Resilience - Individual Skills

[Troy]

Swimming. Because we live on an island with plenty of lakes, rivers and ponds too.
Boating, sailing canoeing or suchlike; because we live on an island with plenty of lakes, rivers and ponds too.
Rescue and lifesaving because some people on this island don't swim very well yet.
Fishing because it can feed you and yours.
Building and mending things using carpentry, welding, and such other hands on skills.

Homebrewing, winemaking and distilling.

Self defence because there kunts out there who might try and nick your homebrew.

 

[Effendi]

How old are you?

My kids keep telling me I’m old, so I’ve told them I was running the blanket store at Waterloo.

 

[Dicky Ticker]

I'm currently employed as a safety engineer. I "learnt" my trade from an ex-RN submariner, and we have a network of colleagues within and outside the company who sort of crib off each other in some cases when we have a sticky question or a bit of advice. I got the job because he was sick of teaching grads with no real experience, or in his own words "you've been around enough to **** up once or twice, and you're still in one piece so you must know what not to do the next time".

The community in general has a couple of unwritten guidelines, the first is that there is no such thing as "safe", just really improbably hazards that you tend to discount or overlook.

Second is that everyone has a different level of what they think of as "safe" (see previous definition). We used to run training courses and one of the first questions was "who has a hobby that other people won't do?". We used to get a cross section of things and then ask the audience who would not do that and why not, invariably the answer was because those who would not though it was too risky. We would usually get one or two fast car or fast bike drivers, at least one who had parachuted, and on one occassion a trained snake handler. Crux of the matter, we all treat risk differently.

Which led to the third guideline, everyone identifies hazards differently. This is an issue that the community always has, get two groups to write a list of hazards for the same product and you will get different lists because sub-consciously people will dismiss those things that they know about while concentrating on the stuff they are not too sure about, because they think they fully understand the problem and won't get it wrong.

If we are going to teach society to be more resilient than I suggest these points:

1. Learn to spot what could harm you if it went wrong
2. If the harm is too great, don't do it.
3. If you must do it, do all you can to reduce the risk of you getting hurt.

After that, the dumb ones will find out they weren't that smart after all (see Dunning Kruger) and the really feardy cats will never do anything.

 

[Lardbeast]

Arguably though commonsense is based on individual prior learning (painful experiences), or the observed fate of others.

Couple of examples of that:

1. A clever man who I go to for pistol training teaches that we should "load out eye lids" meaning to keep them forced open and avoid the natural flinch that comes with a bang close to your face. He says that when we pop out of the womb we are more or less a blank piece of hardware waiting for our functional program to be written. Flinching, when something is closing in on your eyes is supposed to come about because babies quickly learn that when laying on their backs and flailing their arms and legs around and one of their hands hits them in the face. So they rapidly learn, "oh, fcuk, one of those pink flaily things is coming this way again lets close my eyelids". The behaviour then rapidly starts to happen without thinking about it consciously.

2. Back in the 60's they did an experiment called the visual cliff study with babies that could crawl. This led to a lot of other stuff which showed that babies rapidly learned what was dangerous for them and what was not.

We experience, or observe pain, we avoid doing that in the future, or adopt a different approach.

Sadly, not that common. Might be worth applying penalties to those who feel the need to run to A&E for every sniffle, headache and broken fingernail rather than just taking care of their own admin at a personal level. Chances are it would take a bit of heat off the staff trying to deal with this Szechuan Snotty bug.

 

[Listy]

1. Learn to spot what could harm you if it went wrong
2. If the harm is too great, don't do it.
3. If you must do it, do all you can to reduce the risk of you getting hurt.

After that, the dumb ones will find out they weren't that smart after all (see Dunning Kruger) and the really feardy cats will never do anything.

So a risk assessment? I'd argue that we're all used to doing risk assessments. We do them daily in our lives. For example crossing a road. However, there is a perception issue. Humans are really bad at spotting risk to assess. The example that comes to mind is there's a bloody great big bear in front of you looking hungry and with its claws out. Here the human brain screams 'This is a RISK!'.
Flip side is, who here has used a knife to get a peice of bread out of a toaster? You did unplug it first... right?

