[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.
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.
Sure this motorbike is only half full!
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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