A Rush to Judgement?

The workplace violence tragedy that shattered Hartford Distributors in Manchester, Connecticut, this week has attracted much attention...

image courtesy wikimedia commons

Those of in the security trade have worked to prevent all forms of workplace violence, including homicide, for ages.  The great majority of homicides at work - 75% or so - are routinely committed during armed robberies.  In the 1980s a different sort of workplace homicide captured the public imagination - workplace mass murder.  In 1986 postal worker Patrick Sherrill single-handedly inspired the unfortunate phrase "going postal" when he murdered 14 co-workers.  Then in 1988 Richard Farley shocked the world, perhaps especially those of us living and working in the "Silicon Valley," when he went on his infamous rampage at ESL.  Since then there have been mass killings at other businesses, on commuter trains, in schools, and even on military bases.  While much less common than other sorts of workplace  killings, workplace mass murder committed by a disgruntled employee grabs the 24 hour news cycle by the throat every time it occurs.

This week Caroline Hamilton wrote about killings perpetrated by Omar Thornton at Hartford Distributors on her Riskwatch blog. 

I responded:

As we come to grips with the tragedy at Hartford Distributors it’s important not to conflate injuries due to workplace violence, workplace homicide, and workplace mass murder.

Most INJURIES due to workplace violence occur in hospitals, specifically in mental health care settings.

The great majority of workplace HOMICIDES occur during robberies of retail establishments – especially at night, and of service providers – especially cab drivers. Of the 7606 persons killed at work between 1997 and 2008, 5809 were killed by “robbers or other assailants.”

We should be careful not to let lurid media coverage of these tragedies give us a false impression as to their frequency or severity. Depending on whose numbers you choose the number of workplace homicide between 1980 and 2008 seem to have remained relatively constant (Over the same interval the working population has increased which might be expected to reduce the rate).

1980-1989: 7603 total (760 per yr)
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/94-101.html


1980-1992: 9937 total (764 per yr)
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/violhomi.html


1993-2002: 8148 total (815 per yr)
http://www.caepv.org/membercenter/files/workplace_homicide_trends_ajim.pdf


1997-2008: 7606 total (633 per yr)
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/work_hom.pdf

Remember, year to year 75% of all these killings occurred during robberies. The balance was perpetrated by work associates, relatives, and other personal acquaintances.

Your statement “It makes me wonder if the workplace violence statistics from 2008 until now may be such a large increase, that has been either underreported or even held from publication!” strikes me as alarmist. Federally provided numbers regarding such incidents routinely lag a year or two due to the realities of data collection and publication. We need not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by our federal bureaucracies.

As for Patrick Fiel’s opinions, unless he has inside knowledge of the precise situation and decision-making process at Hartford Distributors I respectfully submit it is premature for him to comment on the situation, or be quoted as an authority in this case.

Mr. Fiel’s suggestion that terminations should be conducted somewhere other than the office is an interesting notion. In over 30 years of work experience most employees receive corrective action, participate in disciplinary hearings, or are terminated, in the building (or on the campus) where they work. Of course it goes without saying all but the smallest fraction of these actions are completed without incident.

Fiel states as fact “Obviously this company didn’t have a crisis plan in place, and hadn’t done a risk assessment for the facility. A simple assessment might have saved nine lives by setting up procedures for the termination; and additionally, by making sure employees knew what to do when he did draw his gun.” While every business should have an active workplace violence prevention program in place, having a crisis plan and successfully averting a disaster is not one in the same. Unless and until the details of this horrible tragedy are revealed we will not know what happened. Why the rush to judgment?

Today Security Management Daily linked to an article written August 5, 2010, by James Allen Fox on his Crime and Punishment blog at the Boston Globe titled "Workplace homicide: What is the risk?"  Good reading.  Professor Fox has done the math on the sort of statistics I hastily assembled for my reply to Ms. Hamilton. I look forward to following the rest of his series on this topic.

Workplace violence and its prevention and mitigation is a complex issue that will call for all of us to do our best work.

The Problem with Atheism

I've been intrigued by Sam Harris, especially the differences between him and the other horsemen of the new atheist apocalypse - Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett, for some time now...

image from wikimedia commons

I really enjoyed Sam Harris' first book The End of Faith, at least until he slipped away sounding like a crypto-Buddhist in the closing chapters (an issue he has since clarified to my satisfaction).  I did not read his brief Letter to a Christian Nation but have learned the gist of it from a variety of presentations Harris made during his book tour for that slim volume.  He has a new book coming out, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, which appears to expand on ideas he discussed in a recent TED talk.

In 2007 Harris gave a very interesting lecture at the Atheist Alliance conference title "The Problem with Atheism," in which he questioned the self-applied label of "atheist," equating it to the nonsensical labels "non-astrologer" or "non-racist."

"We should not call ourselves 'atheists.' We should not call ourselves 'secularists." We should not call ourselves 'humanists,' or 'secular humanists,' or 'naturalists,' or 'skeptics,' or 'rationalists,' or 'freethinkers,' or 'brights.' We should not call ourselves anything...we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them."

Harris has taken much abuse and suffered some disavowal from the hard core atheist community but takes advantage of such opportunities to express his views further and with greater clarity in a variety of essays.

