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It’s that time of the week already? I think Thursdays are my favorite day of the week. Not because we get to drop another episode of WAOC, well, partially because of that, but mainly because it’s the day before Friday. I know a lot of people can’t wait until Friday comes along. Myself, I look forward to Thursday, it’s my day to wrap up the week, finish up any planning I need to do for Friday. I, like many of you probably, typically need to work a few hours on Saturday. Anyway, it’s a Thursday and I’m excited about it!
So, one of my go to Safety guys sent out an invite to a group meeting and I was fortunate enough to be on the list. He deals with about 20 something leads and supervisors. And there’s probably a few managers and facility managers thrown in that mix and there scattered across 5 states. Anyway, I guess none of that has anything to do with the story, but what I wanted to say was, his invite was to a virtual meeting called The Little Things. I texted and told him that the little things sounded like a great podcast episode, what was his meeting about! He shared that it was going to cover a group of near misses he had received. He was going to talk about how 9 out of 10 of them are minor things of either lack of training, or failure to follow established job procedures which reflects on the culture as a whole. other words how all the little things add up to amount for that. Chris has been working with these young management members on developing a strong safety culture in each of their houses. I’ll reach out to him and see if I can get him to stop in and visit with us in the near future. I think you’ll enjoy his forward thinking and progressive thoughts on light industrial safety.
Ok, so let’s talk about my week. It’s been a busy one and I’m finally getting my head above water again. I’m always talking about planning our days, and I do, but I just had too many projects running at the same time! On my drive home today, I called an operations manager I had had a group conference call with a few hours earlier. During the call he had sounded all stressed out, very short, not sounding busy really but preoccupied. It was really not like him, so I called him after work hours! It was really kind of funny. He stated that his week has been full of wrapping up projects. He’d just completed moving some aisles and he’s looking forward to next week. He’d finally be able to hit the reset button. The little things, right?
I did a few exit interviews today, you’ll like this one, a little thing! So, I called a gentleman that had started his new assignment yesterday. After about an hour, his new supervisor couldn’t find him. He’d disappeared. So today I called and asked what had happened yesterday? He stated that he had started feeling ill and had gotten sick in the bathroom, so he went home to stretch out to feel better. I asked if he had told anyone he was leaving, his trainer or receiver? He said no but he almost called his facility manager that had given him his number. Then he explained that he was going to come in this morning, but he just had a lot to do. I explained that we couldn’t just pick and choose when we came to work, and he quickly agreed and said he understood that but that was what happened. I thanked him for giving me the interview and suggested that going forward to communicate with his employer. They will help him, getting sick is going to happen but we as employees have to communicate. He agreed, thanked me for calling him and hung up. I tried conducting 3 other exit interviews but no one else picked up or returned my calls. Oh, and an associate of mine called a woman that had quit coming in, I think she had no called no showed two days in a row. Anyway, she picked up the phone, he introduced himself and who he was with and she hung up on him. Feeling certain they had just gotten disconnected he called right back and was sent to voicemail. Another little thing right!
Here’s a great little thing, I have an account that sent in something like 20 equipment pre-trip reports. 80% of them we’re filled out incorrectly! Some didn’t record their equipment number; others didn’t check off the pertinent information and more than one of them checked items like fall protection. They we’re all for pallet jacks! We had two that didn’t have the operators name on them.
Now this was a crew that had been together for quite a while. Of course they have that 10 to 20% of the shift that seems to be new every week, but they work great together and do an outstanding job. They had just got to pencil whipping their equipment reports. It’s the same sheet of paper every morning, sometimes twice a day, if they have to operate something else. No one meant to anything wrong. The leads and supervisors quit looking at them every day or even weekly, and they were put on the back burner of everyone’s mind.
I felt a little bad for the manager, he was quite embarrassed, and yes, it was a bad thing. Fortunately, the error wasn’t caught by an audit team or during a safety audit. The associates had all the right answers, and if something had been wrong or not functioning properly, I’m certain that they would have filled the pre-trip report out correctly and seen that it made its way to the maintenance department. Just one of those little things, right?
I get it, we have a lot on our plates. It doesn’t matter what our jobs are, we are all busy. That’s why we’re getting paid for doing it all!
I was training with a new lead this week. He had attended a couple of recorded training sessions and webinars and stated that he’d really enjoyed them and got a lot of information from them. We were doing a little bit of roll playing, well, really more like discussing a few different scenarios. Things like how to handle different situations. We were talking about one that he had just reviewed on one of the webinars that day and his solution was exactly opposite what had just been taught.
So I just had to ask. Do you remember that this situation was in that last training session you attended? He stated yes but he had disagreed with how it was handled during the session! I explained, in depth, why it had been taught that way and I could see the light bulb go click on. He said, well I hadn’t thought of that. I remined him how he had been taught to ask questions and explained again that that’s how we all learn! A little thing right.
Its been that kind of week for me, I could probably give you ten more examples of little things that I ran across since Sunday.
My point is stuff happens. We can plan our shifts; we can go in each day and want to do a great job. And we can. But we have to watch the little things. Anybody ever cook out on the grill or have a sticky greasy pan we used making dinner and left it till the next day? Thinking, oh, I’ll go out tomorrow and scrape the grill. Or oh, I’ll scrub that pan tomorrow. We’re letting something slide that we know to do now. It’s human nature!
But in our work lives, when we let the little things slide. Not cleaning out our mop bucket, or not wiping down our equipment, or properly filling out a report or sharing information with our peers. We’ll, the little things start adding up and bad habits can be formed.
As associates, on a path to advancement or to be the best of the best. Don’t fall into the little things trap. Let’s all strive to be that employee, the one that is the best of the best!
Well, that’s a wrap for this week. I hope you got something from my ranting! Be productive, be a peer to your teammates and be safe in everything you do.