"What's the worst that can happen?"

I've seen and heard about a lot of careless mistakes that resulted in harm to people. You probably have seen the Internet video of the crazy things people have done on golf carts, and you know those people did not walk away with just scratches.

Out in the field doing service in any industry, mistakes can carry some pretty high costs to humans and equipment. A colleague and I were standing in a power plant where a few weeks before two of our customer's workers had gotten scalded with steam because they had opened a valve without thinking it through. As we stood there and noticed the obvious obstructions in the pathway to the "safe way out," we shook our heads and both said, "No way would we have opened that valve considering the conditions!"

Very early in my career a coworker was working on a chemical pump. The chemical shed we were in was hot and humid, and our safety glasses kept fogging up. My associate removed his safety glasses and proceeded to loosen the pump's discharge tubing. With that, chemical squirted out of the tubing and hit him in the forehead just above his eyes. Fortunately, it did not get in his eyes, but this was an early and important lesson to me about personal protective equipment (PPE) and having a plan. Of course, another part of the safety plan whenever working with chemicals and fluids is to make sure the system is depressurized and that you have the proper spill equipment. When dealing with electrical and mechanical equipment, remember to lockout/tagout (LOTO).

I found the best way to improve your plan to protect yourself and the equipment is to always start off with this one important question: "What is the worst thing that can happen?" This advice holds true for all industries. Asking that question in the first two examples probably would have resulted in different outcomes. The two workers would not have spent weeks in pain and healing, and my coworker would not have had to endure the embarrassment of everyone asking, "What happened to you?" whenever they saw the mark on his forehead!