The Other Side

I have always enjoyed school. The classroom setting somehow caters to me. Since I viewed the experience as mostly a social event, I was always ready to return to class. As a youth I enjoyed the idea of gaining useful information and learning from the mistakes of others as opposed to learning “The hard way.” As an adult, much of my research time is spent on that very thing, “What went wrong and how can we avoid it?” I even spent a few years thinking I would end up teaching elementary school. Although I thoroughly enjoyed each of the precious souls I student taught, I realized I had a slightly different calling.

My Dad, who has been my best friend since I was born, began his career in the coal mines of southern WV. (Yes, I was born a coalminer’s daughter.) He had become passionate about workplace safety while serving on a mine rescue team, and with time and pressure (much like what was required for the coal itself) my dad turned his training into a successful business. I had been assisting him with research of OSHA law and the writing of safety programs for several years before I decided I was ready for field work. I’m sure those experiences, and having such an impeccable safety specialist for a father contributed to my desire to make a name for myself in the safety field. More than my desire to become successful, was the urge to help others, make a difference, and use my talent for teaching in a setting where most classes were dry and boring. I may have never mined coal or built sky scrapers, but I had experience some of those guys didn’t.

My husband lost a good friend to a shooting while on duty as a deputy sheriff, and although as police wives, we have our own ways of dealing with and preparing for the worst, that incident evoked further passion to make sure other families would not go through what his family endured. This was a driving force in making sure that I did all I could to NEVER be wrong about interpreting OSHA laws, and providing the most appropriate training for each individual company and worker that I could possibly provide. Although I am relentless in regards to laws, standards, and proper training, I do believe that the relationship that I have with those I consult for and train with will ultimately make a or break the companies safety program on a fundamental level.

I honestly care for those I train with, and some of the people I train with have become very dear friends. I sincerely pray protection over each of them, just as I do my own family, but if they don’t believe me or believe in me, my training was worthless. I think relationship and knowledge are among the most important things you could ask for in a safety specialist. I want to be sure that when I give an answer, there is never a reason to doubt me. That’s why answers like, “Let’s look that up,” are absolutely OK and in fact very important. I am extremely well versed in OSHA standards, but I am human and very suspicious of those who always seem to have all the answers to everything. I have trained millionaire owners of companies and minimum wage workers who cannot read and I have been blessed to learn from every single one. I am educated in both safety standards and classical education, but would take a field worker over somebody who has a degree in “How to do field work,” every day of the week.

I think that is why it was so satisfying to return to the classroom with some of my favorite guys for CPR training. I thoroughly enjoyed our trainer whose approach to teaching was very similar to mine and I could not help but grin when taking the written test. I knew my college students would love to know that the tables had been turned and I was being tested on what I had been taught that day.

It is so important for those who are blessed enough to become teachers to spend time on the other side of the desk. We gain such valuable insight into the minds of our students when we simply put ourselves in their seats. Evaluating what really worked and what totally bombed can offer us the opportunity to modify the way we handle those same topics or situations. In safety, the rules, standards, and company policies are constantly evolving. In Machine Guarding alone, there is a constant struggle to engineer the perfect machine guard to protect our human worker, and the human worker engineering a way to bypass the machine guard. The result of which is normally the tremendous satisfaction of outsmarting the guard and losing a finger!

 I was thankful for the opportunity to spend time bettering myself, learning proper procedures, and reviewing some key safety issues. I was also blessed to take a few hours to place myself on the other side of the desk, side by side with those I train, and just be one of the guys. My highest value as a safety trainer is not my elite education, my unique personality, or even my sincere concern for my guys, it is, and forever will be, their confidence in me.