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"Slow down, you move too fast..."
September 9, 2009
Issue 35
In this Age of Twitter, progress is increasingly measured by the speed it takes to get from question to answer. Our attention spans are growing ever shorter as technology has now outpaced the brain's ability to process ideas from hypothesis to conclusion and action plan. To keep up we are forced to skip the middle part where some thoughtful contemplation used to lead us to well-thought-out solutions. We have become conditioned to expect immediate responses to questions, whether easy or tough, with no time left to let the mind deliberate.
After the Twin Towers were destroyed with 3,000 dead, the Bush Administration had to have the Patriot Act signed NOW, lest the next backpack coming over the border from Canada contain a dirty bomb. No doubt there was a need to act. Yet today some question the wisdom of some provisions of that Act, among them for example, whether incorporating nearly all federal security and law enforcement agencies into the new Department of Homeland Security was a smart idea. But the Department exists and, because it is now the status quo, any significant attempt to restructure it will be exceedingly difficult.
Many (but not all) Congressmen have been honest enough to admit that they did not read the stimulus package legislation at all; the need for a quick fix for the economy was much too pressing to contemplate the details. Yet, now that the money has been spent, they are appalled at the lack of oversight provisions in the law, and wonder why the banks aren't using our money as we thought they would.
The Heat Illness standard was enacted in August 2005 by the Cal/OSHA Standards Board on an emergency basis because the Division of Occupational Safety and Health declared us to be in the midst of a crisis. No doubt that the heat-related deaths of thirteen workers needed to be addressed. Yet now Cal/OSHA is defending a lawsuit by the ACLU which criticizes the Division and the Standards Board for, among other things, bad science underlying the standard's fundamental presumptions and illogical mandates which do not increase worker safety.
In short, we suffer from cultural ADD in everything from movie plotting to legislation. But we all know from our own experiences that quick decisions made under pressure are more likely to be wrong than those we reach more deliberately. That is not so much progress as it is wasted effort.
"The ultimate form of progress ... is learning to decide what is working and what is not...." says John Freeman in his new book about the internet, The Tyranny of E-Mail. "We need to uncouple our idea of progress from speed, separate the idea of speed from efficiency...."
Legislatures and rule-making bodies like the Standards Board are especially vulnerable to pressures to act quickly ... to DO SOMETHING ... in a crisis, when in fact the legislative process needs to be careful, deliberative, thoughtful. After all, we have to live with the results for a long time. When laws are made in haste, it's the Law of Unintended Consequences which ultimately governs. That's why the Founders added the Senate to counter-balance the House. That is certainly one reason why the authority to make and to enforce California's safety regulations is divided between the Standards Board and the Division.
Congratulations, then, to the Standards Board for twice refusing earlier this year to be railroaded into emergency amendments to the Heat Illness standard with no time allowed to give Cal/OSHA's proposed revisions some thoughtful consideration. Those amendments were stopped short by two simple questions: What is the problem, and how do the proposed amendments solve the problem? The answer both times was that the Division's proposals were not the solution.
Now Cal/OSHA has offered changes to that section in the normal fashion, which we hope will result in a stronger, more rational regulation after some thoughtful deliberation and discussion. More on Cal/OSHA's proposals in our next e-zine.
In the meantime, to Cal/OSHA Chief Len Welsh, the members of the Standards Board and those of you who caught the reference to Simon and Garfinkel's "59th Street Bridge Song," let us ask: Are we feelin' groovy?
Take some time to think about it.
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