WHEN WE TURNED “LOSS PREVENTION” INTO “SAFETY” …AND WHY THE BOOTS AREN’T BUYING THE BULL$HIT**

Before you dive into this, I need to set the stage...

My next post — the one about how we turned Safety into a department instead of a core value — the one I intended to drop today — needs context. That post is the heart of the whole damn problem. That’s where the wheels first came off.

But before we get to that mess, we need to talk about: How we drifted so far off the path in the first place.

We didn’t just bureaucratize Safety…

We didn’t just hand it to the wrong people…

We rebranded loss prevention and risk management as “Safety,” and expected the boots to salute it like gospel.

This is the prequel… the throat punch… the opening salvo...

Because you can’t understand how Safety lost its soul until you understand how the suits rewrote the definition to fit their optics instead of our reality.

Let’s quit pretending we don’t know what happened here...

Somewhere between the bean counters, the lawyers, PR, and whatever “strategic initiative” committee was meeting in a room with catered muffins and designer coffee, somebody decided to pull off the biggest word-swap in the history of this trade:

They slapped a “SAFETY” sticker on loss prevention and risk management… and expected us not to notice.

They didn’t change the work.

They didn’t change the culture.

They just changed the label — and acted like that was leadership.

And now everyone’s standing around, shocked that the field doesn’t trust a damn thing with the word Safety on it.

WHAT SAFETY USED TO BE

(BACK WHEN IT STILL MEANT SOMETHING)

Safety used to be the old hands teaching you how not to die.

Not how not to ding a truck, not how to avoid cracking a tail lamp, and sure as hell not how to protect someone’s preventable-incident KPI.

IT MEANT HOW NOT TO DIE.

It was blood-and-bone knowledge:

• How to hear danger before you saw it.

• How to shut shit down when something felt wrong.

• How to pick up the guy next to you… when his knees shook.

• How to walk away from a near miss with a lesson… not paperwork and punishment.

Safety was Tribal… Human... Real…

Loss prevention was a different animal — contracts, assets, numbers, insurance, exposure.

But somebody upstairs decided to mush all that together because it made their PowerPoints cleaner and saved a few dollars on a budget line.

THE SUITS’ MASTERPIECE OF OPTICS

(OR WHAT THEY THINK THEY PULLED OFF)

From the carpeted kingdom, this rebrand looks brilliant:

• Call everything “Safety” and suddenly everything sounds noble.

• Turn property damage into a moral failure instead of a financial one.

• Wrap legal exposure in the American flag of “keeping people safe.”

• Consolidate budgets, blame, metrics, and headaches into one department and call it culture.

They get to stand on a stage and say:

“Safety is our top priority” or “Safety First”

Meanwhile, what they’re actually sweating:

• TRIR

• DART

• Insurance premiums

• Damage claims

• Customer scorecards

• Litigation exposure

• Rate-case optics

Not a single one of those tells you whether a crew is mentally cooked, physically exhausted, rushed, pushed, scared, or even properly trained.

But when something dents, scratches, bends, or breaks?

The suits slap the “Safety” label on it like duct tape.

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE IN STEEL-TOES AND A HARD HAT

Here’s the field translation:

“If it costs money, we’ll call it Safety.

If it costs a life, we’ll call it a learning opportunity.”

We get hauled into “safety meetings” to talk about:

• Mirrors bumped in the yard

• A cracked taillight on a digger

• Mud on or cracks in a customer's driveway

• Paperwork that wasn't filled out in triplicate

And then we’re told with a straight face:

“This is all about keeping you safe.”

NO…

It’s about invoices.

It’s about optics.

It’s about who’s eating the bill for busted gear and pissed-off clients.

Meanwhile, the hazards that snap men in half… or worse…

They take a back seat to protecting assets.

Boots see it. Boots aren’t stupid.

So what do they do?

They shut down.

They pencil-whip.

They play the corporate game while quietly running the real safety culture on their own terms.

Because they know the truth:

Safety Died The Minute It Got Handcuffed To Damage Control.

THE CONSEQUENCES YOU WON’T FIND ON A DASHBOARD

This rebrand didn’t just fail — it poisoned the well.

Trust evaporated.

• Crews stop reporting near misses because they’ll be weaponized and get tied to metrics.

• Foremen stop being honest because the company turned “mistakes” into “events.”

• Safety pros get used as enforcers instead of partners.

• And boots learn real quick that a scratched truck or a damaged driveway gets more attention than a shaken man.

We created a culture where:

• Truth gets buried

• Numbers get massaged

• Paperwork gets blessed

• Hazards get ignored

• People get quiet

Quiet kills…

Every lineman knows that.

But the rebrand doesn’t — it’s too busy counting dings in a fender.

LET’S CALL THIS WHAT IT IS — AND WHAT IT ISN’T

Here’s the line in the mud:

Safety is not loss prevention.

Safety is not risk management.

Safety is not a damn KPI.

Safety is the oath you make to the guy next to you.

Safety is the voice in your head at 2 AM on a storm when something feels off.

Safety is refusing to let numbers outrank human life.

Loss prevention matters.

Risk management matters.

But tell the truth about it:

• “We’re doing this to save money.”

• “We’re doing this to protect equipment.”

• “We’re doing this because legal is nervous.”

• “We’re doing this to keep the contract.”

• “We’re doing this to keep you alive.”

Nothing wrong with any of those…

UNTIL YOU START LYING ABOUT WHICH ONE IS WHICH.

The boots can handle honesty.

What they won’t tolerate is the bullshit of a rebrand masquerading as a moral compass.

GIVE SAFETY BACK TO THE PEOPLE WHO BLEED FOR IT

Safety belongs to the ones who’ve:

• Heard a pole scream

• Stood under a humming wire

• Looked down from forty feet with the wind punching them sideways

• Held someone’s broken body

• Prayed in the dark for headlights that never showed up

Safety belongs to the hands.

To the Brotherhood.

To the men and women who pay the real price when things go wrong…

Not to balance sheets.

Not to risk matrices.

Not to legal departments.

Not to optics.

Not to executives whose boots have never touched the same mud.

GIVE SAFETY BACK TO THE PEOPLE IT WAS STOLEN FROM!!!

Until then?

It’s just another rebrand.

Another slogan.

Another glossy poster in a break room.

Another corporate fairy tale nobody in the field believes.

And until we fix this?

We’re going to keep burying people while arguing about dented trucks.

That’s the truth...

Raw.

Ugly.

Uncomfortable.

And long overdue...

Disciple Over Luck… Truth Over Comfort… Legacy Over Ego...

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Lineman Bull$hit

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Where the boots speak truth. Grit, real talk, hard lessons, no corporate gloss. Lineman Bull$hit™—the trade, unfiltered.

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