Taking things for granted!

Do you realize, too often we tend to take things for granted in our day to day life? That can include work areas, relationships, honoring parents, dealing with friends, in the way we communicate, in financial transaction, the list can go on. As long as it doesn’t affect us or our family, we think it is fine.

Let me take your attention way back to a serious incident that was in the news and the documentary televised by National Geographic team too. I am referring to “Texas City Refinery explosion” occurred on March 23, 2005.  It killed 15 workers, injuring more than 180 others and severely damaging the refinery. The Texas City Refinery was the second-largest oil refinery in the state and the third-largest in the United States with an input capacity of 437000 barrels (69,500 m3) per day as January 1, 2000.   

Soon after, several research agencies took up the study to find the cause of this heinous disaster and found it was due to human and organizational error. There is something called the “Root cause analysis” which determines the cause of any breakdown are, due to one or more of the three areas and they are 1. Physical causes, 2. Human cause, 3, Organizational cause. In this case it was purely Human and Organization who are to be blamed. Let me put the finding:

>Safety procedure was not completed.

>In addition, there were a number of serious issues with items of safety critical equipment which had not been resolved prior to the start-up

>The Day Supervisor arrived late for work and did not have a hand-over with the night shift.

>The second Day Supervisor was told that the start-up procedure should not continue, but this information was not passed on.

>Organizational failings included corporate cost-cutting (25% cut in the operational cost).

>Poor communications between individuals and departments

Have you noticed most of the findings are related to lack of responsibility, communication and also due to some who took things for granted? It is possible to have all indicators to signal danger - a siren, an alarm system and yet make no sense if somebody chooses to evade from their responsibility because of their selfishness.

In real world too, we either take things for granted or just don’t care if it is going to affect someone as long as we are safe and happy. In the Bible it is written “Love others as you love yourself”, the golden commandment of Jesus. Bring God into every paradigm and you will be entirely a different person. Taking people for granted is something that need immediate attention, if unaddressed soon will have a serious effect on everything especially on your family too.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Refinery_explosion

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