread. This is not the same as working safely or establishing a safety oriented work culture. But it does give you a little latitude to resist committing to some thing you know to be wrong or unsafe. A lot of what you describe is true. But here at SRS it is changing, however slowly. I was born here,my father worked here. I left and went on the road. When I first showed up here I was treated as an outsider. I took considerable pride in the fact that my work ethic and skill level was a bit different than the house techs. Any way, now I am thoroughly entrenched in the current culture and must do what I can to make it better, or rather reflect what I feel to be better. There is allways a bit of company line to be towed, but not at the expense of the health and well being of my coworkers and self or the adjacent community. After all , we are safety professionals and as such must behave with a minimum of regard to a work ethic. That being defined to some degree by the job title radiation protection,rad safety, health physics. Operations have to have the same regard to safety. I don't mean do as little as possible in regards to safety, but that in that our jobs are safety in nature a minimum consciousness of safety is inherent in performance of the job. To take a dose rate is at least self preservation.
We all so what we do as a job,for money. And so we obligate ourselves to the company to some degree. But there are a lot of resources available to protect us from pressure to compromise safety. First there is personal responsability. Failing that or if this leads to conflict with up line management,then see the code of federal regulations. First look at written, published company policy and procedure. These are based on CFR and stand on safety analysis and authorization basis's. Witch is another topic I wish someone would talk about. Probability, and safety analysis. My point is that you do not have to feel like your job is in jeopardy to defend the high ground. You just have to stand your ground and be able to explain your actions or inactions. Every one has stop work authority,theoretically. Use it. It wont make you popular but it may make the system better. Hopefully it wont come to that. Hopefully you can alter the course of work before the job starts.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page