President's and Valentine's; Compliance and Complacency

Fifty years ago the now disgraced President Nixon signed into law protections for workers and our environment.  A disgraced president who pushed the boundaries of authority entrusted to him by the american people, actually did a good thing.  Fifty years later, on this day a now impeached twice and acquitted twice disgraced President Trump will be known for his failure to protect working Americans and to prevent the deaths of over 450,000 Americans among other things. Any good thing he did will overshadowed by the legacy of COVID-19 and a Big Lie.  What a contrast and yet both of these men made work a political matter and the latter may ultimately be indirectly responsible for ushering in a new or revised set of standards for worker protections.

Occupational Safety and Health is relevant again!  Don't get me wrong, workplaces did not suddenly change and workplace safety become a new thing, on the contrary, workplace safety was always in plain sight.  But like anything in plan sight it can become hidden and this often has to do with seeker awareness and experience.  It is once again discovered when revealed to those who may or may not seek it or who have grown complacent.  The good and bad part about compliance is that those who began working and serving in a compliant environment will come to expect it.  Expectation and complacency sometimes go hand in hand.  The downside of a compliant and yet complacent environment is that it can be exploited through politics when we lack the background or the history to defend what is the current condition or courage to change it, and there will be no push for accountability.

Compliance with what must be done often gets confused with norms, what should be done.  Norms are agreed upon standards of operation and engagement.  Norms may also be policy that will often have the backing of and be rooted in broader regulation, however this is not always the case.  OSHA standards are often best practices agreed upon as the standard.  And so compliance with the best practices even though codified as regulation  can be hard to enforce.  When this happens politics as revealed in the COVID-19 response and our own Big Lie, will obfuscate compliance with norms, death and harm will result, and there will be a lack of accountability, even to the point of acquittal of the guilty.  Compliance with complacency is knowledge underutilized.

Presidents Day!  What is it and why do we celebrate it?  As a Black American, I have been encouraged to respect the reverence of the day even though the majority of past presidents did not value or honor black lives.  The long weekend many California families use to enjoy winter traditions such as skiing in the mountains or dirt biking in the deserts presents at least a universal sentiment if not action.  The day is valued for family time, play not work, and out of respect for the day my grandchildren don't hear me speak of the reality of who, what, and why we are celebrating.  This tradition will hold even as on this past weekend our nation chose to continue to elevate white supremacy and now the irrelevance of this day by acquitting a criminal president.

Finally, this same holiday day weekend included the celebration of love in Valentines Day!  We all have different viewpoints on what "love is".  This year the Valentines were for the children because the adults in the room could not agree on what is love, what is love of country, and in the final analysis what is a safe workspace that should be valued and protected from violence and harm.

As a person of faith I will offer that 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 is the best place to start when establishing what "love is" and what must be at the heart of workplace safety!

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.   Love never fails. 

Happy Valentine's Day!  I'll do a shout out for Presidents another time.

Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash

MLK JR!

Friday Jan 15 was his birthday.  I was actually teaching an OSHA Safety Course, first day, that day.  Martin Luther King Jr.  When I first started teaching OSHA Safety I was of course aware of the enormous sacrifices and contributions MLK Jr made during his life.  I knew the story of his assassination, that he was actually in Memphis, TN to support sanitation workers desire to unionize.  What went missing with my understanding of the events surrounding his death was just how intertwined and interconnected social, economic, and environmental justice issues were with safe workplaces. 

Over the years I have increasingly added to a required Introduction to OSHA discussion that moment in history, what MLK Jr was doing that fateful week of his death.  Advocating for workers, advocating for the poor, advocating for the disenfranchised, he was called to an extraordinary moment in our history and we are the better for his having answered that call.

As this day ends, the official day we celebrate one of our best examples of living a life of purpose that truly changed the way we think and conversations we have.  COVID-19 has limited interactions and acts of service.  I had to take a few moments today to remind my grandchildren of why they got to sleep in and not zoom for school!  It was a delicate conversation that I hope they will remember.  They live in a better world because of the many people who have come before them breaking down barriers, seeking only to serve the interests of humanity.  

