There are new safety sessions at work labeled as “Stand Down for Safety”. The phrase “stand down” has baffled me since the first time I heard it. Stand down? What? How the hell do you stand down? You either stand up or you sit down. You can’t stand down even though you can sit up. People who use that phrase weaken their credibility by asking the impossible.
Sure, I’d love to do something for safety, but I’m afraid I can’t help when it comes to “standing down” because, you see, it’s f***ing impossible!! And frankly it doesn’t sound safe. Standing down sounds a little like falling down because in order to fall down, you usually have to be standing up, so you start out standing, but then you fall down. That’s the only way you can stand down and that could lead to injuries. I will gladly sit down for safety, or pause for safety, or stand up for safety, or even lie down and take a nap for safety, but I honestly can’t stand down for it.
Maybe I’m being too literal, but I can’t understand using phrases that contain within themselves the seeds of their own impossibility. So I’m going to leave this issue behind now, pull myself up by my own bootstraps, give the effort 110%, get that done yesterday and do more with less. I’m totally down with that, but I’m sitting, not standing.
J.R. Herman 