FIGJAM Safety
I get one of these silly dumb memes in my inbox each week. Yet on going evidence of the unprofessional dumb nature of Safety.
Nothing is more dangerous to safety than the arrogance, cockiness, false consciousness (https://safetyrisk.net/false-consciousness-and-perception-in-risk-and-safety/) and this delusional mythology all rolled up into one, in such silly presentations of zero injury rates.
Oh, how interesting. And what meaning is attached to such a dumb post? Does this mean this place will be any safer tomorrow? Of course not. Zero injury rates are an assurance of nothing indeed, with such an undercurrent of obvious arrogance, overconfidence, false consciousness and metric consciousness, a fatality is just probably around the corner.
As for Captain Zero with cape and cheesy smile, there is no worse semiotic to throw at workers about safety that such rubbish (https://safetyrisk.net/a-semiotic-map-for-safety/ ).
The good olde zero hero, all we need to alienate workers from thinking about safety as an everyday ordinary activity (https://safetyrisk.net/no-gurus-no-stars-no-heroes-needed-in-safety/ ).
I can just imagine the toolbox talk: ‘OK, anything to report against our perfect injury record?’ ‘Nup’, ‘Wonderful, now get back to work and keep ya gob shut’.
This is nothing more than FIGJAM safety. You know what FIGJAM is: F*#k I’m Good Just Ask Me.
When is Safety going to wake up to the reality that injury rates have no meaning.
Unfortunately, you will find no help in the AIHS BoK or the WHS Curriculum that helps in critical thinking against this delusional nonsense. I can just see the managers on Horizon One handing out zero medals on the day the Oil Rig blew up killing 12 people (https://safetyrisk.net/deepwater-horizon-and-the-suppression-of-risky-conversations/). Ah BP, tell me about assurance from injury rates again? Ah BP, counting injury rates whilst ignoring a toxic culture, well done. You can park those BP medals next to the DuPont badges for zero that aren’t worth a poo in a sewerage factory (https://safetyrisk.net/dark-waters-the-true-story-of-dupont-and-zero/ ). How’s that Spirit of Zero going? Manged to regrow the leg back on amputee lately? (https://safetyrisk.net/the-spirit-of-zero/ )
Whatever injury rate you present to your Board or company, there is NO assurance of safety. Indeed, just imagine what really happens in this company when someone is next injured. Nothing knocks Zero on the head faster that arrogant management full of delusions about zero working with fallible employees in fallible systems. A sure recipe for a huge crash. Fallibility denial is a mental illness in itself (https://safetyrisk.net/perfectionism-in-safety-and-the-denial-of-humanity/; https://safetyrisk.net/is-risk-and-safety-perfectionism-a-disorder/ ).
Nothing is more dangerous than FIGJAM safety under delusional management, imagining that the absence of injury demonstrates the presence of safety.
Indeed, any company parading this kind of nonsense demonstrates deep seated problems in their culture. Most likely: bullying, under reporting, hiding stats, intimidation, dehumanising employees, selective counting and secret dismissals. Just think of an organisation with 200 employees working 35 hours a week, day and night shift. With some simple maths one works out 364,000 hours of work with fallible people, in fallible systems, with fallible managers and not one reportable injury??? Get out your BS Giger counter, something is radioactively shifty going on. A health reporting culture would hope there were a few reported injuries as an effective measure of a healthy reporting culture. No reporting = no learning. No learning is a hotbed for a disaster waiting to happen.
Of course, with such memes as silly Captain zero heroes no thought is given to real harm. How many workers lives have been ruined by brutalism under zero? How much mental health is NOT counted as harm/injury? How many workers get a laptop delivered to their home or hospital bed so that their injury can’t be counted? What kind of shifty language gymnastics are undertaken to maintain this delusional mythology? Nothing more dangerous than FIGJAM safety.
Dr Rob Long
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Gary Grant says
Another great article Rob, and so apt in so many ways.