Our workplaces are safer because it is no longer okay to discriminate against, to bully, to physically harm and put in harms way those who must work.  We honor the dignity of work in safe workplaces when we remember and reflect on the legacy MLK Jr.   What is work but a form of service.

 Happy Birthday!

Hello 2021!

 A pandemic rages, a democracy falters, and the workplace is once again the center of environmental, social and economic justice issues in the second or third (depending on your viewpoint) decade of a new century!  But first...

Happy New Year!  In this first weekend of the New Year my home is filled with grandchildren, children, sibling, and parents and we are blessed.  I give all glory and honor for my current situation to Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior, Jehovah God my heavenly father, full stop.  If you come across this reflection don't confuse me with hypocritical and false witnesses to God's goodness and grace.  Yes, this is my professional/business blog but my purpose is service to my community and for me faith and service go hand in hand.  And yes, I also speak of the current politics as I am as a businesswomen concerned and bound by political winds.

Our home and family has been touched by COVID-19.  We have lost family, friends to this virus but we can also boast that family and friends have overcome it.  While workplaces have been forced, many kicking and screaming into compliance, by either changing the working environment with engineering controls, moderating workflow with work practice controls, and actively requiring PPE, personal behaviors outside of work have been harder to manage.  And so the pandemic rages, with healthcare systems overburdened and health services compromised.  Unfortunately this has also meant personal service and leisure/dining workplaces are suffering as many have been asked to close again despite following workplace COVID-19 protocols.  Public institutions, schools and the like struggle with decisions on opening up or staying closed. 350,000 deaths and counting, attributed to one root cause.  This is something I think many are not really considering even as there are at least four confirmed and distributed vaccines available to fight this disease.  Our behaviors may not give opportunity for the vaccines to truly control the suffering before many more lives are lost or forever changed.

A peaceful transition of power has been the cornerstone of American Democracy with fewer than two challenges to that transfer in our 240 year history.  It seems the outgoing administration is adding to that count and believes the election was rigged going so far as to ask election administrators to find votes???  No concession only challenges that I have not seen evidence to substantiate.  A new congress (117th) is being sworn in today as I share my thoughts in this blog.  American Democracy, our republic has some structural flaws and deep rooted issues that must be faced and I for one believe it will take principled and truth seeking leadership to achieve that objective.  One of Congresses first official actions will be to certify the election results and welcome the incoming administration.  Nothing more to say, just prayers!  Workplaces will be impacted!

Many of us will spend more of our adult lives working, going to work, being in the workplace than we will spend in our own homes.  The challenge of workplace safety has been and will always be about changing personal behaviors and changing how we think about and view our respective roles in society.  We all depend on each other and must recognize the knowledge we possess has always been conditional.  Where we were born and to whom we were born.  Access to and the valuing of knowledge transfer has very much been a factor of place and timing.  In 2021 we can look back to see our lessons but we really gotta look.  We must continue to strive for environmental, economic and social justice and recognize it may present first in workplaces!!!  We must recognize the conditions of our current situations with humility and grace. When we study the history of COVID-19 and what we did, how we reacted, I wonder what our lessons learned will be?  I am contemplating a few for discussion in a future workplace safety training course.  Hope to see you there!

8 Months Since!

Well, I am back in the bloggers sphere!  8 Months since my last post.  It has been a long and rough 2020.  My family lost a dear friend to COVID-19 just after my last post.  We did not get to properly say goodbye and even mourn for that matter. I have had several close relatives battle and defeat the virus and we are presently in fervent prayer for my paternal aunt battling COVID-19 in ICU, Flint MI.  I lost two matriarchs this summer.  My maternal grandmother and my children's maternal great grandmother.  They were 93 and 99 respectively.  Black women from the Jim Crow south, they were both here to see the First African American President elected but unfortunately also here to see the election immediately following of someone so disrespectful of American ideals, values, and the history and struggles of Black Americans, descendants of enslaved Americans, immigrants of all nationalities and cultures, and indigenous peoples, it is and has been disheartening.  My heart grieves the loss of an immeasurable amount of character, faith, wisdom and grace in a time when it is sorely lacking in so many representing the face of America.

