Go, then, through your own plant with the question of glare in your mind. Examine and inspect every work place, and see what can be done. Not only for reasons of glare, but for other reasons we recommend that every work place should be inspected for unnecessary fatigue by having a man, competent in fatigue study, actually sit and stand in the working position in each and every work place in the establishment once every three months during the installation period, and not seldomer than once per year thereafter. Sometimes it will be found that moving the nearest light or shading a distant light will be all that is necessary. Sometimes a coating of dull black paint on some of the working equipment is required; sometimes the substitution of a dull-finished for a glossy paper. Sometimes dull-coloured blotting paper can be laid upon the place where the reflected glare comes. Perhaps a dull finish upon that would not only save the time of your workers, but also those who are to use the product after it leaves your hands. The world worked a great many years under the motto, “Give the public what it wants.” We are beginning to realize to-day that the public will want just exactly what it is educated to want; also that the public is easily educated if the arguments that are used are based upon measurement, and are presented in attractive form. The lighting problem is but a small element of the problem of eye fatigue. This will, however, be left for later consideration.
The Heating, Cooling, and Ventilating Problem.
This problem has to do with different aspects of seeing that the worker is provided with proper air. We are beginning to realize that the air problem is much more complicated than was formerly thought. Recent investigations have gone to prove that the temperature of the air is fully as important as the supply of air, and that humidity is another important element. In this day no one can feel satisfied with his solution of the air problem who has not submitted it to an expert, and installed the results of his measured investigation. In the meantime, safety lies on the side of providing more fresh air than is necessary. If there is plenty of fresh air, unless the work itself demands peculiar temperature or humidity conditions, the worker is fairly safe. The rest periods that are being installed will do much to solve the air problem, as they furnish an admirable opportunity for giving the work places a thorough ventilation, if not a complete “airing out.” This is not in the least to underestimate the importance of proper temperature and of proper humidity, as will be noted later. All measured records of outputs should include records of the temperature and the humidity. The accumulation of this data is daily bringing nearer the time when standards covering these will be available. In the meantime, give the worker plenty of fresh air all the time.
Fire Protection.
The average manager to-day realizes fully the necessity for fire protection. It is not, perhaps, so fully realized that the mere knowledge that there is adequate fire protection has a considerable effect upon the mental comfort of many of the workers. Nothing is more fatiguing than worry. When each worker in the establishment knows that in case of a fire he can leave the building with speed and perfect safety, he has absolutely no worry or distraction from the fire standpoint.
Fire protection should include not only seeing that the building and all it contains are made as fire-proof as possible, and installing all possible devices for putting out a fire should one start, but also the fire drill. Here the motto of the Boy Scouts is useful, “Be prepared.” There is nothing so satisfactory as preparedness. The fire drill is not only a means of handling the organization during a fire, but it is also a splendid preparation for meeting an emergency. The great problem that arises in any unexpected situation is the problem of making a decision. If one can acquire the habit of making a decision quickly, and can also make habitual certain decisions in certain situations, the resulting speed and fatigue elimination is remarkable. Make the response to the fire situation, then, standard. You will be benefiting your workers not only by teaching them how to act in any fire anywhere, but also by teaching them how to respond to a signal in a standard way. These various sets of habits in response to various stimuli should be formed in the first years of the school life, if not before. They are being formed at this time to-day to a greater extent than ever before, but unfortunately the majority of adult workers in the industries have never had such training as children. It, therefore, becomes the duty of the management to form such habits as rapidly as possible.
Safety Protection.
Safety protection in its broadest sense covers not only protection from grave dangers, but from anything that might have a harmful effect upon the worker’s body or mind. The standard to be set is that everything should be safe not only when the work is done by experienced adult workers, but even should it be done by inexperienced, immature or tired workers. We know how many accidents happen to the inexperienced worker, that would never happen to the experienced worker. We all know how many children are hurt, where an older person would see and avoid danger; and we note every day, more and more clearly, that the exhausted worker is to an enormous extent more susceptible to accidents than is the rested worker. It is usually the tired motorman who has the collision. The tired locomotive engineer passes the stop signal. The exhausted motorist is in the accident. The tired operator gets his fingers caught in the machine. The overtired sickroom attendant gives the wrong medicine.
One side of the fatigue elimination question is that fatigue elimination cuts down accidents. The other side is that cutting out the chance of accidents eliminates fatigue. Here again the question of worry is an important element. If one knows that the working conditions are absolutely safe, he can concentrate his attention upon the work in hand.
It is coming to be understood not only that it is mandatory that working conditions be made healthful, but also that it is perfectly possible, and, in most cases, easy to make such conditions healthful.