Welcome to the BC Safety Briefing, I'm Michael Chen, and in this AI generated podcast we explore occupational health and safety in British Columbia. Today marks a special milestone for us, This is our first episode dedicated to examining the academic research that shapes and sometimes challenges our profession. And you'll want to stay tuned to the very end. We'll be featuring a brand new blues song about our line of work from my friend Al B. B.

King. Yeah, that's artificial intelligence meets B. B. King. He's got quite the sense of humor about the daily grind we all face.

Today, I'm discussing a truly groundbreaking paper that was presented just this June at the thirty fifth European Safety and Reliability Conference in Stavanger. It's titled Investigating the Blues of Safety Professionals, and it's authored by Didier Delaitre, Justin Larousse, Jean Christophe Lacose, Olean Protelli, and Eric Ragot. I sincerely apologize if I've mispronounced any of those French names, especially Larousse and Lacose. The lead researcher, Jacques Christophe Lacose, is a distinguished figure at ANERIS, which is France's National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks. He's not just an academic he's spent decades in the trenches, examining how we learn from major accidents and challenging some of our most deeply held safety assumptions.

His work includes deep dive analyses of events like the Toulouse ammonium nitrate explosion and offering sharp critiques of frameworks like the Swiss cheese model. So what exactly are these blues the paper talks about? The researchers identified a widespread, almost global sense of discontent among safety professionals. This isn't just quiet grumbling. Professionals are publishing books, raw and unfiltered critiques from experienced practitioners with titles like Safety Sucks and, my personal favorite, I Know My Shoes Are Untied Mind Your Own Business.

The paper distills this frustration into three main complaints. First, and this will sound familiar to many of you, is excessive bureaucratization. We are drowning in paperwork. We spend more time documenting safety than we do actually creating it. The focus has shifted from prevention to administration.

Second, there's a profound disconnect from field reality. Too many safety roles have become office jobs, writing rules and procedures without a genuine understanding of how the work actually gets done. As one author quoted in the paper bluntly puts it, These puffed up and sanctimonious boobs seem to care more about whether someone is using a handrail than about preventing catastrophic fatalities. And third, it's the lack of recognition. We feel underpaid, overworked, and deeply undervalued.

We're often seen as a necessary evil, a cost center, until an accident happens. And then? Then we're the first to be blamed. The researchers trace this malaise to three systemic causes. First are education.

Safety programs often focus heavily on legal frameworks and engineering principles, but they largely ignore critical fields like organizational psychology and change management. We learn the what, but not the how or the why of human behavior in complex systems. Second is globalization. It creates these standardized one size fits all approaches. So whether you're working in forestry, in the interior, on a construction site in the Lower Mainland, or in a mine up in Fort St.

John, you're often wrestling with a generic safety management system designed for a multinational corporation, one that completely misses the local context and culture. And finally, the Digital Society. It's a double edged sword. It amplifies reporting requirements, adding to the bureaucratic burden, while simultaneously providing online platforms where all this discontent can be shared and magnified. This research really mirrors the challenges we see right here in BC.

We hear the same frustrations across all sectors. We obsess over measuring metrics like lost time injuries instead of focusing on building relationships and trust with workers. We conduct compliance audits that check boxes instead of seeking to understand why people make the choices they do to get the job done. The paper suggests this is nothing short of a profession wide crisis of meaning. It even connects it to the late David Graeber's concept of bullshit jobs.

Work that is so pointless or unnecessary that even the person doing it can't justify its existence. That's a sobering thought. And here's what really worries me: if we don't address this, we risk a serious crisis in attracting and retaining talent. Who wants to sign up for a career as a glorified paperwork processor, disconnected from the very people you're supposed to protect? But there is hope.

By naming this phenomenon, by studying it, we can begin to address it. This paper isn't just a list of complaints. It's a call to action. A call for reimagining safety education, for pushing back against mindless bureaucratization, and for reconnecting with our fundamental purpose: keeping people safe, not just compliant. The researchers interviewed a small group of French safety professionals for this study and even though there were only six interviews, it's telling that each participant, without any prompting, expressed different facets of these blues.

It confirms this isn't an isolated feeling, it's real and widespread. So, for those of you listening who feel this way, who feel bogged down by the forms and disconnected from the floor, know this, you are not alone. This is affecting safety professionals from New Zealand to Norway and yes, right here in British Columbia. Recognizing the problem is always the first step. This paper gives us the vocabulary for what so many of us have been feeling.

It's time for us to have honest conversations in our workplaces and professional associations about the future of our profession. You can find this published paper in the proceedings of the thirty fifth European Safety and Reliability Conference. And I highly recommend checking out Aneurys' website for more of Jean Christophe Lakos' insightful research. Now, as promised, we're going to close with something a little different. My friend Al B.

B. King, that's his stage name combining artificial intelligence with the blues legend, wrote this humorous blues song about our profession. Instead of getting down about the challenges we face, Al takes a different approach. He's decided if you can't beat the madness, you might as well laugh at it. The song captures all those absurd moments we know too well.

You know, investigating a paper cut with the same gravity as a major incident while forklifts are doing wheelies in the yard, having an office that's really just a closet between the boiler room and the bathroom, and how you suddenly become everyone's best friend the moment the inspector's car pulls into the lot. It's the same blues the researchers identified, but seen through the lens of humor. Sometimes, laughter really is the best piece of safety equipment we have. So here's Al B. B.

King with Safety Professional Blues, a little reminder that from Vancouver to Paris, we're all in the same hardhat. Until next week, this is Michael Chan reminding you that safety is everyone's responsibility, but it's our job to make it meaningful and connected to real work across British Columbia.

Zero injuries. Well, I couldn't have my budget too. That's why I'm laughing, baby. Got them safety professional blues. Management says safety first, then asks me to look away.

When production's running late, safety can wait another day. I'm the bad guy when I stop work, the hero when nothing goes wrong. So I just shake my head and this blues song. Got the safety professional blues, but I'm smiling anyway. You know what they told me yesterday?

They said we need to investigate why someone got a paper cut. A paper cut. Meanwhile, there's a forklift doing wheelies in the warehouse. But hey, gotta fill out that form. Got more acronyms than alphabet soup, j s a s d s p p.

Half the workers think I'm a cop, the other half just flee. But when the inspector comes around, suddenly I'm everyone's best friend till the audit's over. Then it's back to pretend my office is a closet right between the boiler and the john. But at least when things blow up, I'll be the first one gone. They say I'm too negative when I point out what could kill.

So now I say opportunity for improvement and send them the bill. I got the safety professional blues, but I'm laughing all the way. If you can't beat the madness, might as well enjoy the play from Vancouver to Paris. We're all in the same canoe. So grab your hard hat, babe, and sing them safety professional blues.

Remember folks,