Feb. 16, 2005

I took a brief look at the new "behavioral excellence" Web page and I am a bit confused. Since the suspension of operations, safety is adversarial. The goal is to make sure that you have someone to hold accountable if things go wrong. Instead of trying to fix things, managers get brownie points for turning people in who have safety violations. Basically, it seems to be a combination of the military "cover your butt" approach and the "snitch system" which worked so well at the New Mexico State Prison in 1980.

The "behavioral excellence" approach seems to be one of these touchy feely "we're all in this together" sorts of things. Am I missing something, or is this somewhat incompatible with the approach we have experienced over the last few months? Can someone enlighten me on this? Regardless, I do think they need to change the name. "Behavioral Excellence" sounds like we are all going to dog obedience school.

--Rick Nebel