Mental health on the job isn't optional, it's essential

We act tough but I've seen stress cause real accidents. Last month, a fitter dropped a heavy piece because his mind was elsewhere. He hadn't slept right for days. That near miss shook me. Now I take two minutes before a lift to clear my head. It's like checking your harness, you just do it. If we keep pretending we're machines, someone will get hurt. Let's start talking about this stuff openly.

3 comments

3 Comments

black.beth1mo ago

Last spring, a stressed crewman nearly drove a post through his foot, so we started mandatory mental check-ins.

matthewf641mo ago

Yeah, the mandatory part is what gets me. We tried that at my last job and it just turned into a weird box-ticking exercise.

angela_flores521mo ago

Yeah but making it mandatory feels like it could backfire, lol. If someone's already stressed, being forced into a meeting about it just adds another thing to their calendar. I've seen people just say what they think the boss wants to hear so they can get back to work. Real talk, stress doesn't get fixed in a scheduled check-in, it gets fixed by actually fixing the job stuff making people stressed.