Two hundred and fifty thousand (250,000), it’s a big number for sure and one I am personally tickled to talk about it.  Since January 1, 2006 that’s the approximate number of man-hours worked by WQI employees, all without a single lost time injury. Now, if you’re like me and a little superstitious, you’re hunting a piece of wood to knock on because it’s a really big deal and I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it. On the other hand, I want everyone to know how well we are doing and do a little crowing.

Sure we’ve had our close calls; things that could have been worse but so far we have only had some pinched fingers and a few other minor bumps and strains. I like to think we are making the right decisions a majority of the time and we are more than lucky but it goes deeper than that. We don’t like being confined to the couch watching Oprah and eating Bon Bons.  Most of us would rather eat bees than go through that for a day much less a week or more. We might get a little hurt but rather than complain we cowboy up (does that still mean the same thing even after Brokeback Mountain?) and get back at it.

Let’s keep looking ahead to the day when I write an article about the one million hours without a lost time accident. We need to put the thought that accidents are inevitable out of our heads and realize they are not. We have plenty of people that have worked ten, fifteen, and more years without injury and even more without having lost time because of one.

Sometimes I attend various safety seminars or conventions where there is a workshop dealing with an array of topics. Like everything else in life, you have to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff and take the kernels of wisdom along with the crapola. A recent one though had a speaker that works for a mining company with approximately 1,600 employees and he had some meaningful things to say. The one that struck me the most was some terms he used in regards to working in our industry. In a nutshell he said that ours is not a dangerous profession because we know the hazards we face every day. To be dangerous we would have to face unknown hazards. Ours is an industry full of identifiable hazards we learn and teach each other how to deal with. We know what we are doing and the consequences for making the wrong decisions when it comes to working safety.

Congratulations for having reached this milestone and keep it up. Remember a good head on your shoulders is the best safety tool of all!