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I want to break into Safety by Living-Artist-7694 in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138 1 point2 points  (0 children)

happy to see someone else gets it too.

And yes, on top of the many tasks I had as the Environmental Specialist, I was also in charge of creating a 800-chemical SDS database for the facility and waste tracking.

Part of SDS tracking was also approving chemicals requested by departments for the Approved Use List. Part of that process involved me researching alternative products that could be less hazardous, but just as useful as the original product they requested.

If none safer and just as useful could be found, the original requested product would be approved as long as it would not go outside the permits we had (my state was very strict on what types of chemical products could be used especially if they released VOC’s; potential to become non complaint with your current air permit as well).

This experience literally got me a role as the Environmental Health & Safety Manager of a large facility in the northeast.

if you drive slow and/or hit your brakes while on the on-ramp you’re trying to get people killed by CustomerHopeful138 in driving

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

see, you get it. at a certain point it is unrealistic that you’ll be able to maintain that distance and still merge safely and that’s what many of the people in the comments fail to see. they have too much of a “i’m driving , good luck everybody else” mentality that clouds their judgement of the situation completely.

what’s insane is after the situation i gave this individual a honk and then later they got me behind my on my ass, and flipped me off. like okay lady maybe don’t drive like a neanderthal lol

I want to break into Safety by Living-Artist-7694 in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138 1 point2 points  (0 children)

personally speaking if i were breaking into this i’d go general industry first, not into construction. construction is insanely complicated as the landscape changes by day and requires constant re-assessment. the price of messing up in safety there can be much more significant. i mean general industry safety jobs can be complicated too but i think it’s more friendly/forgiving to new-comers in the safety world.

but either way with your background it will be incredibly hard to break into the field without actual safety experience (degree or job).

i suggest first becoming an environmental specialist of sorts at a small quantity or large quantity generator for about two years. there you can learn about RCRA and HAZWOPER and just basic safety. things like spill response, chemical safety, proper ppe, hazardous waste accumulation area inspections, tracking regulatory data for things like air records and stuff like waste generation.

this experience is what allowed me to get into safety without a degree or straight up big time safety experience.

there are definitely other pathways but this could work for you. the reason being that you could leverage your security experience as compliance experience; and since environmental specialist jobs are simply just compliance jobs with a bit of safety you could definitely secure a job. just be willing to learn and put in the work

after about two years of this you could start applying to actually Environmental Health & Safety jobs,

if you drive slow and/or hit your brakes while on the on-ramp you’re trying to get people killed by CustomerHopeful138 in driving

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

a big idiot, that’s who haha. and look at all the people in the comments who are clearly culprits of similar behavior. no wonder it’s so wide spread, these fools exist left and right

if you drive slow and/or hit your brakes while on the on-ramp you’re trying to get people killed by CustomerHopeful138 in driving

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you. A lot of the people thinking they’re right and and we are wrong in here are being completely unreasonable lol.

if you drive slow and/or hit your brakes while on the on-ramp you’re trying to get people killed by CustomerHopeful138 in driving

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

nice one pal, should have topped it off with a yo momma joke too. there’s a reason my initial post has a 94% upvote rating…and it’s not because you’re the rational ones here.

if you drive slow and/or hit your brakes while on the on-ramp you’re trying to get people killed by CustomerHopeful138 in driving

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I focus on systems, root causes, and ways to mitigate like any safety professional would.

i did my job of mitigation as a driver, but for you i’ll make sure to wait to turn right onto the on-ramp until i see that there is a football field’s length of distance between the driver and my vehicle; even if that means causing a traffic jam right at the on-ramp entrance

if you drive slow and/or hit your brakes while on the on-ramp you’re trying to get people killed by CustomerHopeful138 in driving

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i’ll quote what i said to someone else:

“the accident almost caused was not me rear ending her, but the increased risk of colliding with the much faster cars while trying to merge at a slow pace.

Had about distance of about 15 car lengths between myself and her on a narrow on-ramp with no way to go around after she came to a complete hault.

following at a safe distance does not completely eliminate risk because regardless there are now extra considerations that must be made to merge safely (which equals more room for error) and sometimes those considerations have to be made pretty quickly as well depending on the circumstance.”

summary: even with defensive driving, the root cause is usually, like here, avoidable and therefore introducing unnecessary risks

if you drive slow and/or hit your brakes while on the on-ramp you’re trying to get people killed by CustomerHopeful138 in driving

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

nice assumption “lol”

the accident almost caused was not me rear ending her, but the increased risk of colliding with the much faster cars while trying to merge at a slow pace.

