Even though they're not really into punk rock, Michael and Taylor from Imperial Oil are pretty badass (and the title of this episode is a NOFX song that Michael somehow remembered, so we'll take it). And they're movie stars in a video from Energy Safety Canada about the 4Ds from Learning Teams, Inc.

The Imperial boys are the first to tell you they aren't safety people - they're field ops guys just trying to solve some problems. Pretty fucking punk, right? Shit wasn't going the way it should, so they just figured out what would work. Not perfection, but progress. "If you just go in and do it, and you do it from a place of caring," people are going to be on board.

What the hell are the 4Ds Michael and Taylor are talking about (5 if you count Provan, because he's a D for sure)? They're questions about what folks see at work that are dumb, difficult, different, or dangerous.

Turns out talking to people about work does some other stuff too: like a 53% reduction in absenteeism and massive increases in time-on-tool productivity. Weird, right? Figuring out how work gets done and addressing it like an adult helps make work suck less.

For a lot of people, punk rock is a catalyst for being heard, for building family, and for expressing how they feel. For the teams at Imperial, using something like the 4Ds was a catalyst, too. Sometimes, it identified some problems that looked a whole lot like the supervisors and leaders in the organization. Those are tough conversations (like how bass players and ska bands are the problem a lot of times, too), but the boys took the conversations on and did the hard yards to figure out how to make leadership better.

Asking questions isn't the solution, though, and that's why you should check out the rest of the episode. Michael and Taylor have got a lot more to share about how they started learning about performance, labels, and leadership. They're pretty punk without even trying, and that's "The punkest mother fucker I ever did see. Ah hell, he's even more punk than me." Got a NOFX quote in there after all, punks. Shoulda gone for Propaghandi, since they're a Canadian band, but whatever.

The Energy Safety Canada video on the 4Ds

The Learning Teams, Inc. folks, home of the 4Ds, are here

DISCLAIMER: You probably shouldn't take anything in this podcast too seriously. Punk Rock Safety is for entertainment only. It's definitely not a replacement for professional or legal advice, and the fair amount of piss-taking, shithousery, and general ridiculousness ought to clue you into the fact that no one - and no organization - is endorsing (or un-endorsing, if that's a thing) any products, ideas, or other things. Except NOFX. We definitely endorse them.

Oh, and give your money to Punk Rock Saves Lives. They're a rad organization that works in mental health, addiction, and human rights. And they're awesome people who can use your help to keep on kicking ass at what they do.

https://www.punkrocksaveslives.org/

Let us know what you think at info@punkrocksafety.com or on our LinkedIn page.

Merch at punkrocksafetymerch.com

"Sometimes work just fucking sucks"

That's what David Strano said back on the Decline episode, and if you're not careful, saying smart things gets you volun-told for a guest appearance on the pod. David's a former touring roadie turned HSE director. That basically means he knows a lot about both parts of the PRS podcast, so the boys are considering just handing over the reins. Shit, he even knows what episode number we're on.

It's a rare episode when there's not a NOFX song title involved, but this one goes way back in time with The Clash's "Career Opportunities" as a reference to shit jobs, success, and just getting things done in the face of a lot of competing goals.

Since David has a real job (even closer to the actual work than Ron), we had a cool opportunity to talk about workplace safety as it's seen and lived with by folks doing work, especially those at the front line.

David did 20 years of touring before Covid, and that's pretty rad. Except for the safety part. Nobody actually does that, apparently. It's the wild west, as David says, and shit happens as you might expect.

There's a big difference between compliance and looking for high-performance safety, but the reality is that compliance is still important, even if it isn't the complete answer. The boys talk a little bit about the difference between awareness and something mattering, too. And tolerability - like the idea that if you choose to work here in a high-risk industry, you've basically said you accept some level of risk.

Later in the discussion, all of those ideas tie together in a conversation about where expectations from customers fit in. Priorities - like getting a facility opened on time - mean safety drifts back to the old school view of production vs. protection, even when we're focused on more contemporary ideas. FSMM isn't meant to be the real deal, but there are times when it sure looks and feels like it is.

Anyway, it's an episode focused on how tradeoffs materialize at work, how having multiple folks with checkbooks shapes safety, and where compliance fits into discussions about front-line work grappling with safety as an academic abstraction.

Have fun, punkers!

DISCLAIMER: You probably shouldn't take anything in this podcast too seriously. Punk Rock Safety is for entertainment only. It's definitely not a replacement for professional or legal advice, and the fair amount of piss-taking, shithousery, and general ridiculousness ought to clue you into the fact that no one - and no organization - is endorsing (or un-endorsing, if that's a thing) any products, ideas, or other things. Except NOFX. We definitely endorse them.

Oh, and give your money to Punk Rock Saves Lives. They're a rad organization that works in mental health, addiction, and human rights. And they're awesome people who can use your help to keep on kicking ass at what they do.

https://www.punkrocksaveslives.org/

Let us know what you think at info@punkrocksafety.com or on our LinkedIn page.

Merch at punkrocksafetymerch.com

This week, the boys are talking about theory and practice, because, as the listener who submitted the question says, "fuck you, that's why."

It's true, there's a lot of safety literature out there that's gotten more head-up-its-own-ass. Moralizing about safety is cool until it isn't, and the question is a good one (it was something like wanting to hear more about decision-making and doing things instead of recycling ideas as a career by itself).

It can feel like things get way too academic and maybe even elite.

That said, the boys argue that people don't need things "dumbed down" for them, either.

The whole point of this little podcast is to be able to question things about safety. It seems like an awful lot of discussion, sometimes a little rowdy, is about whether something is "just theory" or if it's actually useful.

Being useful is important, but asking who something is useful for is just as important. And being useful isn't something that just happens. It's based on theory, too.

So there's the thing. Dave brings up playing bass with only 2 or 3 strings, which means that even though the guitar company thinks they're important, Dave doesn't. The boys talk about making sure front-line folks have tools that work - but people work in other places, too. That gets back to the "Who is it useful for?" questions.

Solid quote from Dave on this one, by the way: "Theory isn't just pontification, like people sitting around on whiteboards just making shit up, proposing stuff."

Theory is observing patterns that actually happen in the world, and then trying to come up with models about why those patterns play out, and in what situations it matters. Otherwise, how do we build tools and predict those patterns in a way that's connected directly to work.

So principles aren't theory. They're underlying values and guides for understanding.

Does theory matter? Do principles matter? Yup.

But as important as they are, theories and principles aren't solutions by themselves.

Maybe that's the disconnect: treating principles as solutions. If you're into the whole work-as-imagined thing, that's pretty close to describing theory. There's some disagreement between the boys about starting with the theory vs. starting with observations in the organization. Here's where you probably ought to listen in to see how the conversation pans out.

Arguing about what punk rock is can sometimes just get in the way of the music.

The whole answer is never in the book. It's probably not only at the point of work either. Like the description of this stupid podcast says, do shit that works.

DISCLAIMER: You probably shouldn't take anything in this podcast too seriously. Punk Rock Safety is for entertainment only. It's definitely not a replacement for professional or legal advice, and the fair amount of piss-taking, shithousery, and general ridiculousness ought to clue you into the fact that no one - and no organization - is endorsing (or un-endorsing, if that's a thing) any products, ideas, or other things. Except NOFX. We definitely endorse them.

Oh, and give your money to Punk Rock Saves Lives. They're a rad organization that works in mental health, addiction, and human rights. And they're awesome people who can use your help to keep on kicking ass at what they do.

https://www.punkrocksaveslives.org/

Let us know what you think at info@punkrocksafety.com or on our LinkedIn page.

Merch at punkrocksafetymerch.com