COVID-19 cases as predicted earlier this year are on the upswing.  While many have adopted the safety protocols necessary for slowing down the spread of the disease there continues to be a denial of the seriousness of an uncontrolled pandemic, modern day.  We have lost sight of the reasons for the precautions, shutdown orders, and social distancing requirements.  Overrun emergency rooms and packed ICUs, over worked and sometimes sickened medical professionals, morgues with no more space, the equivalent of wartime triage of non COVID-19 patients is what we are faced with as the year comes to a close.  That's the bad news.  The good news increases in cases is not so much attributable to workplaces meaning OSHA has responded to worker concerns and employers have gotten the message and are doing their part.

College campuses remain closed but I have been fortunate to continue to teach and instruct college students from home while managing not as well as I would like the homeschooling of my 6 and 8 year old granddaughters.  COVID-19 has been a perfect storm for instructing on workplace safety.  I can honestly say that students have really made the connection to how important safe workplaces are to the overall health and economy of our society and world in general.  My end goal for this year is to capitalize on this heightened awareness and target the informing and training of owners of new small businesses.  KYMS Consulting like many other small professional service entities has lost some ground but will hopefully bounce back in the 2nd quarter of 2021.   

Finally as I close this brief update I will share that I had the great experience of working the polls during the 2020 Presidential Election.  Over a four day period, I worked with a 12 person team of very professional volunteers who demonstrated the utmost integrity and respect for free and fair elections that I have personally had the opportunity to witness.  More than half of us were participating as poll workers for the first time.  We had no issues or problems, we turned away no one, ballots were cast without errors.   Our poll location was clean, spacious, sanitized, and welcoming.  While I can not speak for every polling location in this region or these United States, if any were set up and run half as well as we were, they were were on the money.  Anyone questioning the integrity of the election process, poll workers, and voters exercising their rights to participate in this democracy might want to reflect on their own patriotism, values, and sense of what's right and wrong.  No cheaters observed here, except maybe with those crying wolf.

And yes we elected our first ever Woman Vice President Elect!  Kamala Harris  Thank You President Elect Joe Biden for the wisdom, care, and concern you have shown for this nation in valuing the talents and contributions of all of its citizenry!  I can't wait to see principled leadership in action.

On to the beginning of the Holiday Season.  2020 has been long and rough but I have much to be thankful for, to appreciate and value.  Stay tuned.

COVID-19

Ten years ago I started KYMS Consulting.  I also added to that DBA profile KYMS Engineering and Business Services.  Within a year I had begun teaching at the community college level and met my now friend and senior consultant Cash Sutton III.  We both are members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and both licensed professional engineers.  I share this because while this blog is attached to my business website and represents at this point more personal reflection rather than any associated with specific business interests or issues, I realize KYMS Consulting is who I am as a person and represents the values I hold dear!  Faith, Family, Friendship, Service and Community.  So if you happen upon this blog because you visited my website to find out more about KYMS Consulting for business purposes I am not some corporate entity far removed from the mission and vision of the work I seek or the services I offer.  I am the business!

I had a vision when I started  KYMS that I would live the values of the company.  I am conservative by nature, believe in environmental stewardship, taking care of what you have been blessed with, only using what you need, sharing and giving when and where required, serving and helping others.  I know I have lived and promoted these values and yet my company had not grown in way that indicated success through a multiplicity of satisfied customers and engaged partners or employees.  I set out to change that this year and had put a plan in action.

Which brings me to COVID-19!  We are living in interesting times.  I had planned workplace safety training for small or new business owners in the upcoming weeks but out of the abundance of caution had to cancel due to virus transmission concerns.  And no sooner than when that cancellation email was sent to the training venue, I get sick once again with a circulating cold bug.  With 5 children under the age of 9 in my household passing bugs is inevitable.  This is my third cold in as many months.  To top that off, LA County, Riverside County, and San Bernardino County all have confirmed cases of the virus and have taken such precautions as to close primary schools, have college campuses go completely online for class lectures, reduce operating hours for public facilities and recommend cancelling large gatherings of 50 or more persons.  So for the next few weeks I will be assisting with homeschooling my grandchildren as well as taking the courses I teach fully online and implementing the social distancing recommended by our public health officials!

