John's Blog – Rants and Rambles from the NT

Ever wondered how to motivate staff to report mistakes such as medication errors or minor injuries at work?  I’ve spent time in many workplaces over the years, in agriculture, volunteering, healthcare, and education.  Each workplace has had its differences, and issues, but in every one of them I saw people hiding their errors.  Mostly this was because when they had ‘owned up’ in the past, they were punished for it.  It has happened to me plenty of times in my working life, and often I didn’t report errors if I thought no-one would otherwise know about them.  The problem with this outcome is that the organisation ends up with a low rate of incident reports which might sound like a good thing, but it’s not.  An incident-report rate below expected norms for the relevant industry might mean the company is brilliant at safety and quality, or far more likely it means that the company lacks a safety and quality culture that values incidents as learning opportunities.
How then can a workplace motivate staff to report errors?

1. Adopt a no-blame approach to incidents.  This is critically important, and has to come from the very top of the organisation.  Staff may well be nervous when implementing a no-blame approach and find it hard to trust that it is real.  Leaders and managers must realise that one badly handled incident will set the process back by months or years.  Don’t blame your staff for errors, and don’t knowingly allow any outsiders to blame them either.
2. Give credit.  Acknowledge the courage of staff who report incidents especially ones which would otherwise be unknown.
3. Highlight the positive gains that arise from incident reporting as they relate to workplace goals.  Safety and quality is the key, not paperwork.  Celebrating the introduction of a new checklist is not a positive gain in workers eyes if it does not relate to observable benefits in safety or quality.  That’s not to say that such things are un-needed.  Just don’t highlight them as key achievements.
4. Apply consequences to line managers and senior managers who breach the no-blame approach, and do so transparently.  If workers don’t trust management, the problem won’t get fixed ‘behind closed doors’.
5. Make incident reports a Key Performance Indicator for the organisation in the domains of worker engagement and safety and quality.  If the rate of incident reports is well below industry norms, critically appraise how they are managed and whether or why there is significant under-reporting.
6. Educate all staff from the most senior manager to the student on work experience about the crucial role of incident reporting in securing improvements in safety and quality.
7. Include incident reporting history in performance appraisals and staff development agreements, by linking a strong track record of incident reporting to a commitment to a culture of safety and quality.

A couple of weeks ago we had a trip to Adelaide suddenly terminated.  We hit a large cow on the Stuart Highway in the Transit van. The end of the story – the van was written off, we’re all OK, the cow is dead.
I’ve seen plenty of people who have experienced a collision with a bovine road user.  The cow usually ends up dead, but all too often so do the humans involved.  We were lucky.  Part of the luck was due to my years of country driving, and the rest was physics and timing.
Just before the collision I took evasive action and very nearly avoided the cow altogether.  Unfortunately for both of us, she also took evasive action – in the same direction as me!  Bang, flip, spin.  All over in less than 2 seconds.  End of cow, end of trip, end of wheelchair accessible vehicle.  Most importantly though, NOT the end of us.

 Once the insurance stuff is sorted out, we’ll need to work out how to transport Anita from A to B. Will we go for another vehicle?  Use the trailer and Cruiser? Stay home?  I’m not sure yet, but I’d say running a second vehicle is something I’m keen to avoid if possible.   Watch this space …

I am interested to see how different people deal with feeling angry.  Here’s some of what I’ve seen:

• Ignore or deny the feeling.  I know at least one person who simply does not show anger, no matter what the provocation.  It’s difficult to believe that they don’t feel angry at times, as I know they are exposed to injustice and unfairness.  However, they never show it.  I can’t help wondering how healthy this is!!
• Lash out at others.  Many of the people I see professionally are either the recipients or perpetrators of this response.  Feelings of anger are dealt with by physically assaulting another person.  Sometimes this is the person who precipitated the anger, but often it’s just the next available target such as spouse or children.
• Lash out at things.  These are the people who come to the ED with hand fractures from punching a wall, or lacerations from kicking a glass window or door.  It’s probably safer for other people, but can be life-threatening or fatal for the angry person.
• Lash out at themselves.  Some people cut themselves or stab themselves to “let out the bad spirits” when they feel angry.
• Drink the problem away.  Alcohol complicates things, almost never helps, as it acts as a dis-inhibitor.  People who would normally cope well with anger feelings tend to cope less well when intoxicated with alcohol.  The grog doesn’t make normally placid people into monsters, but rather it unmasks the monster that is normally well-controlled by civilised behaviour.
• Become withdrawn.  Some people, especially those who feel unable to do anything about the situation that causes them to feel angry, withdraw into themselves.  I suspect that these are the same ones who lose it when they get drunk.
• Express their feelings in words.  Swearing and raised voices may be habitual, but can also be an expression of anger.  The angry feelings are defused by the outburst and dissipate, until the next event that precipitates angry feelings.  The damage from this coping technique comes from what is said and to whom, as in the classic ‘career-limiting move’ where the angry outburst is directed at the boss, or the relationship-straining effect of yelling at your spouse.  Some people have a safe place to express their anger, such as a ‘yelling tree’ or a workout at the gym with a punching bag.
• Grumbling.  This is related to swearing and yelling, but more low-key.  It can be seen in people who always seem to be complaining about something or other.  Sometimes it is due to other feelings, but unresolved anger can lead to chronic whingeing.  It is hard to be positive about life when you’re angry.
• Any combination of some or all of the above.  

