PRETTIEST Re a F *P ECE DRE ASL SET eae Ett

- SAFETY NOTES -

This issue of the Asbestos Sheet will
mark the end of the old year and usher in
the new year. Nothing done, nothing left
undone last year can ever now be changed.
But we can review what has happened and not
/repeat the same mistakese,not leave the same
remissions to produce the same results.

at RR SEE

Safety Notes — Continued :-

this very thing sooner or later. Where
little or no accident prevention work has

} been done, a safety depertment cant often
show results for several years. Then they
reach a limit which they know is not a sat-
isfactory minimum, Since we are imperfect
human beings, there will always be some
eccidents, but the question is, "How good
can we become?"

The limit on our property was not sat-~
isfactory and we decided to apply ourselves
to the problem. We were all trying to help
the safety department improve the record.
| It just didn't home that the real sit-
vation was that the safety department was
trying to help us improve the record.

We held a big three-day conference of
all general supervisors te see if we could
not find the source of the trouble and try
to correct the trend.

I was chairman of that session, and it.
was one of the great educating moments of
my life. All of the men felt the same way.
Nothing really new was developed, nothing ©
you will not find in innumerable books and —
articles, but when you really and truly
learn something so that it becomes a part
of you, you have had an experience which
completely changes you from that moment on.
You. will never be the same again.

-To be continued next issue.....

Please think over what you have just
read. See if you can come up with a solution
ami watch for the end of Mr. Sprinkler ‘s
story in the next issue.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR T0 ALL.

C. Church,
Safety Engineer.

HHRRERHHAK

Applicant for job with Government Intelli- |
gence agency: "I'm brave, intelligent,
loyal, resourceful—and SNEAKY."

A pessimist is a person who looks in the
mirror and concludes it’s no use.

This action may be distastefoi (and
ecmotimes painful) because it involves sit-
ting in judgement on our own actions. We
are not alone in this feeling. It is re-
quired cf every Company and every empleyes.
Therefore, it may be helpful to see how
others have tried to take an honest second
lcok at themselves and with this thought in ©
mind, a reproduction is given in this issue
and the next, of how one Company licked the
problem of preventing accidents.

Here follows the article from the
Industrial Supervisor, by Mr.H.0.Sprinkle,
Manager, Monengehela West Penn Public -
Service Co., We. Va.

Until within the last few years, acci-
dent prevention was one part of our job that
seemed cut on the margin--something to give
attention to when we weren't too busy, or
after an accident occurred.

Of course we had a safety department,
and a good one. It kept after us on first
aid training, made safety inspections, cent,
out bales of posters, did a lot of hurrah~
ing arxi award-giving and all the things it
could think of to sell the idea of safe
WOrk ©

But we were typical supervisors, it
seems; we had a safety department, and it
was up to it to look after the safety end
of the work. We were taking care of the
‘building and maintaining the lines and sub-~
stations. In fact, it seemed to us that cur
principal job along accident prevention lines
was to see that everyone got the necessary
first aid training, and that the Bulletin
Boards were kept up to date.

As I look back, the safety department
never quite got it across to us that acci-
dent prevention was our job, and just as
4{mportant as any other part of the work.

| They tried hard but it just didn't sink in.

It is probably true (and a number of
safety Cirectors have confirmed this) that
most safety departrents coms up against

e oe @ ee @ ee o.°

You're only young once, After that it
takes another excuse,