The Health and Safety Committee of my office met today. I�m on that Health and Safety Committee. It hasn�t met in a while but it meets very efficiently. There are no long agendas. There�s not even much discussion. And after it meets, it takes action. That�s just the way I do things and, because it is a small office, I AM the Health and Safety Committee.

There used to be another member of the committee. R., a secretary in my office, was one of the founding members. The idea was not spontaneous. One day, the State Bureaucracy, as state bureaucracies are wont to do, roused itself and decreed, �There shall be a Health and Safety Committee.� Then, being the State Bureaucracy and doing what it does best, the State Bureaucracy declared, �Let there be paperwork� and it was so. The Health and Safety Committee was formed and it filled out the Health and Safety survey and dutifully stored it away. The only violation we found was some piling near the window where the fire escape was. We moved the junk and, lo and behold, we had safety---or at least the State Bureaucracy version of it.

But, strangely, instead of being enervated by all that useless work, we were energized. We went beyond the survey. R. and I lobbied for, and received, a decent first aid kit with CPR masks. We got a flashlight and, with a bit more difficulty, batteries to run it. We created a voluntary emergency number registry so that those of us who took care of small children or elderly parents had numbers that the secretaries could give out if we were unavailable and there was a need.

And then R. retired. The State Bureaucracy forgot about its Health and Safety paperwork. Nothing much happened (although I checked on the flashlight from time-to-time and reminded people to update numbers) but nothing much was needed. Until today.

Today, I realized that the carpet, which had bubbled up a little last week, was becoming one large bubble after another all over the office. I realized it the hard way. I tripped although, luckily, I did not fall. At first I blamed clumsiness. Then I tripped again and started to fret about a possible MS flare-up. Then I noticed that a secretary tripped but she is having some trouble with her foot so I did not think all that much of it. Then the most graceful of us tripped.

And the Health and Safety Committee roared back to life. C., the office supervisor, had tried to report the carpet problem last week. She was not getting very far in enlisting help. Today the Health and Safety Committee realized the problem. C. had a carpet problem. It took the Health and Safety Committee to declare a Health and Safety Hazard and, in the absence of that declaration, no amount of tripping, short of a fall with a broken hip, would make the carpet bubbles a Health and Safety Hazard.

I went into my office and met with myself. Yep, it sure was a Health and Safety Hazard. Action was required. A Health and Safety Hazard required Health and Safety Warnings and Advisements. I advised C. She advised the State Bureaucracy who then asked if we had taped off the area. We had not taped off the area. The area was virtually the entire office except for a few individual offices. If we taped, some areas would be untapped and more dangerous because less noticeable. The Health and Safety Committee met again, quickly and in public. No, taping was not appropriate. We needed warnings.

I e-mailed warnings in bright red and large font. I created signs and posted them. �WARNING!� they declared.

And now we have a full-fledged Health and Safety Hazard, warnings and all. Now, the State Bureaucracy is taking bids. Now, they are making emergency phone calls. Now, we have action.

I am the Health and Safety Committee. I am an army of one.

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