This story is 40 years old, now, but it still seems like yesterday to me…
It was 1972; I was selling aviation/airport insurance for National Aviation Underwriters. The setting of the event was the airport hotel at the Huntsville, AL airport. It was one of the early airport hotels in small cities, and the hotel is still there today. The event was an agricultural aviation convention.
OSHA was new at the time, and little understood by most business people. Everybody knew it was about safety in the workplace, but that was about it. The subject came up at the meeting, and it was evident that the agricultural aviators — cropdusters — were sore afraid that OSHA might come by to inspect them. How should they act? Could OSHA fine them? What was OSHA looking for, anyway?
Finally, one of the good-old-boy cropdusters stood up.
“Boys,” said he. “I done been inspected by OSHA, an’ I can tell you all about it. I was worried, just like y’all. I mean, les face it fellers, we got some dangerous stuff around our operations. We got propellers that’ll cut yo’ head off if you let ‘em. Them airplanes can kill you deader’n a doornail if you hit wires or trees. We got poisons and bug killers that can kill you too, if you jus breath ‘em. We weren’t right sure which one of them things they was gonna get us on.”
“Boys, they wasn’t worried ‘bout none of them things. You ain’t gonna believe what they got us on. They got us because our indoor toilet didn’t have a non-permeable surface — whatever that is — four inches tall running around the floor of the bathroom walls. That’s what got us. They was scared that bugs, or mildew or something might get in there ‘cause we didn’t have no non-permeable surface runnin’ ‘round them walls.
“Now, we didn’t see no real risk to it. After all, our pilots’ was pretty current on them toilets. Hadn’t none of them been hurt a’tall.
“Them OSHA boys didn’t fine us or nothing’, but we did agree to fix the problem.”
Then he sat down, to much applause and appreciation.
That was four decades ago, and I swear most people don’t really understand OSHA to this day.
