Two things recently happened to me.
First, I just recently completed delivering a training course in the Middle East. It turned out to be a very very difficult assignment for me, simply because no one was truly thinking about the course. Now I am not saying my training is the most important thing in the world, but I hope that people that attend can focus on the training. Instead, the delegates were thinking about preparations for an (then) upcoming holiday. Around the world, people are normal – given the choice of thinking about things that need to be done at work and things that need to be done at home, they tend to think about the things to be done at home.
So what I observed in the Middle East (people thinking about Eid al-Adha) will soon be repeated in the West (people thinking about Christmas) and SE Asia (people thinking about Chinese New Year).
Second, I just received an email describing the sequence of events that led to the unconfined vapour cloud explosion (UVCE) at the refinery in Venezuela in August of this year, killing over 50 people.
The explosion in Venezuela was unrelated to any holiday, but by combining the two incidents, it is possible to see how employees thinking about holidays will be distracted from their normal job, which increases risk.
While the potential in a manufacturing or processing facility is obvious, consider the potential in an office environment:
+ worker performs calculation. Because of distractions, calculation is not quite correct, but is submitted to checker because of “double deadline” (work deadline and holiday deadline). In my career, I have done this.
+ checker checks calculation. Because of distractions, misses a few details, and signs off on the calculation. Even though there are yet undiscovered flaws in the calculation. In my career, I probably have done this.
+ approver reviews calculation. Time has passed, and to get things done before the holiday, puts abnormally more faith in the checker than normal, gives the calculation a cursory review, and approves it. In my career, I have done this (but not recently).
Now I am not saying that I was unprofessional, but rather that I am normal, and this has probably happened to others. As delivering training courses has become a core deliverable of my company, we do not develop courses just before holidays, and it is less likely that I will be thinking about other things when doing something as intense as delivering training. So I think we have found a way to minimise “holiday risk” in our core work. And I do mean minimise, not eliminate.
So … this (or any) holiday season, spare a thought for the one engineer that stays back and tries to make sure there are no mistakes. We need them.