I thought I’d better do some preliminary planning for the Tasmania trip in December-January.  After all, the year is rushing past so fast I’m liable to miss most of it!

Previous family holidays have been camper-trailer based, which gave us a great deal of freedom to go where we wanted.  Best of all, it allowed us to make use of the 4WD to explore interesting tracks.  This year, we will not be able to use the 4WD / camper trailer combination because Anita needs her electric wheelchair all the time now.  We have a wheelchair accessible van, but it has no towbar so can’t tow the camper trailer.  So what to do?  Tasmania is the destination, and the Internet is the key.

We can get to Tasmania via the Spirit of Tasmania ferry service from Melbourne to Devonport, so that part is easy.  The thorny bit is accommodation.  We need to be able to stay in Tasmania for four weeks in wheelchair-accessible venues.  Hotels are generally out, as we would need 2 or 3 rooms and that makes the trip unaffordable.  Via a Google search, I found a site that lists accessible short-stay accommodation throughout Tasmania.  It looks like we will be able to rent a cottage near Devonport for 2 weeks, then one on the east coast for a week, and a third cottage for the final week near Hobart.  The only fly in the ointment is that I’ll need to book soon to ensure our place, and there are a lot of bills due at the moment.  Hooray for overtime!

The other bit that needs organising is respite care for Anita during the week that Laura, Claire and I want to walk the Overland Track.  She needs assistance with her activities of daily living for 6 days, and it looks hopeful that the Carer Respite Centre will be able to help with this.  It will be either residential respite care in a facility in or near Devonport, or it may be respite care provided in our rented cottage for the week.

Having a disabled spouse makes holiday planning essential.  We used to just pack up the camping gear and head off on holidays.  Now it takes a lot more organising, and is considerably more expensive.  Still, I’m grateful that we can still have family holidays.  It won’t be too long before Laura heads off to university, then family holidays for all of us together will probably become a thing of the past.

Some time ago, I wrote about using Bush Orders to do grocery shopping.  This is how we avoid being ripped off by price-gouging remote area stores, as we pay normal supermarket prices for our groceries in a regional centre, then pay freight to get it to our home.  This compares very favourably with prices in our local supermarket, and vastly improves the range and quality of goods we can access.

In general, I support the concept “buy local”.  I’m even prepared to pay a premium to support a local store.  However, I am not prepared to support businesses who use a captive market to price-gouge, and often provide abysmal customer service as well.  It seems I am not alone in this.  A recent survey reported in CHOICE magazine found that NT has the highest per capita use of online shopping in Australia, and that’s despite a significant portion of the NT population having little or no access to online services.  No longer can NT businesses sit back and treat their customers with contempt while charging them a large premium for goods.  We will simply order them online, and when this proves to be a positive experience, as it almost always does, we are unlikely ever to go back to the local business.

In my case, I can choose whether to buy a part for my 4WD locally and pay 2 1/2 times more for it, or order it online and wait a week for it to arrive.  In rare cases, I’ll pay the extra because I can’t wait, but mostly (about 98% of the time) I will take the online option.  If the local business kept their mark-up to even 50% compared to city prices, I would but it from them every time.  But a 150% mark-up is stupid!  Especially when their customer service is surly, unhelpful and often downright hostile.  Even for basic food items that I can’t do without, I will wait a week to get them via freight from Alice Springs than buy them locally, mainly because the local supermarket charges between 200-400% more for many items.  Sure some items are as cheap as elesewhere, but they tend to be the junk food lines rather than the healthy foods.  Fruit and vegetables here are expensive and highly variable in quality, sometimes barely edible.  Yet the same items bought via Bush Orders from Woolworths in Alice Springs are fresh, excellent quality, and usually less than half the price even allowing for freight.

