Why OSH?
The Bechtel logo as it was from 1947 - 2023. The company changed its logo on 2 February 2023 to help mark their 125th anniversary.
(Alternative title: How the hell did I end up working as ‘the safety guy’?)
This post is a lonnnng read. But, so what? Best I can tell the McAuliffe’s are of Irish descent and we, like the Irish, enjoy a yarn.
Perhaps Bono said it best in a recent chat he held with Joe Rogan (ep. 2330). He was reflecting on the free-flowing conversational nature of that particular interview.
“We Irish don’t really do commas and full stops.”
Something like that, anyway.
Whatever it is, its my way to explain the length of this post. Not that I really need to care but, you know, at least it’s an explanation.
This post is basically a replay of content I first wrote in 2015 for one of the (several…) failed-to-launch sites I was trying to keep alive back in those days. It provides a glimpse into how I found myself working in construction in the Australian desert, doing ‘safety stuff’.
For the purposes of this site - i.e. tonymcauliffe.com - I’ve made some minor edits and updates to help, I hope, readabilty and provide context. Apart from that, what you see below is pretty much word-for-word what I wrote a decade back. I reckon the main thrust of what I said back then has stood the test of time.
So, to begin…
December 1996 in Sydney, Australia. The interview.
I am sitting on the floor - and I mean literally sitting on the carpet. Legs crossed, and all - on the 20th level of what, to me, was a reasonably swanky central city office tower. I am speaking with John who, among other things, is involved in recruitment. He was also literally sitting on the floor. John never stood on ceremony. And he grew to become someone I really, really respected over the next 20 or so years.
We were discussing a job opportunity which, if I landed it, could see me joining Bechtel. (Their old logo is at the top of this post. In 2023 they updated their logo for the first time since 1947, to help mark their 125th anniversary).
Bechtel’s a large, international engineering and construction company. I’d first heard about them about four months before I met John. At that time I think they were known as being ‘the world’s largest construction company that nobody’s ever heard of’. (The passage of time showed me they were an excellent company to end up working with - though admittedly, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea.)
Bechtel had recently turned dirt on a large construction project in South Australia and, while John made no promises he did indicate that if things progressed well enough I could expect a call from him in a short(ish) while.
A couple of months pass. Things must have progressed well enough because, eventually, John phoned.
Welcome to the desert.
A few more months slide by, and it’s April 1997. I find myself stepping off a plane, after dark, on a Friday night in Roxby Downs, a remote mining town almost 600 km north of Adelaide, in the South Australian desert. The next day was to be my first day, ever, on a construction project of any size, anywhere.
I had absolutely no real idea where I was or what I was really meant to be doing. And, to add to my obvious* allure…
I have no trade background
And pretty much zero construction experience.
And I could only offer the most fleeting hint of any OTJ experience with actual workplace or occupational safety, based on a handful of years working after graduating from uni. (Where, for exactly none of those years was I actually engaged to be ‘the’ safety guy).
I have no experience of the Australian outback.
And am about to check into a construction camp without any idea about what even that simple act really means. After all, the only camping I had done had taken place at camping grounds or beside lakes and rivers in NZ with family or mates. (So "construction camping"… was it going to be anything like those experiences?)
Welcome to construction.
The next morning I get up at what I soon come to learn normal civilians call 'Rude o'clock'.
In the construction industry, everybody starts early: 6.00am starts at the coal-face weren’t unheard of. And to make sure you’re on-site to make that start time? Reverse engineer the equation: you are always waking at 4...something.
That morning I was driven to site. I later learnt that was a privilege reserved for only a few, for a very short period of time and reflected my “brand-new-to-absolutely-everything” sympathy status.
That status had a shelf-life of exactly one ride because, the following shift I found myself bouncing to work in a gun-metal grey construction bus, along with hundreds of the other workers.
I meet a few of my new workmates. Some look to be about my age but none appear, to me at least, to be behaving anything close to the way I felt. I was absolutely shitting myself.
Others are older, with most carrying plenty of experience and country miles under their belts.
Welcome to safety.
Ironically, as it eventually turns out, I learn I was not there to be employed as a safety guy. The general office chit-chat concluded I had been deployed to site to join the project's site-based employee relations team. But, I found myself buddied-up with the safety guys. It was an all-male crew at that point. I didn't meet a safety female representative until about a year later.
At that point, finding myself joining the professional safety community struck me as odd, for at least two reasons.
First; my credentials - at least as much as they were at that stage of my career - were not exactly straining under the weight of expansive OHS experience. Nor did I have any formal educational experiences I could directly relate to the profession.
And secondly, I feel those who knew me reasonably well would conclude that the absolutely last profession they could see me meshing with would be in the occupational safety space. (Tony? A safety guy? Really? We talking about the same Tony here?)
Yet there I was, at the very beginning of my professional safety career. Standing within that safety team, ready to do… something.
Admittedly I did not have a clue what 'doing' safety meant. (Some would argue that, even now, that remains the case).
But I quickly developed a sense of what doing safety didn't mean.
What safety is and - as importantly - what it is not.
Safety was not - and from my POV never has been - about whaling out a work-crew because you, the observer, believe that what you observed is unsafe or simply that you feel 'you know better'. To me, 'doing' safety is engaging with people (so, talking to them. Old school style). Explore why they are doing what they are doing, or conducting themselves the way they are.
Safety is not snooping around a work-site, clip-board in hand, ticking off checklists. Sure, there's a time and a place for formally reviewing things - for me, that's back in the office. When I see clip-board crusaders, I wonder how they would respond if I parked-up alongside their office-cubicle and simply... watched. Voyeuristic? So to me, safety meant becoming comfortable enough to know enough about what I was observing to recognise the good, from the not-so-good and the excellent. Then dealing, proportionately, with the second; encouraging more of the first and even more of the latter.
Safety has never been about grand-standing on a subject, posturing as The Expert. Becoming a safety guy meant understanding enough about things to appreciate I don't - and never will - know all there is to know about things, but having enough constitution to influence others, in my own indomitable fashion, to make better decisions. (Which I hope the passage of time will show to be safe decisions).
Safety has never meant allowing work to proceed only if risks are reduced to nil. That reality does not exist. Being a safety guy has required exercising professional judgement and helping work processes to prepare, as best anyone can, with the bumps and turbulence they are likely to face. Helping to build reaction 'Y' to circumstance 'X', while acknowledging that if all hell breaks loose (I'll call that 'Z'), personnel and the reactive systems are empowered and skilled and confident and robust enough to mitigate the consequence of 'Z', as best can be. I think professionals call that risk management.
So, from my 'done-it-long-enough-to-have-a-decent-feel-for-things-while-acknowledging-that-every-day's-another-learning-day-and-I'll-never-know-it-all' perspective, 'doing' safety is not rocket science.
Admittedly, there is an element of compliance to Rules. (The Act, Regulations, Codes.... etc). Running a business in Australia is an admission to working to those rules. But, compliance safety is simple. If a Rule states you shall do 'n', then do 'n'. (Or, don't. But be prepared for the truly uncomfortable questions if things go south). The other - far larger - piece of the Safety pie is risk management: to which I refer you back to my X-Y-Z paragraph.
Why it still matters.
For me, safety ultimately means doing whatever it is you are doing, as well as you can.
Which means in a space like the business realm, safety is little more than doing whatever it is your business does, as well as you can.
Do things safely and I believe you will, by default, be doing things well.
And if you are doing whatever your business is designed to produce (or, serve) well, chances are you've got a great business.
*Sarcasm, in case you didn’t pick it up.
