Barbasaurus turned her huge head and bared her saw-like teeth. She wasn't hunting for food this morning. She was simply completing the inspection report to ensure that the swamp met the safety standards for the Rex A type workers who hunted there.

Jurassic Safety with a Triassic Mentality *

* Editor's Note: The Triassic period occurred 245 million years ago and witnessed the first dinosaurs. It was followed about 40 million years later by the Jurassic period by which time dinosaurs had made evolutionary progress.

Barbasaurus clutched her clipboard, her gaze coming to halt at its checklist:

Mammal Holes? Check... Filled in and covered up... Don't need any of my Rexes turning a hind limb.

Lumbering over to the scaffold where the Rexes were working, Barbasaurus checked to make sure that the proper fall protection was in place. All of a sudden, a small rodent-like creature scuttled out from beneath her feet.

"Psssst," it yelled. "Why are you using pen and paper to inspect the swamp," the rodent hissed. "Are you livin' in the Triassic period or something?" Barbasaurus resisted the urge to squash the annoying mammal beneath her giant foot. "Why doncha' use a pocket PC instead," the rodent persisted. "It's quicker and easier."

This creature really was a pest! "I've always done it this way!" Barbasaurus roared back. "And how would I work a PC if I needed a ladder and in the daylight? My eyes wouldn't be able to see the screen in the sunlight."

The rodent shook its head. "Many pocket PCs come with brighter screens and resolution so you can use them under sunny conditions. And if you want to climb a ladder, put the pocket PC where it belongs - in your pocket! Use three point contact and climb the ladder!"

Barbasaurus remained unmoved. "Hey, you need hands to operate a pocket PC! Just look at these," she grunted defensively, extending her pitifully short forelimbs.

"You really are a dinosaur," said the rodent before scurrying to a stump that emerged from the primordial ooze.

"Try point of origin data," the rodent advised. "With the proper software you can do all kinds of stuff like analyze the incident rate, perform compliance audits and inspections and gather data to calculate trends." The creature waggled its stubby tail. "You can analyze your data and it should be more accurate because you entered it and it reflects what's going on at the grassroots level. You can also input anything you want to measure and determine the success of your health and safety performance and make adjustments if you're not meeting targets."

Barbasaurus scowled. "I like my pen and paper just fine," she growled back. "And I love writing out the information."

"You crazy fossil," chided the rodent. "Did you ever stop and think about what happens to your precious forms after you write them out and hand them in? The Cleripods in the administrative office probably transcribe them into electronic form anyway. The reports may get reviewed by the Health and Safety Committee or even somebody from management. After that, they get filed away for due diligence purposes never to be seen again."

Barbasaurus stared back with a blank look on her face. So the rodent pressed on. "Come on. I know you guys don't have huge brains, but think about it. Pocket PCs can improve what you're doing... You'll evolve!"

"I don't want to evolve," Barbasaurus snapped back. "I like things the way they are. I don't want to change." She then let out a roar so terrifying that the rodent dove headlong into the nearest hole. Barbasaurus walked over to the hole, filled it with mud and, with a smirk, added a new check to her inspection list.

The Moral of the Story

Barbasaurus remained steadfast in her determination to stick to the old methods. For millions of years, she refused to change until calamity swept her and her species from the earth. The last she was seen was in 1978 when paleontologists unearthed her bones during an archaeological expedition in South Dakota.

Evolution was much kinder to the rodent. He and his brood kept up their tireless quest to adapt to the times and make improvements. As a result, they survived the asteroid collisions, ice ages and other natural disasters that shook the planet. And they prospered. In fact, many of today's most successful safety directors can trace their ancestry back to that rodent.

WHY DID THE DINOSAURS BECOME EXTINCT?

Who Are You Callin' a Dinosaur?

10 Competing Theories

By Glenn Demby

For all its levity, Barb's piece makes an important point of direct relevance to occupational health and safety: Those who can't adapt to change are doomed to fail. In fact, the term "dinosaur" has come to describe the person or organization that insists on doing things the old way.

The assumption behind all of this is that dinosaurs became extinct because they couldn't adapt. But is this a fair assessment? Were dinosaurs really an evolutionary failure? Or were they confronted with the kind of cataclysm that would have eradicated any species?

The answer, of course, depends on why the dinosaurs became extinct in the first place. This question has been the subject of debate ever since the first dinosaur fossils were discovered in the 19th century. Here are what are today considered the leading theories, in rough order of creditability:

1. Asteroid Impact: An asteroid of 4 to 9 miles struck the earth on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, throwing up so much dust that sunlight was blocked for a sustained period thereby eliminating the plant life that sustained the dinosaur's food chain-plant-eating dinosaurs died because there were no plants to eat; and meat-eating dinosaurs died out after their prey disappeared.

2. Climate Change: Significant drops in temperatures at the end of the Cretaceous period killed off the plants.

3. Volcanic Eruptions: A series of massive volcanic eruptions resulted in the blockage of sunlight and dying off of plants.

4. Continental Drift & Diseases: As continents drifted closer to each other, dinosaurs crossed land bridges and encountered relatives carrying the germs of diseases against which their bodies hadn't developed antibodies.

5. Thin Shells: Stress created hormonal imbalances that increased levels of estrogen in female dinosaurs and caused them to lay eggs with shells too thin to survive incubation.

6. Ozone Depletion: Hydrochloric acid from volcanic eruptions depleted the earth's ozone layer, allowing ultra violet rays from the sun to pass through the atmosphere and wreak evolutionary havoc on the hairless dinosaurs and plants they fed on.

7. Greenhouse Gas Effect: Increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by volcanic eruptions sealed in heat and caused the planet's temperature to increase to levels that wouldn't sustain plant life.

8. Supernova: A less credible cousin to the asteroid theory holds that radiation from a supernova - an exploding star - caused an extremely high level of cancer among dinosaurs.

9. Caterpillars: Massive numbers of caterpillars stripped leaves from the plants, depriving plant-eating dinosaurs of their main source of food.

10. Overaggressive Predators: The kill rate of the carnivores outstripped the reproduction rate of their prey.

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