Ep. 34: Career Opportunities (With David Strano)

"Sometimes work just fucking sucks" That's what David Strano said back on the Decline episode, and if you're not careful, saying smart things gets you volun-told for a guest appearance on the pod. David's a former touring roadie turned HSE director. That basically means he knows a lot about both parts of the PRS podcast, so the boys are considering just handing over the reins. Shit, he even knows what episode number we're on. It's a rare episode when there's not a NOFX song title involved, but this one goes way back in time with The Clash's "Career Opportunities" as a reference to shit jobs, success, and just getting things done in the face of a lot of competing goals. Since David has a real job (even closer to the actual work than Ron), we had a cool opportunity to talk about workplace safety as it's seen and lived with by folks doing work, especially those at the front line. David did 20 years of touring before Covid, and that's pretty rad. Except for the safety part. Nobody actually does that, apparently. It's wild west, as David says, and shit happens as you might expect. There's a big difference between compliance and looking for high-performance safety, but the reality is that compliance is still important, even if it isn't the complete answer. The boys talk a little bit about the difference between awareness and something mattering, too. And tolerability - like the idea that if you choose to work here in a high-risk industry, you've basically said you accept some level of risk. Later in the discussion, all of those ideas tie together in a conversation about where expectations from customers fit in. Priorities - like getting a facility opened on time - mean safety drifts back to the old school view of production vs. protection, even when we're focused on more contemporary ideas. FSMM isn't meant to be the real deal, but there are times when it sure looks and feels like it is. Anyway, it's an episode focused on how tradeoffs materialize at work, how having multiple folks with checkbooks shapes safety, and where compliance fits into discussions about front-line work grappling with safety as an academic abstraction. Have fun, punkers!