PICASSO's BLUE PERIOD

Man with a Guitar, c. 1904: A representative work from Picasso's blue period

By Glenn Demby

In case you're not versed in art history, the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso went through what's known as his "blue period" in 1901 to 1904. Picasso had just moved from Barcelona to Paris. His career was going nowhere. His life was in shambles after the death of a close friend. The guy was basically depressed out of his mind. His works in this period reflect his mood. They're generally portraits of forlorn characters in cramped spaces like the Guitar Player above. The canvasses were predominantly deep blues and greens.

But things turned around. The "rose period," which started in 1905, was marked not just by warmer tones but life affirming themes. And from there, as they say, the rest is history. The point is that Picasso kept painting even when he was in the dumps - literally and psychologically. His works were his way of working out his feelings. Although we can't all paint like Picasso, we can all take the same approach of maintaining vigor and creativity in our professional lives when things aren't going our way.

THE MAKING OF A SAFETY PROFESSIONAL
What Was Your 'Defining Moment'?

Last Friday, the Best of SafetyXChange encored the moving article in which veteran safety professional Art Fettig recounted the experience that made him decide to go into safety. Art's theory is that most of the men and women who practice safety have experienced their own "defining moments."  In the original article, which appeared in May, we asked you to recount your own defining moments and printed the many responses the next week. Some of you who saw Art's piece for the first time last Friday also submitted responses. So we've decided to share them with the rest of the SafetyXChange community.

A Close Call Leads to a Revelation

I agree with Art. Although not as drastic, I injured myself years ago because of not doing a proper risk assessment. While working at a Lumber Mill south of Calgary, Alberta, a strapped stack of 2x4's, 8 foot lengths, was dropped on to a chain conveyor. I had cut the straps and was preparing to move the load ahead via a foot pedal. The load had shifted and a number of 2x4's had fallen below the chains. This was for the most part normal operation; but the chain had become jammed. I shut the chain drive down and went below to unjam the chain. There was one board jammed. I put one hand on the support structure as I gave the 2x4 a kick. The 2x4 became loose but drove down on my hand. Talk about stored energy! I pulled my hand from the glove and found I had pinched the top of one finger. There was a lot of blood. I went directly to my foreman and then to the hospital for stitches.

Looking back, we could have rolled the chain backwards and defused the situation. I've always been involved in safety but this incident hit home on how easy and fast a person can get injured. Since my early working career, 1980's (Coal Mines southeast British Columbia), I was always elected as Safety Rep, two four year terms, mostly because no one else wanted to get involved. I enjoyed the challenge and worked for the men to have a safe workplace. Then again at the Saw Mill, I was elected Safety Rep. I am now a Safety Advisor for a major Construction Group in the Oil & Gas Industry in Northern Alberta.

Jim Dow
Safety Advisor
Aecon Industrial
Surmont Project

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Childhood Memories of meeting an Amputation Victim

When I was a kid my Dad, the purchasing manager for a local firm, took me along on a rare evening trip he was making to an area supplier to check on something. While there I noticed a young man with 'hooks' (pre-prosthesis era) in place of both hands. I was shocked and looked away but on the way home I finally had the courage to ask my Dad about it and learned he had lost his hands in a shear at that plant (this was pre-OSHA but even if there had been 'guarding' we all know how unforgiving a shear is).

Years later, during a summer job while going to college, I was assigned to a shear albeit with no safety 'cautioning.' Fortunately, my memory of that young man helped me avoid a similar fate.  To this day, whenever I walk unto the "plant floor" (or hostile fire zone as I label it in my Viet vet mindset), I am reminded of that young man and why I feel as I do about Safety. Perhaps in a very small way that young man's loss is not entirely in vain.

Gerald A. Edgar
Health & Safety Mgr.
Gold'nPlump Poultry
Cold Spring, MN

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A Prank with a Serious Aftermath

Thankfully, my defining moment wasn't as gory or horrific as Mr. Fettig's. However, it did open my eyes to my own behaviour and presented me with some choices.

About 10 years ago, I was working on a piece of packaging equipment that boxed ice-cream bars. My job was to keep the boxes stocked and trouble-shoot problems. A friend was at the end of the line, picking up the boxed ice cream to be bundled. I thought it would be funny to see him sweat a bit. So, I sped the boxer up considerably. What I didn't do was consider the woman putting the ice cream bars into the trays. When they sped up, her rhythm was thrown off and her sleeve was caught on a tray. The blood curdling scream she let out when she realized her arm was being pulled into the boxer rings in my ears to this day.

