As a Safety Professional, do you ever wonder if what you do or say really makes any difference in workplace safety? Does it seem that on a day-to-day basis you aren’t making the progress you want or that you expect to? Do you ever think that safety in the workplace in which you are working would be the same with or without you?
Similar thoughts came to me as I was watching a Christmas movie this past Christmas season titled “It’s a Wonderful Life” released in 1946 starring Jimmy Stewart from Indiana PA. Please allow me to summarize the movie.
The main character is Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey of the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan. George Bailey, from his childhood, touched many lives though George did not appreciate or realize it.
As a boy, George saves his younger brother Harry from drowning, an act that costs him the hearing in one ear. Later, he prevents a tragic mistake by his employer, Mr. Gower, the city pharmacist, who nearly dispenses poison instead of medicine. George dreams of leaving Bedford Falls to travel the world and become an architect. He collects brochures and talks excitedly about building bridges and skyscrapers. However, when his father dies suddenly, George postpones his trip to manage the family business—the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan—temporarily. The Building and Loan is the only institution standing between the townspeople and the greedy banker, Mr. Potter, who seeks to monopolize Bedford Falls. George’s reluctantly accepts the board’s offer to him to control of the Building and Loan, provided he stays. He gives his college and trip money to his brother, Harry, so Harry can attend college. George fully expected his brother Harry to come back to Bedford Falls after college and to take over the Savings and Loan. But when Harry returns with his wife and a promising job offer, George realizes he must remain in Bedford Falls permanently. Harry enters the military in World War II as a pilot and in the war saved many soldiers from death by his heroism for which he receives medals. Despite his disappointment, George marries Mary Hatch, his childhood sweetheart. Their wedding day is interrupted by a run on the bank, forcing George to use their honeymoon savings to keep the Building and Loan afloat. Mary later surprises George by turning an abandoned house into their home. George and Mary have 3 kids. Over the years, George helps countless families escape Potter’s slums by financing affordable homes in Bailey Park. His generosity earns him admiration, but financial struggles persist. Meanwhile, Potter grows increasingly resentful of George’s influence and attempts to offer George a lucrative job offer to work for Potter. George refuses.
The crisis begins on Christmas Eve when George’s Uncle Billy, an absent-minded and kind-hearted brother of George’s father who helped start the Baily Savings and Loan, misplaces $8,000 while depositing funds, accidentally handing it to Potter. Potter seizes the opportunity to ruin George, keeping the money and allowing the Savings and Loan to not cover a loan that Potter’s bank holds for the Savings and Loan. Without that $8,000, the Savings and Loan will not be able to make the payment on the loan, the loan goes into default, and Potter gets the Savings and Loan. Losing $8,000 Has George facing scandal and possible imprisonment, George spirals into despair. He lashes out at his family and flees into the snowy night, ending up at the bridge where he contemplates ending his life by jumping from the bridge into the river below. He feels he is worth more dead than alive due to an insurance policy he has. He was thinking that it would have been better if he had never been born.
At this critical moment, Clarence Odbody, Angel Second Class, who is still working on getting his wings, jumps into the river, prompting George to save him. Once both are rescued from the river and warming in a shack, Clarence reveals his identity and grants George’s wish of “I wish I had never been born!” Clarence grants George his wish then proceeds to show George what life would be like if he had never been born.
As George is wondering back through what he remembers as Bedford Falls, trying to regain his sanity, he sees that Bedford Falls is now “Pottersville,” a bleak, vice-ridden town dominated by Potter. The town has one bank, pawn shops, bars, and clubs, the local theatre is now a venue showcasing dancing girls. George discovers that without him, Mr. Gower, the local pharmacist, went to prison for poisoning a child. The local restaurant was a neighborhood bar with a rough crowd. George’s brother Harry drowned as a boy, and countless soldiers died in World War II because Harry wasn’t there to save them. Mary never married and lives a lonely life as an old maid. George’s mother, after George’s father died and the Savings and Loan went under, turned their home into a boarding house and was very bitter toward Uncle Billy for stealing the $8,000. The community George nurtured is gone, replaced by poverty and corruption.
After seeing what his beloved Bedford Falls and it’s people would become if George Bailey had never been born, George cries out to Clarence that he wants to live again and to get him back to his family. To which his plea is granted. This harrowing vision convinces George that his life, though imperfect, is deeply meaningful.
Does the main character, George Bailey, in this movie remind you of you every once in a while? Do you feel that you are not really making any real difference in the safety of the workers that you interact with on a daily basis?
Think about it this way, if you were not there what would the workplace safety be like? Look at the workers that go home every day at the end of the shift or day able to go back to their family. You had a hand in accomplishing this. Your one-on-one discussions about what a worker was doing at work that helped them complete a task safely or change the way they were planning to do a task or the tool they were going to use that was not the proper tool or reminding them to wear the proper fall protection equipment and tie-off correctly or reminding them to use lockout/tagout, or you provided some reminder to check the air in the trench before it gets entered during the morning tailgate meeting or you helped a foreman determine a safer way for a task to be done. Maybe, just maybe, one of these simple acts of a brief conversation or a reminder had a direct effect on getting the worker back to their family uninjured. Maybe during a training session, you reminded workers on how to properly set up an extension ladder and then correctly work from that ladder. Then while a worker was placing their Christmas lights on the house working from an extension ladder, the worker began leaning to one side on the ladder and remembered what you had said during the training about not leaning too far by keeping their belly button between the rails of the ladder. This caused the worker to realize they may be leaning too far so they get down off the ladder and move it so they do not have to lean. The information provided during your ladder training may have kept this worker from leaning too far on the ladder and may have kept them from getting hurt.
There is really no way to know if what we say or do as Safety Professionals every truly keeps a worker from being killed or injured. Even with all of the goals or KPIs we track and show that we are meeting or obtaining is capable of showing that our everyday interactions with our workers are being affective.
When we as Safety Professionals walk our work area and see workers dong their tasks safely and see our workers not getting injured or killed, we need to know, realize, and accept that we had a part in this. We did our job because the workers are going home at the end of their shift or the end of the day to their family. We need to realize as Safety Professionals, the workplace is a better safer place to work when we do our jobs to the best of our abilities and interacting with our workers on a regular basis. We have a definitely positive affect on our workers and their families.
For more information and/or assistance, contact:
Wayne Vanderhoof CSP, CIT
Sr. Consultant/President
RJR Safety Inc.