 

[Fang_Farrier]

Living out in the country definitely gives you a different skill set than city dwellers.

For instance our local resilience committee has over 200 volunteers on it. Population approx 2,500.

For my parish, things covered include fallen trees blocking road. It was easier to list the one or two folk who didn't have a chain saw than everyone else who does!

 

[triggerigger]

I used to rely on the "it'll never happen to me" mantra.
up until the first big accident.
Then I reviewed the situation and settled on " lightning never strikes twice"
Well it does. A bit.
Im at the "I'm mostly done with random acts of dangerous stupidity."
An Australian wise man told me my spirit animal is kangaroo.

 

[Ravers]

Here’s an idea.

Pretty much every job I’ve ever had has involved doing a fairly big chunk of tick box H&S training.

I’ve done IOSH Managing Safety (or is Safely?) and a few other random courses and refreshers over the years.

Regardless of where you work it’s always the same shit.

Manual handling
Dangers of working at height
Display screen equipment
Fire safety

Because every job I’ve had has been in a fairly dangerous engineeringy type environment, I’ve also done a load of other stuff ranging from pressure systems to chemical safety, to combined spaces.

Given the fact that this seems to be a pretty important part of any job, whether you work in McDonalds or as an airline pilot, why don’t we teach it in schools?

I mean properly teach it alongside GCSEs? Every kid should leave a school with a recognised H&S qualification.

Having an IOSH or NEBOSH certificate at the age of 16 would’ve been a lot more useful to me than a grade D GCSE in German.

 

[Dicky Ticker]

So a risk assessment? I'd argue that we're all used to doing risk assessments. We do them daily in our lives. For example crossing a road. However, there is a perception issue. Humans are really bad at spotting risk to assess. The example that comes to mind is there's a bloody great big bear in front of you looking hungry and with its claws out. Here the human brain screams 'This is a RISK!'.
Flip side is, who here has used a knife to get a peice of bread out of a toaster? You did unplug it first... right?

Well yes and no. Doing the risk assessment is one thing, doing it properly another, and then actually knowing your limitation in order to correctly identify what you can and can not implement to lower the risk is another.

Far too many people stop at "it'll be fine..." and then wonder what went wrong.

The risk assessments you do at work are probably tick and flick forms you copy from the last time you did something similar, which is the worst way to manage safety but meets the requirements of the regulators!

 

[P.O.N.T.I]

Here’s an idea.

Pretty much every job I’ve ever had has involved doing a fairly big chunk of tick box H&S training.

I’ve done IOSH Managing Safety (or is Safely?) and a few other random courses and refreshers over the years.

Regardless of where you work it’s always the same shit.

Manual handling
Dangers of working at height
Display screen equipment
Fire safety

Because every job I’ve had has been in a fairly dangerous engineeringy type environment, I’ve also done a load of other stuff ranging from pressure systems to chemical safety, to combined spaces.

Given the fact that this seems to be a pretty important part of any job, whether you work in McDonalds or as an airline pilot, why don’t we teach it in schools?

I mean properly teach it alongside GCSEs? Every kid should leave a school with a recognised H&S qualification.

Having an IOSH or NEBOSH certificate at the age of 16 would’ve been a lot more useful to me than a grade D GCSE in German.

Most 16/18 year old are convinced of their own immortality and consider anyone over 25 giving then advice on safety as being decrepit and near death.
You need to be frightened a few times before it makes sense.
That comes with age.

 

[Ravers]

Most 16/18 year old are convinced of their own immortality and consider anyone over 25 giving then advice on safety as being decrepit and near death.
You need to be frightened a few times before it makes sense.
That comes with age.

True, but they still need to do those courses when they get their first job.

Why not do them at school to beef up their CV a bit?

 

[P.O.N.T.I]

True, but they still need to do those courses when they get their first job.

Why not do them at school to beef up their CV a bit?

True, better than meeja studys and spelerin.
Also bring back proper wood and metal work courses

 

[Fang_Farrier]

Well yes and no. Doing the risk assessment is one thing, doing it properly another, and then actually knowing your limitation in order to correctly identify what you can and can not implement to lower the risk is another.

