Back in 2005, I had recently joined Officeworks and was going to the national conference in Melbourne. There were hundreds of people there who all seemed to know each other and get along. I, on the other hand, knew no one. I was new and running the Queensland Distribution Centre on the B2B side, away from retail.
The conference began. I vaguely remember that there was some sort of African drumming team activity that got people hyped up and working together. Later, Officeworks’ Managing Director, who I will call John, spoke to us.
Like me, John was new to Officeworks. Prior to working for Coles, he had worked for a fuel company and one of his jobs during this time was the Regional Manager for the islands in the Pacific.
John explained that these islands were poor and depended on the fuel company to ship drums of petrol and kerosene to them via boat.
The drums were filled with either the petrol or kerosene and the fuel company would spray paint a mark on the drum to indicate what was in it. The drum would be loaded onto the boat for delivery.
The locals would then come down to the port with whatever container that they had on hand and they would buy what they needed. The petrol was used to run the motorbikes or cars. The kerosene would be used to light the lamps inside the homes of the people who didn’t have electricity.
On one of these trips, however, something had gone wrong. A drum of petrol had been marked as holding kerosene.
John said that a lady on one of these islands came down to the port with her container to get kerosene from her home. Doing what she always did, she had her container filled and she went home.
This lady started cooking the evening meal. Her children were around her, playing. It started to get dark, so she did what she always did and topped up her kerosene lamp with the fuel she had gotten from the port.
She lit it.
Flames exploded out of the lamp and burst through her home.
Everyone in that Officeworks conference was silent. John’s voice cracked a little at this moment.
The flames had burnt more than this lady’s home. They had severely burnt her toddler. The child didn’t die but John explained that this was a very poor, tropical country with limited medical facilities. This child, to have any sort of life, would need multiple skin grafts while they were growing, as the burnt skin would not be able to stretch. There was also a very real risk of infection for this child.
John explained that this is why safety was so important to him. It was obvious to me that this incident had stayed with John through the years and I remember thinking that I wouldn’t want such an incident to weigh on me.
I can’t remember my site’s LTIFR, days LTI-Free or any other safety KPI from when I was at Officeworks. I will always remember this story of this lady, her child and the man whose team’s mistake had forever changed lives, just like I will remember from my time at Officeworks:
Team Member M who developed carpal tunnel
Team Member C who hurt their wrist and
Team Member L who injured their back.