The Chestnut Burr: Go Safely & Prosper 2

Yes, I am an employee of AT&T and the following is my opinion...

     This is a follow-up blog to my last one concerning safety. It is here, if you would like to refresh your memory. None of the items in that blog have been addressed! I talked to the Vincent Mayor about the 110vac line tied to the telephone cable. He said that he would like to help, but money was a problem right now. So in the City of Vincent, money trumps safety!

     This week, our area has been invaded by the safety gestapo. They drive around looking for technicians commiting a safety sin so they can burn them at the stake. Kind of like a salem witch hunt. Wouldn't it be much better if we focused on doing a quality job and helping the customer, instead of always hunting the rule breakers? I mean really... You put a system in place to make everyone run fast from job to job, and you don't think they'll cut corners to make their numbers???

Put your hardhat on in this circumstance...
Always put an orange cone out in front and back of your vehicle... ALWAYS!
Always WEAR your nighttime reflective vests!
Keep your aerosol cans upright and with the labels facing front... CAPS ON!
Where is your voltage detector soldier? ALWAYS KEEP IT WITH YOU!
And Where are your Papers??? SHOW THEM TO ME!

My least favorite is the cone thing. I'm sorry, customers even laugh at us for that one. "Son, you don't have to put those out here in the yard." "Yes maam I do, they'll lay me off if they catch me parked without cones out" "Why?" "Well, they say it keeps kids out from under our trucks" "Sneaky little devils, maybe I should get some for the buick... ran over three last week!"

   I don't know if you've noticed, but good business practices get copied by others. If your business starts something that others like, it won't be long till everyone is doing it! Why don't we see others using cones when they park?

Does UPS do this when they stop? Of course not, it would take up too much time. I used a stopwatch today and put my cones and chocks out in 30 seconds. I picked them up and made the safety circle around my vehicle in a little over 40 seconds. So, if I stop five times on each trouble, and I go on five troubles each day, that would subtract about 30 minutes/day that I could be doing other things. Now, granted I would probably put out some for WAP(work area protection) at times, but still, that is several minutes each day!

Do we ever see customers using this practice? I'll bet if you looked in any parking lot or practically anywhere private vehicles are parked, you will not see this!

If you go back to the original purpose of traffic cones, they are for work area protection. They are not "child repellents"! Kids aren't hiding in the bushes trying to crawl under our trucks. It makes for good stories but the statistics just aren't there. The circle of safety concept was originated by Hubert Tipton. I worked for Hubert several years ago, he was a good supervisor. However, the circle of safety needs to go away! Why put cones out in the middle of a pasture? Since we use them for something they're not designed for, traffic can become blase to their placement! It's not even a practice that is company wide, the southeast seems to hold on this for some unknown reason. If it's to spot us easier, paint our trucks orange!

Speaking of orange, let's talk about the orange vest thing. I've read the OSHA rules which require various classes of vest for different highway speeds. I wholeheartedly concur that safety vest should be worn in traffic areas, regardless of speed. However, we took the highest rating speed vest and made it manditory to wear whenever leaving the vehicle. At least that was my last supervisor's interpretation. I spent the majority of this hot Alabama summer sweating unnecessarily! Wearing a vest keeps heat close to your body. The only time we could take the vest off was when entering a house or business. The lastest ruling is that I have to wear the vest if I'm in the road "right of way". That's like using common sense again. I guess it does happen.

An OSHA field agent, said that she had no problem with the orange shirts we wear. They would not be correct at night because of no reflectivity. So actually, in most instances(except for higher speed traffic) orange shirts serve the same purpose. The colors are very close, as you can see in this picture.

I wish that our emphasis could shift from headhunting over safety and quantity(MSOC) to encouraging quality and a customer first attitude. If we had teams riding around looking for quality issues they might find things like this...