If you ever wanted proof that people don’t read detail just try conducting lectures, webinars or courses on line and communicate through email. Very few people read email fully, slowly or properly. Of all the industries worst at this is Safety. It seems that this industry that is so excessive about compliance, checklists, forms, reports, data, documentation and written regulation has been taught over time to read nothing properly.
At the moment I am conducting 4 free courses online with over 130 people participating these are: a book reading group, advanced semiotics group, a writing skills group and the Introduction to SPoR module. All of the communications in email detail: times, log on, readings, links, dates, format, homework, video links and meeting criteria. The bulk of attendees are from the safety industry although there are some from HR, education, nursing, community, legal and government professions. Since I have started this process during the Covid-19 crisis it is common to have 25% of the safety people request something because they didn’t read the email instructions. What does this say about an industry consumed with paperwork???
Here we are with an industry consumed with mythology of zero (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-is-meaningless/) and the regulation of activity through paperwork and many don’t read detail. What fascinating implications for this absurd belief that paperwork keeps you safe, when it doesn’t (https://vimeo.com/162034157). Even if you were to read most documents they only make you papersafe (https://www.amazon.com.au/Paper-Safe-triumph-bureaucracy-management-ebook/dp/B07HVRZY8C ), not really safe.
The same applies for blogs. Many safety people who respond to my blogs and writings rarely read things slowly or properly. As best most read the headline, scan the page and respond with what their agenda is, not in dialogue with what has been written. Linkedin safety groups seems to be classic evidence for just how much safety people don’t read.
Of course the idiom ‘The Devil is in the Detail’ infers that something evil lurks in a hidden place, a tough lesson for those involved in contract law or insurance. A classic example is when one purchases a mobile phone and a carrier service. Often all we want is the phone, we can see the phone and hold the phone and … here just sign on the dotted line. All goes well until the first hiccup then one finds that a special clause absolves the carrier of all responsibility and fault.
An interesting aside to this idiom is also the semiotic of the devil himself (usually male). Even though few would countenance the idea of a literal devil we all have been enculturated to accept the common metaphor of the horned devil with (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2018/09-10/history-devil-medieval-art-middle-ages/) a fork, pointed tail, lizard features and nasty fangs (https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-the-devil ). A sure prime for the innocent (Safety) who expect evil to look evil when Evil mostly masquerades as good. There is nothing more evil that claiming safety through zero and then discovering that zero was the ideology that got you sacked.
Perhaps the Devil isn’t in the detail but in Zero.
3. PAPERWORK from Human Dymensions on Vimeo.
bernardcorden says
It is most interesting to look at the language on the Safe Work Australia website covering Information on COVID -19 and work health and safety:
https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/covid-19-information-workplaces/industry-information-covid-19
It uses the term physical distancing, which implies an individual responsibility.
However, on the Australian Government Department of Health website it becomes a public health issue and furtively changes to social distancing:
https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/how-to-protect-yourself-and-others-from-coronavirus-covid-19/social-distancing-for-coronavirus-covid-19
bernardcorden says
Is an uneventful event an unknown known or a known unknown?
bernardcorden says
Uneventful indeed:
https://www.news.com.au/news/five-injured-in-helicopter-crash-at-dreamworld-on-gold-coast/news-story/b3753cbcabc54125907142ce68447615
Rob long says
When demons don’t exist then come to the surface as in Dreamworld, all and sundry cry foul, when in fact they wrote each stanza for the satanic verses.
bernardcorden says
The forthcoming AIHS webinar on 28th April covering the Thunder River Rapids – Exposé of the incident and the impact on enforcement policy is most interesting and somewhat misleading.
It claims the ride had “34 years of otherwise uneventful operation at the theme park” , which is rather incongruous with the coronial investigation. Pages 60-73 of the coroner’s report provide details of numerous previous events which occurred on:
a) 18/01/2001
b) 07/10/2004
c) 28/08/2005
d) 26/02/2008
e) 06/11/2014
f) 13/11/2014
Section 267 in the coroner’s report refers to an email from a former employee to the Dreamworld leadership team, which states:
“The second incident highlighted the incident involving Ms. Lynd in 2001, with
pictures of the flipped rafts attached. Mr. Tan noted, ‘This occurred on the rapid
ride several years ago, and fortunately there was no injury except for property
damage. I shudder when I think if there had been guests on the rafts…
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored – Aldous Huxley
Frank Garrett says
Now what does that say about the male/female archetype when (your absolutely correct, I’ve never seen a “female, transgender, gay) devil represented in any visuals or literature. Whats the underlying message, only men are evil, all men are evil? Even the recent hit series Lucifer, contain typical roles that were gender biased, no surprise for the “Hollywood Machine” there is a place we can apply the Zero…….zero imagination!
Oh yes, I read the rest Rob and I agree with the comment on our reading skills, keeping in mind we all have experienced “technology” issues as well, so were not a complete write off! 🙂
Rob Long says
Hey Frank, remember that font in the church in Banff held up by the Devil? Never seen anything like it. All these images are the confirmation of myths/symbols that our society supports or finds comforting. The devil made me do it is a classic strange, that one never works with employers.
Accordion to scientific studies,
90% of all people don’t realise,
that I replaced the beginning
of this sentence with an
Instrument.
They have my symphony.
There is of course the rhythm of reading which you and I know is Mind 3 automaticity and its a huge fight to go back to MInd 1 when we mostly read text in Mind 2 and flow in Mind 3.
Rob Long says
I wouldn’t call 25% a complete write off.
bernardcorden says
Hell is other people – Jean-Paul Sartre
Rob Long says
Satan: I will cause anxiety, fear and panic. I will shut down business, schools, places of worship, and sports events. I will cause economic turmoil. Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis.
Sounds like Covid