This post is also available in: Spanish
Days ago, a workmate brought a comment on one of my professional activities, occupational safety and health: “the think is that, your work has a lot to do with common sense“. It didn´t surprised me too much since I have already heard such argument on this profession for a long time.
Despite that in certain environments and activities (industrial, energy, car industry projects) risk prevention at work holds a proper recognition -a high profile and specialized work- many people consider this job as “the safety guy” who comes once a month to our workplace, makes a checklist and issues some slides with cartoons, says some truisms, arranges lots or papers and goes away.
Sadly, the second one is the most extended perception (the root causes are another matter).
But indeed, the comment from my colleague made me think about lots of professions to which happens more or less something like that: there is an spread and erroneous perception considering that these works can be easily carried out by any one with almost no more than interest, since they are based in skills considered as natural skills:
- Articles from journalists that you think you could write;
- Spokespersons making a presentation that you could make with only some practice in speaking in public;
- People from the advertisement world who have made a vey normal logo for a product.
I raise these three examples as these are professions that I was lucky to know about and which showed me that every, absolutely every profession requires lots of specialisation and that the ones meeting it, are able to make amazing thinks which require far more than common sense.
In particular, mi colleague -career journalist- Toni, explained me the basics to write well and since them it makes me easier to write each entry; or my partner and friend Juan Carlos Lorenzo who designed this blog´s logo, expressing the blog´s essence in a way that I could´t even realized; attend to inspiring conferences which I left with a light understanding on some topics that where a labitinth with no exit.
Now, if you are one of those thinking that risk prevention is just common sense, I challenge you to exchange our jobs for one day, allowing you even to make the “easy” work, that of the safety guy who visits once a month your workplace with a check list and slides with cartoons and says truisms….
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