At 19, Sam Livingstone was working on a carpentry job – about to start an apprenticeship – when a piece of wire shot out of a nail gun, pierced his cornea, and blinded him in one eye. Today, at 36, Sam is a corporate safety manager for RDM Enterprises. I first met him at the Bridging the Gap safety conference, and we talked about his prescription safety glasses, but I didn’t know about his injury til he told me recently via email.

Recently on Twitter (where I am @SpeakinOfSafety) I noticed this link: How About An Easy Free Safety Tip, posted by Kyle Thill of Toyota-Lift Minnesota. It leads to his blog post reminding forklift drivers that a simple honk is one way to keep pedestrians safer. As I read the post, I thought about how much Kyle does to build online community.

Recently I learned a new term – “dichotic listening” – for describing what we do in a noisy environment, like a cocktail party, where there are multiple conversations happening. Here’s a story about a group of workers used theirs to monitor voice mail greetings – one in each ear.

I talked with a musician who says he can’t wear earplug because it’s disorienting and detaching. He’s not alone in this view – but there are options that protect hearing without distorting the music.

This post is a bit of a departure from my usual topic of workplace safety – but it’s something to think about during this season of charity when many people make donations through work. Today I talked to a man who lives in a tent, deep in the bushes above a railway track, and his living conditions are anything but safe.

“As a supervisor, I do inspections and take feedback from workers to deal with safety issues immediately,” said aquatics supervisor Chris Cordova in his entry to win an Xbox game package in the Raise Your Hand challenge to inspire his peers in 25 words or less. He won – so I asked him to tell me more about his work.

This new online tool for preventing workplace violence helps you assess your workplace, train workers, and minimize risk. It reminds me of the threats that many people face each day – including this story from a community health nurse in the downtown eastside of Vancouver.

Denise Dodd is a Vancouver musician who told me about a very noisy job she had long ago. It wasn’t playing music that gave her a headache every night – it was selling flowers on a bar circuit in Edmonton back in the 90s.

Sharon Barbour met with hundreds of young people when she worked for the BC Federation of Labour’s Young Workers program a few years ago. She was always very clear about the worker’s right to refuse unsafe work, but many were already concerned that speaking up would mean losing their jobs.