elect r ica l sa fe ty ı mary capelli-schellpfeffer

CreatingHappier Endings

An accident happens.Quickly, the newsspreads. Instant mes-saging identifies thelocation. E-mail re-

ports the time. Telephone callsstart: Who was involved? Whatwere they doing? Did the coronercome? Is production back?

Slowly, a narrative unfolds. Asminutes grow into hours, facts com-bine with feelings and become a talewith a beginning, middle, and end.Our language suggests that this ishow we react. When we don’t knowthe answer to the query ‘‘what hap-pened?’’ we’re likely to respond,‘‘haven’t got the story yet. . . . ’’

Then, the information accumu-lates, with more than one sourcecontributing. Keeping track of theleads becomes harder until it’s not‘‘he said . . . ’’ or ‘‘she said. . . . ’’ Ourcomments are introduced by ‘‘this iswhat we know. . . . ’’

Stories help us understand. Theyare a vehicle by which we share theinterpretations of our experiencesacross the millennia. With life asthe stage, nature, family, and workprovide the players. With laughterin the plot, we reckon comedy. Sor-row in the drama reveals tragedy.Ever since the Greeks and Romans,the sharing doesn’t necessarily re-quire truth. Belief is sufficient, orperhaps suspended disbelief is.

The more we say ‘‘this was theway . . . ,’’ the more likely we are totreat the story as valuable. The valuecan appreciate to such importancethat its hold on our thought becomesmythic. The collective appreciation

is like a consensus, mostly agreedupon and not necessarily proven.

As myth, our believing need notbe engineered or scientific. In a sense,we can live above arguable facts witha common vision. The beauty in thevision has the ability to draw us closertogether, yet the vision can also blindus to hard realism. A disastrous man-agement decision, made with the bestof intentions, may not reconcile withan elite corporate character illustratedby triple-A bondratings and uninter-rupted quarterlyprofits. A pastengineering errorin place with en-during legacy intotoday’s operationsmay not fit into theview of an organi-zation as smart.

The conflict be-tween vision andreality can be foundin every economicsector. For exam-ple, our electricpower utilities arethe foundation ofour local, state, andnational econo-mies. We depend on their extraordi-nary success to literally electrify ourneighborhoods, the places where welive, learn, work, and play.

However, while representativespoint to the rarity of operational fail-ure in utility power delivery, utilityworkers are injured or killed everyday. Consider how the silence of a24-year-old lineman fatally shocked

with electrical exposure at a high-power installation testifies loudly tothe hazards of electricity. Absent nowin time and space, the man’s quietedvoice is vanished like the vapor froma cooling tower. Still, we hear his les-son as the weeks of root cause failureanalysis debrief a performance that isactually anything but rare.

Obituaries give us the notice of alife spent. Although myth can riselargely above the day-to-day strug-

gles of human exis-tence, the shortparagraphs writtenin the local news-papers on birth,family, schooling,military service,training, employ-ment, and commu-nity action offersmall glimpses intothe moments cele-brated by a son,brother, friend,soldier, apprentice,and leader.

Do we wish toaccept that a personmight die so ourcoffee maker willturn on in the

morning? Is the myth that the powerwill always be on worth the illusionthat we cannot turn it off?

Across generations, myths exerta significant influence over ourdecisions. In 2008, let’s exploresafety’s practices, rituals, and cus-toms. Our challenge is to think ofthe future we want. We can createhappier endings. IAS

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MIA.2007.909793

THE CONFLICTBETWEENVISION

AND REALITYCAN BEFOUND INEVERY

ECONOMICSECTOR.

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