His views impact an idea I hope to write on one of these days.  Until then there's much to read and watch at his website.

Some Wicked Quackcasts This Way Come

A review of Supplements, Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (SCAMs)...

I've mentioned Mark Crislip's Quackcast in previous posts.  His podcasts #48 and #49 posted on iTunes 24 July 2010 were refreshingly acerbic.  The first skewers Harvard medical school for sponsoring a $6,650 course on acupuncture.  In the second he takes to task the pharmaceutical industry's practice of paying for CME.

"While we are at let's have McDonald's be responsible for teaching nutrition, Nintendo teach us about fitness, lobbiests determine the congressional voting, and tobacco companies provide research into cancer, and oil companies to tell us the cause of global warming."

Funny, with a bite.

Back from the BWCAW

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness...

Linda and I were anxious to get back to the Boundary Waters this summer, but our lives are busy so scheduling was a hassle.  Erik had school and work so we had to leave him home or skip the trip this year.  Cassandra had a race - her first 10 miler! - on Saturday the 24th of July.  Eventually we made our entry permit application at recreation.gov for Sunday, July 25th.

First thing Sunday morning Linda, Cassie, Gunner - the yellow lab, and I drove to Ely, MN.  We rented our boat - an 18-1/2 foot Souris River kevlar Quetico - from Canoe Country Outfitters because they deliver and pick up the boat at nearby entry points for free, which makes for one less delay coming and going.  Nice people; I recommend them.

We chose Entry Point #4 - Crab Lake mostly because we'd researched it before but chose another route for a previous trip.  The one mile portage from Burntside Lake to Crab Lake was precisely as brutal as Robert Beymer's guidebook suggested.  Once on Crab we went south for a short nasty portage to Clark Lake.  The campsite there was a disappointment.  It looked like unfinished work, or a small patch of clear cut logging, depending on whether you've had your coffee yet.  Worse yet, it was on the southwest corner of the lake so the trees shielded us and the clouds of mosquitoes from the wind.  Daniel Pauly's guidebook lays out a nice loop of little lakes - Clark, Meat, Sprite, Phantom, Boulder, Battle, Hassel, and Saca - we could travel back to Crab (or to other more distant locations).  We spent the night but on Monday chose to return to Crab the way we came and then make for Cummings Lake.

We found a nice, breezy site on the northeast end of Crab and spent the night there.  The next day we packed our kit into our translucent gold canoe and traveled across Little Crab Lake and down the Korb River to Cummings Lake.  We made two portages, 20 and 70 rods, respectively and floated over a snag going downstream that we had to portage around on the way out. 

What's a "rod"?  Fine question.  A rod is an archaic unit of measure, primarily associated with agriculture, equal to 5.0292 meters, 5.5 yards, 11 cubits (like that helps, a cubit being the length of Pharoah's forearm from elbow to fingertips and most recently used to specify the dimensions of Noah's Ark), 16.5 feet, or 1⁄320 of a statute mile. Why portages on 21st century maps are measured in rods is a mystery to the various sources I've checked.

The few island camps on the east end of Cummings were occupied so we made for a peninsula on the south side of the center of the lake.  There was a thunderstorm very early Tuesday morning and it was cloudy all day, clearing only after sunset that evening.  Wednesday was windy.  Thursday morning we retraced our route on the way back to the public landing on Burntside Lake.

We packed all our gear into two large waterproof packs and a large bear barrel with the idea we could make the longer portages in a single pass. I had a rough time of it Sunday and Monday (I may have been dehydrated) so it didn't work out quite as we planned. Carrying a 49 pound canoe (plus paddles and life jackets lashed to the thwarts) and a heavy backpack (our's lack the padded waist belt found on SealLines newer models) was probably a bad idea. As the food barrel lightened over the rest of the trip the portages were made without having to backtrack.

We spent a lot time time sleeping, reading, napping, playing Scrabble and cribbage (actually, Linda and Cassie played the cribbage), and dozing.  We spent a lot of time relaxing too.  The mosquitoes were a nuisance unless a good breeze was in our faces.  Dog lovers will be pleased to hear that Gunner slept in the tent with Linda and me.  Charming.  Cassandra did much of the navigating on this trip and did a fine job; one less thing for me to worry about and more time to look around.  She trains six days in seven so in addition to paddling and portaging she swam a half mile or more three days out of the five.

About the only thing we missed much was my neck knife, which I left in the pocket of my jeans in the car in the parking lot of the boat landing.  We made do with the hatchet instead.  Fortunately the Gerber pack axe takes a fine edge.  Of course we didn't forget to pack along Clear and Present Danger - the original hardcover (Cassie is patiently working her way through Clancy).  Linda brought Summer for the Gods and The Making of the Fittest.  I deliberately left all work and school reading at home and dove into Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I forgot our one and only knife, but we carried a small library.  Guess that's the way we roll in our house, even when we paddle into the wilderness.

Another excellent book on leadership

I've been having some fine luck with recent books on business leadership...

Making Sense of Leadership: Exploring the Five Key Roles Used by Effective Leaders, by Esther Cameron and Mike Green is another fine example of leadership research effectively and concisely repackaged for appreciation and application by a popular audience.  Well worth a look.