Appreciating Colombia's approach to health and safety

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Living relatively independently in Colombia, a nation that hasn't completely tried to control almost all aspects of its citizens' lives, means that I've been shielded from much of the health and safety silliness that has infected many high-income countries over the last few decades.

Sure this motorbike is only half full!

Yes, Colombia does have some perplexing rules and regulations. What's more, some of its citizens are anal about rather harmless practices yet blasé when it comes to acts that are highly damaging all round.

Nonetheless, even for things that are officially outlawed here, law enforcement is generally lax. Depending on the situation, this can work to one's advantage or drive one insane. On balance, however, I feel I'm mentally up in the deal living in Colombia. The matters that affect me most hover around my Goldilocks zone.

Shamberger

I did, though, get a taste of how others are forced to operate and strictly follow questionable procedures when I worked on a short recording project at a multinational global technology company 'driving energy innovation for a balanced planet', as it describes itself.

(I don't think I'm breaking any contract agreement by naming the company, so here goes: It's Schlumberger, or SLB as it's called these days. It has a big base in the town of Cota close to Bogotá. I was tempted to run with Shamberger in the title of this piece but considering I haven't got paid yet, that might have been a bit too risqué.)

Before one even goes through SLB's turnstiles, it's clear these guys don't do health and safety by half measures. (This is in contrast to many Colombian companies that are often all show in this regard but then offer little in terms of substance. Again, it's the approach of 'As long as we have it on paper, the practice doesn't matter.')

On seeing some odd-looking contraptions before the turnstiles, I was initially dumbfounded, thinking that we were returning to the covid-19 pandemic-era tests. But tests for covid-19 they were not. They were breathalysers for alcohol and, I assume, other narcotics.

Now, the production company with which I was working didn't tell me in advance that there'd be such a test. Nonetheless, the four 750 ml Costeña beers that I'd drunk the evening before had clearly gone through my system. I got the green light to proceed. (Had such machines existed at places in which I worked full-time previously, I might have struggled to get the green light one out of every five times or so.)

'After successfully and miraculously navigating the stairs, we were then sent to a safety briefing to learn of all the other nearby threats to our existence and how we could competently avoid them.'

Then, just after the turnstiles, before we undertook the herculean task of ascending a standard stairs, we were told how to do so correctly. 'Stay to the right, in single file, and ensure you use the handrail at all times. On ascending, hold on to the top of the handrail, on descending, hold on to the bottom of the handrail.'

Goodness! All those times I've gone up and down stairs, hands swinging by my side. How reckless. In my defence, your Honour, I've heard fitness experts say that using the stairs freestyle can help to build and maintain one's core strength. So SLB could be accused of accelerating the development of health problems in its employees.

Be that as it may, considering some of us in the production crew were novices at this handrail procedure, it was little short of a miracle that we successfully navigated the stairs.

Drive me crazy

After that formidable feat, we were sent to a safety briefing to learn of all the other nearby threats to our existence and how we could competently avoid them.

I shan't go into all the exciting details of that, only to mention that some insects, such as wasps, are potentially dangerous. Come on SLB, you've got to see things from the wasps' perspective. They're the victims here.

We were also given guidance on how to drive carefully and safely. OK, SLB is a US-headquartered company but this is Colombia. One has a better chance of locating the legendary city of El Dorado than finding a local who drives carefully and safely here.

Amusingly enough, an SLB head, a Colombian, rebuked the production company bosses for arriving in a jeep that carried a passenger in the boot. It was pointed out that the boot had a retractable seat and, so the counterargument went, that it was therefore legal to travel with someone seated on it. The SLB guy, not to be seen to back down, said it was unsafe, particularly as the boot was full of equipment.

Now, if this exchange had happened in say, Germany, I wouldn't have questioned its bona fides. But Colombians getting worked up about unsafe driving practices? I'm not having it.

This is a country, after all, where it's common to see four or five people ride on one motorbike, without a helmet in sight. If safety is considered at all, it's in thinking about where's best to place your youngest passenger. Tucked in between you and the handlebars? Or somewhere between your wife at the back of the bike seat and the other two kids in the middle? Trial and error, I guess.

Sterilising health and safety

I'm not, however, criticising this, even though I wouldn't do it. It's the traditional Colombian do-so-at-your-own risk approach. For the most part, I think that's a fair way to live one's life. (Do note that for this to truly work, one must take responsibility for one's actions. And accepting culpability when things go wrong is the harder part.)

