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I think I have told this story before, but I'll repeat it. Once, in a mill where I worked, just after the spring outage was over, a fiberglass pipeline carrying pulp burst, shutting down the pulp mill. Everyone who had been working the outage was tired. I had not been working that particular outage, so my boss asked me to stay through the night and oversee the repair.

Of course, I did this. Now, this pulp mill was nearly wide open on the ground floor. The fiberglass pipe, thirty inches in diameter, was up by the ceiling. We got the old section cut out and a new one up in place and started "laying up" the joints. It turned cold, around 39F, and started raining.

I had construction workers on scaffolding with hairdryers trying to cure the two joints, but it was not working. We just couldn't get enough heat on the resin. About one o'clock in the morning, I decided to build a plastic tent over the whole mess, from ceiling to floor, and put "salamanders," that is, oil fired heaters with open flames, in the tent. With this arrangement we got the job done by daylight and the first shift was able to start up the pulp mill.

As my boss and I were reviewing the night, he said, "I was surprised you were able to get it done in the time frame I gave you." He had told me to finish it before the first shift, so they could start up. As I said, I got the job done.

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I told him how I had done it.

He then said, "You know, I am supposed to fire you. Don't you remember that directive from a year ago that there is to be no open flame near curing fiberglass?"

Well, no, I didn't remember it, and no, he didn't fire me. After all, he did not have a leg to stand on.

I think this story captures perfectly my column title for this week.

There are times when the demands of management, which I'll admit include demands to conduct all work in a safe manner, sometimes force us to forget safety and push on to achieve the business operational objectives. Further, there is often a fine line when one is ascertaining how to proceed.

Nearly everything we do has a dangerous component to it.

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But weighing what sometimes seems to be the conflicting directives from management can be difficult.

What I have learned since the fiberglass experience applies to more than just safety. Imagine your actions resulting in a court case, a case that can be either civil, criminal or both. What do you want to be saying in the witness box about your actions? What do you want to be saying to the widow or widower of a fellow employee at the employee's funeral?

If these two questions don't provide the direction you need for almost any situation, safety or otherwise, I just don't know what to say.

What do you think? Does management cause us to take safety shortcuts sometimes? You can give us your thoughts in our quiz this week.

If you haven't figured it out by now, err on the side of safety. Even if it costs you your job.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

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