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Morning confessions, afternoon daydreams, and evening wind-downs. |
| Been several days, but here's the newest guy to add to the list. Yes, every industrial place has a safety guy, and everyone hates him. Well, most of us do. Oddly enough, I wound up marrying one of ours and she's terrific despite her being a blind bull in a china shop when she was in a power plant. Sorry, honey, but you were a trainwreck at work. The safety guy. The one guy that actually cares whether or not you go home whole, or in an installment plan. Everyone hates him because he knit picks, but if it weren't for him, we'd be dead. Seriously. We're stupid, and we need roadblocks for us lemmings that would otherwise jump off the cliff were it not for the safety guy. I had a recent discussion with our safety guy and it went as one might expect it to go. To give context, I turned a valve, and while I did it, I hurt something. My shoulder popped, or pulled, or cracked, or something, bottom line is it hurt. Whatever, I'm a steelworker. We're tough. But this was a different kind of hurt—a bone hurt. Something was like, not in the right spot. Alright. Whatever. I finished my shift, taking care to not anger my shoulder, and took it easy when I got home. The next day, it hurt like hell. OK, now I know something is worse than I thought. I told my supervisor about it, and oddly enough the same day I did that, another of my coworkers broke his finger. Bad day for the supervisor, and the safety guy. It must suck being in charge of morons. Anyway, I turned in my incident report and went to urgent care at the end of the day to get checked out. It was a mild strain and I needed to keep it iced and apply some cream that had a lot of syllables. Sure, no problem. I was just glad it wasn't something worse. That said, the safety guy caught up with me in a few days and asked me to recap what happened: 1.)Closed a Valve 2.)Ouch That's all. That's really all. I didn't bump anything, I wasn't struck, and I didn't fall. I just closed a valve. His response: "What can we do to make this safer for you guys?" Bless his heart. Seriously. I was a bit perplexed by the question, but I settled on an answer that was a bit of a hard pill to swallow: "Buddy, I'm almost 40. That's it. I'm not a spring chicken anymore, I'm a summer chicken. I'm just starting to fall apart is all." "Well, there has to be something we can do to make this safer." Granted, maybe he's right, but seriously, it's just a valve, and I'm not old, but I'm not young either. I'm that weird in-between age, like those nice looking square body trucks that look good on the outside, then you crawl underneath. There's all kinds of shit wrong. Granted none of it's horrible, it just needs some TLC. That's me. I don't have a way to word that to a twenty something, and granted, I imagine you fifty and sixty somethings might have a thing or two to say to my complaints, but I'm sure you understand. I'm at that event horizon now; the point of no return. In 10 years, doctors are gonna be on speed dial. Again, whatever. But bless the safety guy's heart. He wanted a suggestion for a safer way to shut a valve. You know what it is? Be younger. That's all. Still he tries, and honestly he tries hard. He's a damn good guy that actually cares. And so for you safety guys that are in it to make sure us idiots go home every day, thank you. I appreciate your work!   |
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