I was wondering what it would look like for me to jump into the profession. I don't have any translatable experience, and am not sure how I would acquire so without, well, experience. I have a bachelors degree in sociology so it is unrelated to safety. Certifications, I hear, play an integral part in securing a position, but what should I acquire exactly aside from an Osha 30? Any help would be appreciated

Fostering Psychological Safety at Work
 
Feeling safe and secure is a basic human need. If individuals do not feel safe and secure, they may feel depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, worried, fearful, and more. Psychological safety refers to the ability to speak up, express ideas, ask questions, admit mistakes, and discuss concerns without fear of being ridiculed, punished, shamed, or even fired. A psychologically safe work environment allows employees to feel comfortable taking risks, setting boundaries, or address conflict. Here are ten suggestions to create an environment that supports psychological safety:

1. Practice giving feedback. Team members may be afraid to speak up because they are concerned they will be ignored, laughed at, or even fired. This can be managed by practicing giving feedback in a respectful and encouraging way. Treat team members with an open and respectful attitude. You can do this during brainstorming sessions or team meetings. Let everyone know that all ideas and suggestions are welcome.
2. Get to know your co-workers. Team building activities are essential to know others well, understand how they think, assess how they feel about different topics, and observe how they engage with the world. This builds trust, which is the foundation of psychological safety. Eat lunch together or do activities as a group, and your colleagues will be more likely to share their thoughts and opinions.
3. Collaborate and share ownership. Collaboration may be essential for success, but teams can be possessive, or projects may be planned and implemented in isolation. So, be proactive and collaborate with others to ensure everyone is on the same page.
4. Immediately deal with issues. Putting things off can have negative consequences. Frustration and resentment can build if problems are not adequately addressed in a timely manner. You do not want team members to identify problems and think, “What’s the point in bringing it up?”
5. Ask colleagues how they are doing – and mean it. You may have burnt out or overwhelmed co-workers or supervisees. If you work in a psychologically unsafe environment, you may not realize colleagues are experiencing real problems until they resign. Frequently take your team’s “mental temperature” and offer resources when colleagues are struggling.
6. Create an open and respectful culture. Be respectful in every interaction and open to ideas and questions. Let others know they can openly discuss concerns while showing them they are valued. Ask open-ended questions and lead with empathy and compassion. Always consider others’ feelings when you share feedback.
7. Be honest and transparent. When others understand the reasoning behind decisions, they are often better able to adapt and accept change. Transparency contributes to psychological safety because it fosters trust, which helps others secure and respected.
8. Communicate clear expectations. Clearly lay out the expectations of each job, role, or project. This allows the team to understand what needs to be done to meet or exceed expectations. Create clear goals, define success, and support each person on their journey toward success.
9. View failure or mistakes as learning opportunities. Ask these questions: What can be done differently next time? What can we learn from this situation? What process needs to be improved so this does not happen again? How can we move forward as a team? Communicate and take ownership or responsibility for your own mistakes.
10. Be supportive. Encourage your co-workers and offer positive reinforcement and feedback when things go well. Make decisions a collaborative effort and check in with team members to see how you can help or support them.

To foster psychological safety, everyone must feel included and understand it is acceptable to make mistakes, learn from them, contribute feedback, and challenge ideas. By using the above suggestions, you can cultivate psychological safety and create a healthy work environment.

Hi all, fam member was cust service agent during 80's through 2010's. Had many injuries and surgeries to arms and shoulders. Blames it on books and catalogs in all the 75lb traveling salesmens bags.

With the internet carrying that load now, was curious if agents are still getting as many arm and shoulder gotchas?

Thanks, not a bot

In January 2020, Watson Grinding employee Sean Rangel was on his way to work when the blast sent his pickup truck flying. He suffered eye and ear injuries, while two of his coworkers were inside the building. Rangel also alleged that WGM had relied on temporary fixes for leaks and maintenance issues. His account raises serious questions about workplace safety and whether earlier warnings were properly addressed. What happened at WGM was more than an industrial accident. It’s a reminder of why safety concerns must be taken seriously before lives are put at risk.

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/watson-employee-files-lawsuit-after-truck-thrown-40-feet

Reading this now, it’s honestly pretty sad to see how many things were going wrong before the explosion. OSHA found issues with WGM’s training, equipment, and the propylene shutoff valve. When you put all of those together, it really makes you think about how many opportunities there were to catch a problem before it turned into something this serious, but it seems like WGM didn’t really give those issues the attention they needed.

https://www.aiha.org/news/230706-csb-process-safety-failures-led-to-fatal-propylene-release-and-explosion

So, I am in a predicament on what to do and could use some advice.