Far too many people stop at "it'll be fine..." and then wonder what went wrong.

The risk assessments you do at work are probably tick and flick forms you copy from the last time you did something similar, which is the worst way to manage safety but meets the requirements of the regulators!

Had an issue trying to perform a certain procedure on a patient recently. )in actual fact not on a patient but their denture)

Nurse: we can't do that without enhanced PPE
Me: We're fine in this PPE
Nurse: I'm of to speak to my manager

Clinic head Nurse: There's a risk so it's enhanced PPE
Me: Where does it say that

Clinic Head Nurse: Here,
Produces the list of procedures. This is a sheet of paper, with two columns of procedures on it, Left hand column headed Low risk, right hand column marked high risk.

Me: There's what I want to do, clearly in the low risk column
Clinic head nurse: Yes so there's a risk
Nurse, if there's a risk we have t wear enhanced PPE

Me: There's 3 columns, because there's different levels of risk therefore different levels of PPE. I want to do this, clearly in column low risk.
Nurse, if there's a risk then I want to wear enhanced PPE
Me: But you don't wear enhanced PPE for anything else on this low risk list
Nurse: If it says it's a risk then we should be wearing enhanced PPE
Clinic Head Nurse: Yes enhanced PPE if there's a risk.
Me: but the guidance says ordinary PPE for low risk
Nurse: a risk is a risk
Me: this is the national guidance,
Clinic Head Nurse: If's there's a risk then it should be enhanced PPE
Me: everything we do is on that sheet, either in low risk or high risk.
Nurse: a risk is a risk

Me: I'll just quickly speak to the Clinical Director, that will clear things up
Clinical Director: I'll email you the sheet with the list of low and high risk, show them it, that will quickly sort this out!

 

[Dicky Ticker]

Had an issue trying to perform a certain procedure on a patient recently. )in actual fact not on a patient but their denture)

Nurse: we can't do that without enhanced PPE
Me: We're fine in this PPE
Nurse: I'm of to speak to my manager

Clinic head Nurse: There's a risk so it's enhanced PPE
Me: Where does it say that

Clinic Head Nurse: Here,
Produces the list of procedures. This is a sheet of paper, with two columns of procedures on it, Left hand column headed Low risk, right hand column marked high risk.

Me: There's what I want to do, clearly in the low risk column
Clinic head nurse: Yes so there's a risk
Nurse, if there's a risk we have t wear enhanced PPE

Me: There's 3 columns, because there's different levels of risk therefore different levels of PPE. I want to do this, clearly in column low risk.
Nurse, if there's a risk then I want to wear enhanced PPE
Me: But you don't wear enhanced PPE for anything else on this low risk list
Nurse: If it says it's a risk then we should be wearing enhanced PPE
Clinic Head Nurse: Yes enhanced PPE if there's a risk.
Me: but the guidance says ordinary PPE for low risk
Nurse: a risk is a risk
Me: this is the national guidance,
Clinic Head Nurse: If's there's a risk then it should be enhanced PPE
Me: everything we do is on that sheet, either in low risk or high risk.
Nurse: a risk is a risk

Me: I'll just quickly speak to the Clinical Director, that will clear things up
Clinical Director: I'll email you the sheet with the list of low and high risk, show them it, that will quickly sort this out!

I feel your pain..... as opposed to I feel pain from you!

The give-away was the "a risk is a risk" sentence, people like that make my blood pressure soar

 

[AsterixTG]

One of the things I'm very happy about with Mountain Rescue is we don't have that set of rules, more a philosophy - everything we do has a rolling risk assessment that is continually developed as a rescue/search proceeds, it's driven by experience and knowledge of how the people within the team can work and their limitations.

As you'd expect we work closely with the Statutory Emergency Services all the time and it's still odd to see them rush to a call out and then stop in their tracks as they have to apply the same accountable risk assessment for climbing over a farm fence as they do when entering a burning building (exaggerated slightly for effect) while we trundle over, get the job done and then home for tea and medals. River work can be like that sometimes.

 

[Nimbus]

Here’s an idea.

Pretty much every job I’ve ever had has involved doing a fairly big chunk of tick box H&S training.