We must be reminded of the things we have been taught and have forgotten, and we must make sure we are teaching and informing on the important things of the day as well as the history that supports our abundance and our complacency.  COVID-19 is likely the result of research and experimentation that I hope had noble intentions.  However the US response to the threat of a now pandemic has been  mired in politics, arrogance, poor judgement, poor planning, and a lack of trust in what is being communicated.  Mis-information and dis-information is prevalent on social media.  Main stream media depending on what political party you identify with grapple with aligning to a uniform and consistent message.  One wonders if rational thinking will prevail in the chaos that seems to be looming.  Case in point...where is all the toilet paper!!!!  I don't understand why there has been a run on toilet paper and why I can't simply order online (with a future fulfillment date) even though local distribution centers are out of stock!!!! This does not make sense and we can do better.  I think I will start with lessons on improving the family hygiene practices...

Check out CDC for more information!COVID-19


OSHAs information on COVID-19

2020! Made it!

Well I will start by saying it seems this will be an annual post! LOL!  But I will shoot for quarterly!  Last year was another year of growth!  I am up to nine grandchildren having added granddaughter number 7 on December 14.  KYMS Consulting was a bit sluggish but in my tenth year of operation I decided to go bold and create some additional DBAs that would allow me to more appropriately target market segments I wish to service.  I'm in the process of revising my business plan, creating additional plans for the other businesses and building a strategy for creating generational wealth.  There will be movement and increase.

Full time employment has been calling me as my debt load grows.  While I desire to always have a business I can call my own, I may venture into full time teaching as a college professor.  I am applying for a number of positions.  I am also looking at engineering and management again since that is where I grew up.  If a full time position as an instructor does not materialize then I may have to get back to those roots.

So enough of work and profession stuff.  So much going on in the world.  The POTUS has been impeached and is currently on trial letting his lawyers defend his actions through the greatest gas lighting of the American public I think I have ever seen!  I am not a Trump fan.  I gave him the benefit of doubt after he was elected, even prayed for his success!  But I am now convinced there is nothing great or worthy of the position in him.  Our creator I think must remind us through imperfect mankind that we need him in the mix when it comes to our governance.  There is a warning for us in the Trump Administration...hope we figure it out before it is too late!

2020!!! I am old enough to remember it was just yesterday when I believed 2020 to be so far in the future as to be a goal for retirement, children on their own, house paid off, in love again.  None of this is my current reality and yet the most important thing is.mine to own.  I am a new creature in Jesus Christ through his saving grace.  My heavenly father Jehovah is my provider, my victory, my peace!  That is all that matters in 2020.

The birthday milestone of 56 is on the horizon, next week to be exact.  I hope to see it God willing.

2019 ended with increase to my personal legacy.  I am so blessed and pleased my God has chosen me to continue to be a part of the lives of all of my family but especially my grandchildren.

So happy 2020 my personal goal is to grow in the spirit according to Galatians 5:22.

Fruit of the Spirit!

New Year and Late News

Finishing the Race is Winning!

Well, its been difficult coming back.  As anyone out there coming across this blog can surmise I was  unsuccessful in my bid to become an elected board member representing the cities of Chino and Chino Hills with Inland Empire Utilities Agency.  Over 40000 votes cast and I lost by 850.  It hurt but at the same time was a boost of confidence to my ability to get in and do what I need to do with God's help.

I don't plan on giving up on my quest to serve my community in way that best utilizes my background, skills, and temperament.  While a rebid for IEUA is a ways off I have applied for Chino Planning Commission and will seek to serve on other committees/boards/commissions that will allow me to grow and serve.

Holidays were Joyful and Blessed!

2019 is of course off to a good start!  I am alive and healthy!  I have set some goals and intentions instead of making resolutions.  The most relevant to this blog is to post to it weekly!!!

Stay Tuned!