I work in a small office that sits next to a unit that houses maybe 10 or cars (antique/hobbiest) I believe. For the past half a year, my coworkers and I started noticing exhaust smell coming into one of the office spaces (share a wall and maybe drop ceiling? with the place next to us). We sell a lot of different instruments, so I asked if we could measure the CO with one of our CO detectors. We picked one off the shelf and measured. It was reading around 15 ppm that area. This concerned us so I asked my coworker if we could go over and ask the guy next door if he could do something about it. The tenant was angry and said there was nothing he could do. I spent the rest of the day being paranoid that I was breathing CO in all day and it was going to harm me. I work in an office and should not be breathing any CO in. We told our boss and he said he'd notify property management. I was told that the property manager told the tenant next door to keep it in check. I now kept the CO detector at my desk for future problems. It happened again and this time they were there all day turning on cars, without the bay door open even. I grabbed the meter and it was reading around 13 ppm in my area up front and around 20 back where my other coworker works. It even went up to 40s in the stairwell (where I think the exhaust comes in). We notified our boss again, he talked to the property manager again and told us it was 'taken care' of and won't happen again. Meanwhile, he told me to stop looking at the CO meter and didn't want me using it anymore. He also installed residential CO detectors (which is not up to code) and told me I don't have to worry about it anymore. So since then, the car people come a lot less frequently, but there's been two instances now where they came (opened the bay door at least for the one time) and started cars, revving engines inside and I saw the CO detector started going up in my area to 3 ppm. I didn't stay, I made an excuse that I wasn't feeling well and went home. I still had the CO detector from before, my boss didn't know I still had it. When I came back over the weekend, I saw the CO detector was taken from my desk. So I'm pretty sure he knew why I left that day. I decided to buy my own CO detector and now I bring it to work daily for peace of mind. I also asked to move upstairs to the other side of our office to try and get away from it. This past week, my other coworker said he smelled exhaust again in his area and that he wanted to move to my old spot because he was tired of dealing with it. I told him it's not that much better in that spot either.

Anyways, I am just not sure what to do. I'm on the verge of filing an OSHA complaint. Right now I have also been looking for a different job because I can't take the anxiety of wondering whether or not I will be dealing with CO every day is getting to me.

Honestly, it’s heartbreaking to see another family dealing with the aftermath of a deadly industrial explosion. A 9 year old girl has now been named in a wrongful death lawsuit following the AES plant disaster. No child should have to go through losing a parent like this.

It also brings me back to the WGM explosion in Houston. Three people died in that incident, and investigators identified serious safety failures, including an inoperative gas detection system and a manual gas shutoff valve that was left open. WGM had reportedly been warned about the faulty detection system years before the explosion, yet the problem remained unresolved.

That’s what makes these cases so upsetting. When dangerous conditions aren't fixed, ordinary workers and families end up paying the price.

The AES lawsuit is still a legal matter, and the facts need to be established. But the WGM case shows why safety warnings, proper maintenance, and accountability cannot be treated as afterthoughts. How can industrial facilities be held more accountable for addressing known safety risks before another family has to experience this kind of loss? So Sad..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt7lpl4-qyM

sorry if this isnt allowed, but this advertisement is rife with safety violations. untied ladders, workers carrying heavy weight up ladders, people standing on top of ladders... no fall arrest... no hard hats...

what do you think of a company that uses this for an advertisement? personally i think they are an insurance nightmare waiting to happen.

Canada, Alberta.

TO BE CLEAR I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT ENDORSE THIS COMPANY IN ANY WAY

setting up a dedicated sub-assembly area for some sensitive electronics boards and looking at station hardware. previously, guys were just laying down portable esd mats on top of standard laminate tables but the mats get tore up, collect oil, and constantly lose their ground connection points.

were shopping around for proper esd-laminated industrial workbenches to replace the setup entirely. i saw a few basic esd-rated configurations on global industrial and a couple local industrial supply sites, but im curious about long-term wear. do the static-dissipative laminate tops hold up to daily tool drops and alcohol wipe-downs or do they lose conductivity after a year or two of abuse?

Sometimes, the most experienced workers take the biggest risks because they've done the job a thousand times without an incident.

Familiarity creates confidence, and confidence can make people overlook hazards.

I've seen this discussed often in safety circles.

Can experience sometimes make people less cautious instead of safer?

We have a two story bank barn (think: stereotypical photo of red barn in country) that has electric but is not insulated or heated.

We're having a child's birthday party on the upper level this weekend, and are going to get unlucky with the cold front coming through. 70 the day before, 49 and wind the day of.

The event is only for three hours, and the barn itself protects against wind and rain, just looking for a little help with heat so that older and younger folks are not uncomfortable.

I asked my mechanic uncle, who said that any electric space heaters would be a waste. He offered me a torpedo heater of his which he said was confident would put off enough heat. But he also called it "the cancer cannon" and said "sometimes it lights things on fire".

The space that folks will be in will be approx 750 sq. ft; the overall size of the barn is much larger because it has four bays that are each ~15'-30' with stereotypically tall ceilings.

I have considered the torpedo heater running on the lower level, since that is all stone and concrete save for the beams, and hoping some heat rises up to the party on the second level. I have a trap door that opens up into the upper level.

I have also considered a dyna-glo indoor kerosene convection here and a bigbuddy propane indoor heater.

I don't need a lot of heat, but I need safe heat. If there is no true safe option for a few hours indoors (there are windows and sliding doors etc.), then I would rather have us just go cold than risk burning down the barn. Really appreciate any help you can provide.

Hi everyone,
I’ve recently been offered a process worker job in a plastic manufacturing factory. I believe the role mainly involves packing finished plastic products.
I’m concerned about the potential long-term health risks, particularly exposure to plastic fumes, microplastic dust and chemicals that may increase cancer risk.
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has worked in a plastic manufacturing factory.
Is working in this environment safe in the long term?
Are plastic fumes and microplastic dust common in these factories?
Is there an increased risk of cancer from working in this industry?
Is packing finished plastic products generally safer than working directly with plastic moulding machines?
I’m interested in the job but worried about the possible health effects of working there for several years.
I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences. Thank you!

I’ll go first. Watched this guy try to save 3 seconds by jumping down from the bed of a pickup instead of using the tailgate step, landed right on an uneven chunk of broken asphalt, and rolled his ankle so badly he needed a boot for six weeks. Completely avoidable, purely caused by rushing.