RIsk Management

In my new job there is something my company teaches people called Risk Management. It is all about assessing risk in approaching any manufacturing scenario.

The main idea behind Risk Management in manufacturing is to think of EVERY. SINGLE. LITTLE. THING. that could possibly go wrong.

On purpose.

(If you suffer from anxiety, do not become a manufacturing engineer.) 

The example in training is selling milkshakes. In this scenario you can you can run out of ingredients, you can have the wrong ingredients, your cup can break, you can run out of straws, you can spill on the counter, on yourself, on a customer, you can mix up the ingredients- the list goes on and on.

I would bet that many of you right now are now thinking of other things that can go wrong in selling mikshakes.

Because there are an infinite amount of issues that could arise.

In learning about said risk assessment, I realize that this is what single people do innately.

Before we are even with someone on a date/in a relationship/simply communicating with them we think of EVERY. SINGLE. LITTLE. THING. that could go wrong.

Because we’ve either heard the stories  (on FaceBook the other day I saw a thread of conversation where one girl said they they had a blind date detail how he would dispose of her body if he killed her, and another said she had a guy play chicken with oncoming traffic), or we’ve experiences them ourselves (please see every prior blog post: date goes home puking; check. Date makes offensive comment about sperm potency; check. Date takes you out in the woods in the middle of the night and ignores you; check. Date takes you to Chilis; check.).

In manufacturing, after assessing the risk they look at the probability of something happening.  This horrible thing may never happen, but it MIGHT, and so we are going to worry about it and talk about it.

So the guy you haven’t even been out with MAY be a serial killer. It is not probable, but it COULD happen!

The guy you haven’t even spoken to could be lazy, he could be boring, he could have absolutely nothing in common with you, he could be mean, he could be unfaithful, he could just not be that into you- there are as many potential risks as in selling milkshakes. 

An infinite amount.

In a webinar I just helped host, the trainer said that “the likelihood of a potential risk does not change the hazard or potential harm.”

Which is why those of us that are doing a Risk Management assessment of our own dating scenarios can be so reluctant to start up the production line.

It isn’t likely. But the risk is huge.

The most hazardous risk when manufacturing something is to cause bodily harm, injury, or even death, to a potential customer.

The most hazardous risk when assessing your love life is pretty much the same.

Hurt.

The manufacturers will then come up with plans to make sure this potential hazard doesn’t happen. In life the most common response to potential hazard is inaction. If you don’t put yourself in the line of fire, you wont get hit.

I've yet to figure out what to do to protect myself from the potential hazards. Regardless, for several years I’ve been putting myself on the production line, and telling the Universe, “Hazards be Damned!”  

(perhaps it’s time to open up a CAPA on my dating life… and only like 2 people who will read this are laughing and get the joke.)

I don’t what my point in this whole assessment it, except to say that I like my new job, now that I kind of get what we do...

And to say that I accept the potential risk.