There’s a curious catch-22 that happens in a lot of construction-related industries. A huge part of the so-called “safety culture” tells employees that they need to be mindful of their surroundings and to keep their minds on task.

They’ve been preached for as long as I’ve spent time in that world and I’m sure it’s been echoed for decades.

The problem is you can’t do both.

You can only focus all of your attention in one direction.

It’s impossible to keep yourself focused on your task while simultaneously focusing on the activities happening around you.

Decide what is most important and focus on that.

This is more of a rant than anything else. But these nonsense phrases of industry need to crawl off and die.