The other extreme is what we mentioned at the start, the pullulation of health and safety procedures that we've seen across the Anglosphere and continental Europe.

There is a more agreeable middle way. In my experiences, Colombia is closer to that than most high-income nations. It allows for a little more individual daring as opposed to effectively moulding the masses into a state of inertia: 'Careful now, that's not allowed.' That latter imposition goes against human nature, even if it's done with the best of intentions in mind.

It was this daring, the adventurous spirit of its settlers — particularly those who roamed west — that played an important role in making the United States of America great. It's not overstating it to say that the shackles of over-the-top health and safety rules have played a part in that country's stagnation in certain areas. Basically, too much government interference, just like in Europe.

President Donald Trump has wasted no time in tackling the often pernicious DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) culture that has taken hold in the US (similar expressions of this are in force elsewhere). Where he has led, others have quickly followed in what is being referred to as an overall vibe shift, not just in the US but outside its borders, too.

In many ways, DEI can be seen as an offspring of the more ludicrous elements of health and safety.

So while the child is now being chided, we also need to take the parent to task. Sterilise health and safety before it sterilises us.
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Too much of a nice guy — to the wrong people

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Right. Time to face up to an uncomfortable truth. I'm just too much of a nice guy in this world made for chancers and charlatans.

Sometimes it's nice to give. At other times, it can lead to resentment.

Nice — or charitable in any case — that is, to those who clearly don't deserve such favour. What makes this worse is that I've known it for some time.

Idiocy

Back in February 2023 in Rewarding the reckless, I explained how over the years I'd become chief moneylender to a buddy, let's call him Pablo — a work-hard, revel-harder builder — in my beloved Bogotá barrio of Santandercito. When Pablo first started asking for financial aid — in 2019, if I recall correctly — he was credit-worthy. At times he even paid me back earlier than originally agreed. So, understandably enough, I became more relaxed about giving him handouts.

However, this all changed in 2023. Indeed, a later story that year, Exacting revenge, gave an indication of how angered I'd become. A feeling of being used and abused.

Yet, some questionable quid pro quo deals with Pablo aside, I've allowed myself to be taken advantage of a few more times. Yes, it's all completely my fault. Pablo doesn't put a gun to my head or entrap me in mafia-esque offers I can't refuse. (I can count myself lucky on this front — we're talking about Colombia, after all.)

If I were to name a culprit other than me for my actions it would be Father Time, the great healer that he is and all. However, that's a weak defence of my idiocy considering all the stress I've suffered over the last few years because of this money-lending, stress I've already addressed via this medium.

Cruel to be kind

At root, I surmise, is that there's something I admire in Pablo. A father of at least five children of his own blood, he also took under his wing two troublesome stepchildren. I've seen this pair go from late adolescence to early adulthood. The kindest word I could use to describe them is leeches.

All this could be seen as a vicious cycle. Pablo is taken advantage of by certain people, his kith and kin essentially. Then he in turn takes advantage of others when the opportunity arises.

'When does one go from being too much of a nice guy to being too much of a strongman, too obnoxious?'

I've told Pablo before that he should be tougher with his ungrateful stepchildren, as well as, at times, with some of his own adult children. Cruel to be kind and all that.

This is, however, a prime example of seeing the flaws in others whilst failing to see — or ignoring — shortcomings in ourselves. I need to be crueller with Pablo.

In any case, Pablo remains in my life. Heated arguments aside, or perhaps because of them, he almost seems like a Colombian brother to me. Family feuds can get ugly, can't they?

So my being a nice guy to him is more excusable in that context.

Consenting to resentment

Where my nice-guy approach rankles even more is when it comes to courting. Before I get into specifics, I must clarify that dating is something that I've never been too enthused about.

That admission aside, I had thought that my recent softly-softly, gentlemanly approach with a young lady in San José del Guaviare was the way to go. And, initially, it did seem to bear fruit.

However, in the space of just 24 hours, this object of my desire — best I see her as an object, lest I reopen barely healed emotional wounds — went from seemingly being open to my advances to putting up an impenetrable barrier to her heart and head. I was dumped before I'd allowed myself to be properly used and abused. Or before I'd been given the chance to discover this object's dislikeable traits, of which she no doubt has many.

