During a cold snap in the southeast, I am driving a company truck from one facility to the other in order to do some work there. It is about 9:00 pm, as I work the overnight shift, and it is raining a bit. I think I can handle the drive, as I’m a Georgia native and don’t think it looks that bad.

It turns out there is a black ice warning that I missed before we headed out. With my supervisor in the passenger seat, I’m driving a few miles below the speed limit, and I am getting passed as a result, even on roads where passing shouldn’t be allowed.

I’m a few car lengths behind a semi-truck on a four-lane highway with water spraying back onto my windshield when the semi starts to slide back and forth. My supervisor starts cursing, but I very calmly take my foot off the gas, letting the truck slow down on its own while the semi-truck in front of us jackknifes, swerving across all four lanes, crashing into a guard rail. It nearly tips over but finally comes to a stop and, luckily, it doesn’t hit any other cars.

Once the road is clear of the wrecked semi, I keep driving, but at about half the speed I was before the semi started sliding.

After a few minutes of staring at me, the supervisor speaks up.

Supervisor: “Are you okay? You’re surprisingly calm.”

I’m feeling a bit shaky after the fact.

Me: “Nah, yeah, I’m fine.”

Supervisor: “Jesus, you didn’t even blink when the truck spun out.”

Me: “Well, sure. What was panicking going to accomplish? That being said, can I pull into this parking lot up here?”

My supervisor agreed under the circumstances, and I pulled into an empty parking lot since the full weight of what almost happened was hitting me and I started shaking a bit.

He was surprised when I insisted on driving the rest of the way, since we were almost at our destination anyway, after only a few minutes to calm down.

I work for a smallish company with a lackadaisical approach to… pretty much everything. Our main customer has become more and more exacting regarding safety, record-keeping, and above all safety record-keeping. Every day, it gets harder and harder to wing it.

Me: “Congratulate me, [Coworker]. I managed to obtain copies of Declaration of Conformity for some tools we purchased ten years ago! That’s two more we can use on [Customer]’s site without trouble.”

Coworker: “Uh, did you happen to see what the boss just brought in? You won’t like it, I’m afraid.”

Out of curiosity, I get into the boss’s office the first chance I get. It’s filled with boxes of tools of all sorts and shapes. The boss greets me enthusiastically.

Boss: “Check this out! These tools cost a tenth of the stuff we used to buy!”

Me: “Sure, they… look good… Look, can I get their Declarations of Conformity, so I can scan and archive them?

Boss: “Eh… They didn’t come with one…”

Way to go, Boss. Now we’re stuck with a metric ton of cheap import stuff that eventually will end up at the customer’s site, because we’re THAT dumb, and we cannot get approved tools because the budget’s been spent on trash. Fingers crossed hoping these tools don’t maul anyone…

I am tasked with investigating why a fire was allowed to do so much damage to the basement level of a building when it could have been mitigated. The site had four security guards onsite at the time that the fire broke out, but according to the accounts of people in the building at the time, they didn’t exactly do anything.

The fire was in an electrical room in the basement garage of the structure, which was covered by two cameras. The fire could have been extinguished by our security staff when it was still small instead of being allowed to run rampant.

The building manager and I go to the security control room and start looking at the cameras.

Within seconds of breaking out, the fire is visible and obvious on one of the two cameras, but the camera viewing the security control room itself shows no reaction from the guards onsite.

Time passes and the fire gets bigger, smoke starts to filter into the building from stairwells, and one camera has turned into a bright orange rectangle on the monitors.

There’s still no reaction from the guards on duty, but people within the building are starting to take notice now, and panic is setting in. It isn’t until someone hammers on the window of the control center that the guards react. They are informed of the fire by a tenant of the building just as the strobes start to flash. We watch, in utter disbelief, as the guards start walking casually to the basement. To make matters worse, they don’t take the fastest route; they end up going a longer way so they can take the elevator instead of using the stairs.

Now the sprinkler system has gone off, flooding the basement.

I turn the cameras off. What could have been a minor event turned into thousands of dollars worth of damage because the on-duty officers were not paying attention and seemingly did not care about what was happening. They didn’t even call for a building evacuation. People could have been hurt or killed. 

All four guards are terminated on the spot. The owner of the building makes the call to terminate the supervisor, as well, because he doesn’t trust him anymore after seeing how well his people were trained. 

We all believe that the fire alarms and strobes should have triggered faster, and that is being fixed; however, we have physical security on the site for a reason, and the failure of building safety systems is one of those reasons. When automation fails, you are always supposed to be able to depend on those who are on-site with their boots on the ground. 

Not this time.

A local grocery store has been having trouble with cart thefts. They bought a new cart-lock system that automatically locks the tires of the carts if the carts get too far from the store.

They didn’t tell any of the customers, though. I was one of those customers.

You know how you can stand on the bottom platform of a cart and hold onto the handlebars while someone else pushes the cart?

My daughter was standing on the cart like that, and I was pushing it. We were inside the store, but the tires abruptly locked. My daughter was thrown into the basket, and I went a**e-over-tea-kettle face first into the basket myself.

Both of us were mostly fine! We did go to the doctor, and my daughter was unharmed, whereas I picked up a scratch on my cheek that needed three stitches.

The employees then told me about the locking wheel system. They didn’t know why, but at that part of the store, carts have been regularly and unexpectedly locking… and the way the system is set up, they don’t unlock easily. The employees have to bring them to a back room to unlock them.

They’re hoping my accident — and the resulting payout by the store’s insurance — will convince the owner to scrap the cart-locking program, because it’s apparently very inconvenient.

While on vacation, I sign up for a walking tour of Dublin. The tour assembles at a designated meeting spot, and the tour guide spends some time chatting with people as they arrive. The majority of us are from the United States, with a few English and Canadian tourists, as well. When it’s time to get started, the guide gives a brief introduction on what we can expect, where we’re going, etc.

Guide: “And now, a bit about safety. We’re going to be crossing the road, and if you’ve been here for a few days, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we Irish… don’t care. We cross whenever we feel like it. We stare down the cars and say, ‘Go on, buddy, I dare you.’ But with a big group like this, we’re going to be safe. We’re not going to cross when the red man is showing, all right? We’re going to wait until we see the green man. And when you see the yellow man…”

Half The Group: “Run!”

The guide laughs.

Guide: “Americans! It’s always the Americans! No, there are a lot of us, and we don’t want anyone to get separated or hit by a car. If we see the yellow man, we’re going to stop and wait for him to turn green.”

Tourist: “Well, hey, you can’t blame us for crossing on yellow when you just said that y’all cross on red.”

Guide: “…Fair play. You’ve got me there.”