No Compromise: The Truth About Workplace Safety and Business Success

By Ken Sheridan

Do you believe workplace safety is too expensive, begins and ends with adherence to OSHA standards, and inhibits production and profit margins?

Do you desire to advance in your trade, better understand your organization’s business goals, and learn how to prove yourself a valuable team member?

Ken Sheridan’s 40 plus years in the construction, utility, and distribution industries taught him several important lessons: everyone should end their workday fully intact; safety is the smartest business plan when it exceeds personal protection equipment; and employees who embrace a safety-focused culture are impactful leaders, creative problem solvers, and valuable business stewards.

No Compromise lays out a clear path for a cultural approach to business success through safety. Such a culture shift is woven into human resources and supply departments; establishes a career path for apprentices; and creates support for stakeholders, employees, communities, and business partners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662924392

Book preview

SAFETY TRUTH #1:

History will repeat itself unless you make a change.

We naturally perform the same patterns of behavior unless we make a conscious effort to change. Without a behavior change, the result stays the same.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

—Einstein, allegedly

The best near-miss I ever had.

I was born and raised in Caldwell County in western Kentucky. I left home to attend Murray State University in Murray, KY, where I crammed four years of college into four-and-a-half years, majoring in health and physical education with a minor in sociology. My original plan was to be a high school teacher and a football and wrestling coach but since I graduated in the middle of the academic year, I could not get hired. I had to find something to do.

I ended up working at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

I worked there for a total of six months. I was initially hired as a correctional counselor, but the penitentiary human resources department first wanted to expose me to the security aspects of working in a prison. Fierce fights and killings were not unusual; I witnessed four of these violent events in my short time there. I’d never been around anything like it, and I hated the job. When I look back, however, I realize that job was the beginning of my journey in safety.

One day they told me, Sheridan, we’d like for you to take this inmate from Eddyville over to Madisonville, which was a forty-five-minute drive to the northeast. The prison did not have the medical facilities the man required, and he needed transport to a civilian hospital. I’d be glad to, I said. The inmate weighed about 160 pounds, and I weighed around 220 at the time. When I went to get him, I sized him up, decided he wasn’t much of a physical threat, and thought, This is gonna be a piece of cake. He couldn’t overpower me. The odds were in my favor that I wasn’t going to have a problem with him.

The inmate and I had to pass through three security doors to get outside the prison walls. We walked through the first set, and at the second, I chained him up so he couldn’t escape. First, I wrapped a chain around his waist, then handcuffed him and attached the handcuffs to the chain. Finally, I shackled his legs. Given our size difference and his restraints, I figured he was no threat. As he shuffled outside behind me, I watched him look around, eyes as big as saucers, and I heard him softly say, Whoa. It had been a long time since he had seen anything around him but prison walls.

As we approached the number one wall stand, the officer posted there said, Sheridan, here’s your gun. I don’t want a gun, I replied, to which he answered, Sheridan, it’s standard operating procedure. You will take a gun.

I’m not gonna shoot anybody. Why do you want me to take a gun?

No questions, he replied. There’s no way you’re leaving here without a gun. I took the gun grudgingly and dropped it, holster and all, in my pants pocket. I was determined not to attach the holster and gun to my belt. This man in chains was no threat to me, he couldn’t take off running, and I felt an internal pang that told me I could never take another person’s life.

The inmate and I went down the stairs to the state car, and the driver jumped out, pitched me the keys, and wished me good luck. I caught them, opened the back door, and the inmate slid in. Once I settled into the driver’s seat, I realized a plexiglass screen was all we had between us was. I thought, I’ve still got the day made. I’ve got one person to guard, a nice drive ahead, and it’s a gorgeous Kentucky July day. We left the prison and headed out to Madisonville.

Less than two miles from the penitentiary, my dad-blame gun dropped out of my pocket, fell between the seats, and landed right between the inmate’s feet. I don’t know what most people would have done in this situation, but I hit the brakes with all I could muster. It was the 1970s, and seatbelts weren’t required or even used very often. As I slammed the brakes, I looked up in the mirror and saw the inmate’s face approaching fast. He hit that Plexiglass with a bam and fell back into his seat, the gun still between his feet. I threw the car into park, opened the door, and took off in a sprint, leaving my car running. As I ran up a nearby hill, I heard myself yelling, Don’t you touch that gun! Don’t you touch that gun! After I made it to the top of the hill, I thought, Now, what am I going to do?

Well, the inmate thought I looked pretty funny, and he started laughing. This may not be so bad, I thought. He waved me back, and I started coming down the hill. When I got about halfway there, he bent down like he was going to grab the gun. I jumped up and started running up the hill again. July in Kentucky can be hot, so by the time I’d run up and down that hill a couple times, I was working up a good sweat.

Each time a car would pass, I would turn around and pretend like I was picking blackberries, trying to hide the fact that I’d just made the most basic prison guard mistake ever—my car was running, an inmate was shackled and handcuffed in the back seat, and he had my weapon. Once the car went by, he’d smile and wave me down. Then he’d lean forward like he was going to pick up my gun, so I’d run back up.

After several rounds of his version of fun, he finally let me come down. Back at the car, I had to reach between that man’s feet to grab my gun and holster off the floor, a dangerous move even with the man in shackles. This time, I put the holster and gun on my belt as instructed in the first place. As we drove away, the inmate said, I tell you what, Sheridan, I won’t tell anybody if you won’t. And we didn’t. I never told anybody about that near-miss until I was long gone from the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

Poor safety performance will repeat itself unless you make a change.

That near-miss taught me a lot about safety, mainly that I never wanted to surrender my weapon to an inmate ever again. I also learned that the lowest risk method for carrying a pistol is to place the gun in a holster and secure the holster on your belt. To prevent incidents from reoccurring, we need to figure out what changes to make, and have the courage and motivation to realize those changes and the initiative to sustain