I’ve done IOSH Managing Safety (or is Safely?) and a few other random courses and refreshers over the years.

Regardless of where you work it’s always the same shit.

Manual handling
Dangers of working at height
Display screen equipment
Fire safety

Because every job I’ve had has been in a fairly dangerous engineeringy type environment, I’ve also done a load of other stuff ranging from pressure systems to chemical safety, to combined spaces.

Given the fact that this seems to be a pretty important part of any job, whether you work in McDonalds or as an airline pilot, why don’t we teach it in schools?

I mean properly teach it alongside GCSEs? Every kid should leave a school with a recognised H&S qualification.

Having an IOSH or NEBOSH certificate at the age of 16 would’ve been a lot more useful to me than a grade D GCSE in German.

Most subjects in school will have some appropriate form of H&S training attached, and definitely a risk assessment for any activity with the slightest risk. There’s the obvious stuff like Bunsen burners and acid, but the there’s sewing machines, glue guns and paper trimmers... however, I’ve taught kids to use lathes, milling machines and bandsaws, how to weld and how to cast metal without medical intervention, next lesson, one of them is drinking potassium permanganate solution for a bet...
Always remember:
Common sense ain’t that common.
You can’t educate pork.

 

[Nimbus]

Most 16/18 year old are convinced of their own immortality and consider anyone over 25 giving then advice on safety as being decrepit and near death.
You need to be frightened a few times before it makes sense.
That comes with age.

This is a genetic thing.
when we were living in caves, mum would say to 14yr old (ie middle aged) boy:
“you and your mates, grab some pointy sticks and bring back one of those big hairy elephant thingies for tea” and off they would go, shouting “hey ma! Lookit me!”
The survivors would go on to give sage advice to the next batch, such as “Don’t be the first in, mind the pointy bits at the front” and possibly live to the ripe old age of 30 (clean air, plenty of exercise and organic food are overrated).
This is borne out by the number of young boys in road fatality statistics; until c14yrs old, they don’t understand closing velocity or Darwin.

 

[solomon88]

Here’s an idea.

Pretty much every job I’ve ever had has involved doing a fairly big chunk of tick box H&S training.

I’ve done IOSH Managing Safety (or is Safely?) and a few other random courses and refreshers over the years.

Regardless of where you work it’s always the same shit.

Manual handling
Dangers of working at height
Display screen equipment
Fire safety....

That's a good point about the "tick-box" approach, and putting things into pigeon holes of handling, height, fire, etc.,

Surely better to teach "first principles" - stop, look, think logically through each situation. You might spot things that don't have a box to tick.

 

[Blogg]

Many lacking basic common sense let alone skills based on observations this morning.

Decided on big walk this morning so out at about 7.45. And soon the sun was shining bright. Bugger, says I.

Mrs B tells me not to be so miserable

"You'll see" I mutter

Part of route on way back involved passing through woodland and heathland which have car parks.

And sure enough by time we hot there at 09.45 area was crammed with families bimbing about because they have sod all else to do.

It has been a bit damp recently. In fact wet. Liquid mud aplenty

Many obvious skill gaps on display, and these are just the ones that Mrs B proceeded to get wound up about

1. Footwear selection (Expensive trainers. Won't wearing those again)

2. Choice of clothing (White jeans! Is she completely stupid?)

3. Use of baby buggies not equipped for, let alone with, balloon tyres or tracks ( What is wrong with these people?)

The baby buggy spectacle did make me laugh but Mrs B hissed and forbade any pics.

 

[Yokel]

This is borne out by the number of young boys in road fatality statistics; until c14yrs old, they don’t understand closing velocity or Darwin.

There are other factors to consider - they are harder for drivers to see, and the brain cannot accurately judge distances until the later adolescent years. Yes - this is a sore point for me as I got hit by a car at the age of seven.

That's a good point about the "tick-box" approach, and putting things into pigeon holes of handling, height, fire, etc.,

Surely better to teach "first principles" - stop, look, think logically through each situation. You might spot things that don't have a box to tick.

Tick box safety is dangerous as it prevents thinking. It also does nothing about unexpected things.