Thankfully, the E-Stop was within reach, and no harm was done. But that moment changed my behaviour and, I can safely say, my working life.

Jackie Robinson
Worker Rep
JHSC co-chair

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A Troubling Observation

Here's my story.  It's not as dramatic as Art's but it brought me to where I am today.

It was back in 1980. I had just been hired by a plastics company to be their Technical Staff Manager. I would be middle management and have chemists, color matchers and quality control people reporting to me, since I had a background as a chemist.

Unfortunately or fortunately as it turned out, this had been a created position and no one at the plant was used to working with or for me and the old reporting relationships continued.

My management style is MBWA – Management by Wandering Around.  I was up on the blending floor watching the blender operator cut open bags of a lead stabilizer and dump them into the machine. It was a white blizzard there because of the dust in the air. Just then, the bell sounded for break time. As the employee walked away, he laid his respirator face up on one of the dirty bags. I didn't know too much about respirators at that time but something didn't look right – one of his one-way valves was missing.

I went back to my office and made a phone call to OSHA.

"What do I need to do if we want to work with lead chemicals," I asked the person at the other end of the telephone. We talked for a while and he said that he would send me some information. In a day or so, this big package came from OSHA. It contained a copy of something called a CFR book and some other pamphlets.

I read 1910.1025, 1910.134, and other sections. I determined that the company was not in compliance. That employees never had a physical examination, never had fit tests or training in using respirators. The company had never performed any IH monitoring of the area to determine dust and lead levels.  NOTHING!

I went to my boss, the plant manager, and said, "We've got a problem." I laid the problem out, told him what I felt that we needed to do to correct it. After a few minutes, he said go do it; get it corrected.

When I sent the blender employees out for physical examinations and blood tests, the results that came back were shocking. The fellow whose respirator I saw had a blood lead level of several hundred micrograms.  He was over the limit and required medical removal.

We posted the job and the new men that were coming into the job received their physicals, training in understanding lead, how to use a respirator and some general housekeeping information.

My boss called me into his office several weeks later.

The VP of operations was there and he said, "Barry, I want you to do this for the corporation.  Go around and make sure that we're in compliance."

That was my turning point. I was made Safety Director, given a car, and purchased safety supplies with no questions asked. I ended up teaching myself about industrial hygiene testing, noise monitoring, respirators…and OSHA in general.

I had six locations in three states, with an employee population of almost 1,000. I worked with the HR personnel to develop safety committees, hold meeting and investigate accidents.

I was very happy in that position and stayed there for four years until I got laid off, when the company that bought ours didn't need two safety directors.

Barry R. Weissman, REM, CSP, CHMM, CHS-IV, CIPS
Vice President
Hillmann Group, LLC
Union, NJ

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Like Father Like Son

My personal moment was when I was about 12 years old. Dad had been a Navy man and was working for the Dow Chemical Company in Sarnia, Ontario, as an instrument mechanic. We had been working at replacing the rear porch at our home - this was back in the day before pressure treated lumber. We had removed the porch in the morning, and had gone in for lunch. I was eager to get going at the afternoon's project - painting the new lumber with the green rot proofing compound. In my haste, and with the gallon can in one hand, I opened the door to the back porch, totally forgetting that the porch was gone. Stepping out into space, I dropped about 4 feet. The can hit the concrete and splashed me with the contents - I was dripping with it. The worst part was that it was in my eyes. Dad didn't hesitate - and I don't know how he did it - but the next thing I remember was being back in the kitchen with the hand held nozzle being used to rinse the stuff out of my eyes. The rinse was effective - there was no damage done by the rot proofing. At the time, I didn't understand why Dad didn't just grab the hose at the side of the house - when I asked him some time later, he said that the water would have turned cold and that I would not have been able to stand the rinse with cold water. Dad's quick and sure response, along with the other safety information that he brought home regularly from work, and with the hands-on safety training he gave us kids, convinced me that thinking safety was important in all that we did.

By the way, Dow had a safety promotion when I was a little older - Life is Fragile, Handle with Care - that struck a chord with me.

I agree with Art that people who believe in the safety concepts usually have a significant moment when that stuck. I remember a senior manager telling his story when someone confronted him with why safety was such a significant thing for him - after all, it was just the company line, wasn't it? He responded gently and with obvious emotion as he recalled the day when 4 men died in a vessel doing work during a turnaround - and this happened 'on his watch'. That experience left him with a passion for safety.

Jim Snyder
Sarnia Chemicals Safety Advisor
Imperial Oil, Products and Chemicals Division
Polymers & Aromatics, Basic Chemicals and Intermediates
Sarnia Ontario