My error? Well, according to some local lads, I wasn't forward enough with her. Too much of, yes, you guessed it, a nice guy. After nights out when she said she had to go home because her mother would be waiting for her, I respected her decision. Apparently I should have insisted she returned to my lodgings.

These loan and love episodes remind me of advice given to the physician Gabor Maté which he shares in his book When The Body Says No:
'“If you face the choice between feeling guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time.” ... If a refusal saddles you with guilt, while consent leaves resentment in its wake, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide.'

In the case of Pablo, consenting to lend him money tends to leave me resentful. And with the one-time object of my desire, I resent not being more direct, more quickly.

The former scenario is, in theory, easier to rectify. As for the latter, it's more difficult to know where the boundaries lie. When does one go from being too much of a nice guy to being too much of a strongman, too obnoxious? Moreover, what appeases Object A, may appal Object B. Thus, there may be no relevant lesson to be learned from an error in one escapade before embarking on another. Such is life.
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Asking good questions — and dealing with uncomfortable answers

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

'Rather than ask my child, "What did you learn at school today?", I believe it's better to ask, "Did you ask good questions?"'

Asking good questions helps us to become more clued-in, well-rounded individuals.

That suggestion was given by a contributor to a BBC podcast series presented by Rory Stewart, titled The long history of ignorance, released last year.

Need-to-know basis

The idea is that not only is it better to be an active, engaged learner rather than a passive one but also how we go about such engagement makes a telling difference. We should try to become more effective at probing to get the information that will help us understand an issue — or a person — more clearly. (Whilst being aware that for certain issues we may never discover the truth.)

What constitutes good questions will depend on the subject, the context and the inquisitor's level of knowledge. OK, asking open questions — the five Ws (who, what, when, where, why) and H (how) — rather than closed questions is a decent overall rule. In fairness to many young children, they do this naturally, something I touched on in The just-how-it-is society, before said society starts to inhibit their inquisitiveness, that is.

'What my reply didn't specify — because I wasn't asked — was if my thinking about her was positive or negative. Or worse, indifferent, with indifference the essence of inhumanity, as George Bernard Shaw put it in The Devil's Disciple.'

The obvious problem with closed questions is that by their design they don't call for deep responses. If the questioner gets the answer he/she expected or wanted to hear, there may not be a follow-up, while the person questioned may be content not to divulge more without being pushed to do so.

For example, a woman in San José del Guaviare with whom I'd been intimately involved asked me in a message if I think about her. I replied in the affirmative. I wasn't lying. I did and do think about her. Somebody who only recently entered my life and still communicates with me from a distance, well it's highly likely I am going to think about her. It's hard not to.

What my reply didn't specify — because I wasn't asked — was if my thinking about her was positive or negative. Or worse, indifferent, with indifference being the essence of inhumanity, as George Bernard Shaw put it in The Devil's Disciple.

She could have followed up her initial question with, 'How do you feel when you think about me?', or something similar. That would have required me to give a more detailed answer. Or at least a diplomatic one. Yes, a more truthful answer is almost always best but at times it can be hard for us to be fully honest.

Learning to deal with it

In general, the person questioned may not, as for me in the example described above, want to say much — or simply may not be able to say much because he/she doesn't have the answers — but at least with the right line of questioning one can get a clearer idea of the situation. All this is better carried out in a face-to-face scenario where body language will most likely tell us more than words alone. It's quite easy to bluff or lie in a message, be it by text or voice.

Yet, even if we ask good questions that lead to our getting accurate answers, we don't always take the necessary lessons they impart. To do so is often the more challenging part.

Returning to soppy emotional affairs, another San José del Guaviare woman, one whose company and conduct I had enjoyed, told me bluntly in a WhatsApp message that she didn't want to see me again. She gave no specific reason(s) for this. Now, experience has taught me that there's no coming back from that. Yet, my acceptance of this fact has been quite difficult — well, had been quite difficult. I'm moving on. Honestly, I am.

Asinine romantic escapades aside, asking good questions is one step towards becoming a more clued-in, well-rounded individual. Having the wherewithal to deal with and, if possible, act on any uncomfortable, perplexing or even unfathomable answers arising from those good questions can propel one towards greatness. Some of us, however, are unwilling — or unable — to put in the effort required.
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