It’s not all doom and gloom though.  I recently bought a tyre for the Transit van.  After days of searching online, I found 3 tyres that would do the job.  All were around $240, with between $30 and $100 freight to get the tyre to Tennant Creek.  I then went to the local tyre outlet to check what they had.  The pleasant helpful person on the front desk checked the computer and found the size I needed in a well-known brand for $250 including fitting and balancing, and it was in stock!  So here’s one business that managed to get it right:

• Good customer service
• Competitive price
• Quality goods

So guess where my first stop for all my future tyre needs in Tennant Creek will be?  Yep, the local tyre outlet.  They could have charged another $100 for the tyre, and probably got away with it once, but this would have meant that all future tyres would be bought either online or while on a trip elsewhere.  By giving me value for money, they have ensured that I will support this particular local business.  And that’s probably worth more to them in the long run than a quick $100 once-off.

Well, I’d better write a few lines before I start getting obituaries!!  It’s been a busy couple of months recently.
Laura and I flew to Melbourne in early February to pick up a Ford Transit van with a wheelchair lifter.  This vehicle makes it much easier to move Anita about – even 6-year-old Erin can load Mum into the van and connect her chair to the tie-downs.  The lifter is a hydraulic Tieman unit, and can easily cope with the 150kg weight of Anita and electric power chair.  The tie-down system is a great concept by Qstraint, using self-retracting straps like a normal seat belt.  You just hold down a red button and pull out the strap, then hook the end to a secure point on the chair (in our case the seat anchors).  This is done on all 4 corners, then the straps automatically ratchet up tight.  So simple!

Wheelchair Lifter

2001 Ford Transit

All we need now is for Laura to get her P-plates, then Anita won’t be dependent on me having time to drive her around.

Well, I have finally got my act together and completed the 14th edition of the Wright family Christmas Letter.  I began it in 1998 as a way of updating friends and family about happenings in our family, and initially planned for it to be a 3-4 times a year newsletter.  Unfortunately, I never found the time to write so often, so it has become an annual tradition.  This year, I didn’t even make it in the right year!  Never mind, all is now done, so without further ado, let me present the 2011 edition.

Click here for the Christmas Letter

Laura and I just got back from a long weekend drive to Sheringa in South Australia.  The event was Lynette’s 21st birthday celebration, and we have missed so many family events recently that we were determined to get to this one.
Laura has her learner’s licence now, so she drove part of the way which was a great help to me.  I have been the sole driver in the family for the past 5 years since Anita gave up her licence due to MS.  Since every trip is over 1000km or more, it is a relief to once again be able to share the driving.  Laura ended up driving about 1200km out of the 3500km we drove for the weekend.  She gained experience in long distance driving, dirt roads, wet roads, night driving, driving in the rain, and driving in built-up areas.
Once we arrived at “Springvilla” and got a good night’s sleep on the Friday night, we went fishing early Saturday morning.  It wasn’t the best fishing trip we’ve had but a nice bag of rock cod, sweep, tommies, mullet, and salmon trout made for a very welcome lunch of fresh fish.  Much tastier than the frozen fish on offer in Tennant Creek!!
Then it was time for the main event.  All of my siblings were there: Sharon, Miriam, Samuel, Michelle, Rachel, Joshua, and Saul, along with their partners and most of their children.  Half-brother Leslie was absent, but not missed as I have had no contact with him for years.  Mum was there as well, so that made it a full family reunion, something that has not occurred for several years.  Everyone is looking older, which is probably not surprising as everyone is older.  It hardly seems credible that it is 21 years since I first began visiting Samuel and Sonya at Springvilla, when Lynette was a newborn baby.  But here she was celebrating her 21st birthday.  Several other nieces are now married, and Miriam is a grandmother.  Other nieces are at university.  The family is growing up, and the next generation is heading out into the world to make their mark.  It is great to see, as I am the first in either side of my family and the only one of my generation to have a Bachelor degree, and now the next generation has several students at uinversity and several more heading that way.
After the party, we rolled out our swags at the venue and stayed the night.  Laura and I turned in a little earlier than most because we had 1800km to drive home starting the next morning.
Was it worth driving 3500km just to spend a weekend with family?  Absolutely!  Laura had some time off work, and I was able to arrange some leave.  A bit of overtime work paid for the diesel, so off we went.  Anita wasn’t up to such a long drive so she stayed home with Claire and Erin.  It would have been nice to include them in the family reunion, but the logistics were too difficult.  An advantage of having an almost empty vehicle was that we could pick up Anita’s father Roger to go back to Tennant Creek with us for a month’s visit.  If we had all gone to the party, that would not have been possible.