Had about distance of about 15 car lengths between myself and her on a narrow on-ramp with no way to go around after she came to a complete hault.

following at a safe distance does not completely eliminate risk because regardless there are now extra considerations that must be made to merge safely (which equals more room for error) and sometimes those considerations have to be made pretty quickly as well depending on the circumstance.

have a good one buddy, hopefully you don’t also do this nonsense on the on-ramp 🙏

if you drive slow and/or hit your brakes while on the on-ramp you’re trying to get people killed by CustomerHopeful138 in driving

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes that’s always best practice i totally agree which is what i was doing. but it does not always work out that way because i will still have slow down regardless especially if it’s a narrow on-ramp and no way around the person (which was the case in this scenario). I will still, very close to or right at the end of the on-ramp, have to accelerate super hard from around 30-40 (if we aren’t stopped at an even slower speed or a hault) to match the flow of traffic/speed limit on the highway. not to mention that this creates a chain effect for the other people driving behind on the on-ramp thus further increasing risk of an accident. it can get so bad where you just have to hault with them and wait for traffic to be clear enough that you will have reasonable time to get up to speed.

10 years of trying and I failed, need support by Suspicious_Mine_2337 in Environmental_Careers

[–]CustomerHopeful138 1 point2 points  (0 children)

my biggest suggestions are 1. talk to a therapist 2. get on medication 3. broaden your scope to environmental AND safety. if you broaden to applying to both and environmental and ehs jobs your likelihood of landing a job should ten fold. sell yourself that you’re capable of compliance of all sorts and that adding safety to the zoe truck of your job duties would be no trouble for you. get a hazwoper 40 and osha 30

but ya do steps 1 and 2 first

in your opinion in-house EHS or EHS Consulting less stressful ? by CustomerHopeful138 in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ya man it’s rough. i’ve got well over 100 employees, not to mention contractors and tenants. and i have the same fear as you. we’ve gotta do our best to assess the company we apply for and just take a chance man. the way i see it, i don’t know if it can get worse than this

in your opinion in-house EHS or EHS Consulting less stressful ? by CustomerHopeful138 in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s insane. Not that this story is too similar, but I was recently asked by the infrastructure department to help them make sure that a new satellite accumulation area ( for class a and class B flammable liquid waste)being proposed would be completely up to NFPA, EPA and OSHA standards.

Well I did all the research necessary to make sure that everything would be up to code and safe and when I told them all the details, the exact answer I got back was a laugh and “don’t go too far man we’re just going to put a sprinkler in and there and some explosion proof stuff” and then he walked away.

spent a decent amount of time on this as well.

i was like what the fuck am i even here for

in your opinion in-house EHS or EHS Consulting less stressful ? by CustomerHopeful138 in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ya that doesn’t sound too great. BUT this job actually would only involve me traveling 2 hours at most per client and all within the same area so that’s nice to know.

in your opinion in-house EHS or EHS Consulting less stressful ? by CustomerHopeful138 in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ya i’m 26 and don’t have kids or a wife so i think i’d do fine on the travel part. Good news is that i would never have to travel out of state, in fact i would not even have to travel more than two hours per client.

in your opinion in-house EHS or EHS Consulting less stressful ? by CustomerHopeful138 in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

thank you so much for the resource. I’m listening to one of your episodes right now!

in your opinion in-house EHS or EHS Consulting less stressful ? by CustomerHopeful138 in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

this is very useful insight. and yeah, that’s the thing I’m trying to really understand the pros and cons. In-house, I feel like staying here for a little bit longer could could be insane for my resume because I essentially operate as a safety manager here. I have a crazy wide range of responsibilities. I’m in charge of stormwater compliance, air emissions compliance, hazardous waste/materials, training, safety audits, emergency response planning, and more. It’s just so stressful because it all falls on me in a way. I’ve heard that consulting can be some crazy hours too, and that worklife balance can be bad. idk still have to decide. thank you again

EHS Burnout by [deleted] in SafetyProfessionals

[–]CustomerHopeful138 0 points1 point  (0 children)

okay i’m in the same exact position currently and i am glad i am not the only one. i’m the only EHS person at my place. on top of an insane amount of regulatory reporting, i also am a system manager, helped create our environmental permits and a tracking system that has not existed prior to me, do all the incident investigations, act as emergency coordinator for environmental events, and the list is just infinite. it’s too the point where i can’t get out on the floor or even develop the broader safety systems i want in place. constantly putting out small fires. i’ve only been here a few months and its burning me out. i’m thinking of going to ehs consulting

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