By Barry Spud, Visiting Professor of Ancient Compliance

Management has offered me a few weeks’ holiday during our major plant upgrade.

Flights, accommodation, everything.

“We’d like the engineers and workers to get on with it,” the manager explained.

I was delighted. Clearly, they wanted to protect my strategic thinking from operational distractions.

They also suggested I leave my laptop behind.

Exceptional commitment to wellbeing.

I reminded them what happened after my previous cruise holiday. I returned to discover workers discussing risks, procedures being questioned and morale improving.

Nobody had even been seriously injured in my absence.

An extraordinary failure to demonstrate my indispensability.

This time, I’m going to Egypt.

Working in safety has given me a lifelong interest in mythology, sacred objects and rituals performed with absolute confidence.

Egypt seems the logical professional development opportunity.

Kevin suggested I might learn how beliefs, symbols and rituals create meaning, rather than assuming every unfamiliar object is a primitive risk control.

I explained that I had already packed a clipboard.

The pyramids are my first priority.

For years, I have taught people to respect pyramids. Now I can finally inspect one that wasn’t copied from a consultant’s presentation.

I’m particularly interested in establishing whether removing a few small stones from the bottom reliably predicts a fatality at the top.

Kevin asked me not to conduct the experiment.

Typical resistance to safety science.

I also intend to study hieroglyphs.

Dense information. Puzzling symbols. Messages preserved in stone.

My induction slides, essentially.

Sadie asked whether I would be visiting any museums.

“Absolutely. I want to understand how artefacts communicate culture.”

“Like our locked suggestion box?”

“Exactly. Though I suspect theirs receive more enquiries.”

Rob Long writes about the interpretation needed to understand artefacts and the beliefs and rituals associated with them.

Personally, I’m hoping to find an ancient commitment book.

Surely someone got the pyramid workforce to sign something.

Mummification also interests me: preserving something long after it has ceased to function.

I have maintained several procedures using precisely that philosophy.

Kevin suggested that ancient Egyptian culture deserved more thoughtful attention than comparisons with my filing system.

I agreed to keep an open mind.

Subject to approval of anything entering it.

Meanwhile, Sadie has booked several weeks at a Bali spa retreat.

She deserves a break from managing everyone else’s inability to cope with her.

The programme promises mindfulness, gentle movement and letting go.

She has requested clarification about who authorises the letting go.

Her pink stiletto safety boots are packed. She intends to assess the massage beds, classify the hot stones and introduce mandatory relaxation targets.

“They say there’s no judgement,” she told me.

“How will they identify improvement opportunities?”

We agreed the retreat needed her.

Back at the factory, Kevin and the engineers are reviewing access, safeguards and maintenance with the operators.

They’ve asked me to contribute by enjoying my holiday.

So this will be my last post until I return.

If the upgrade runs behind schedule, management has offered to extend my leave.

Wonderful people.

They’re prepared to spend whatever it takes to keep me out of harm’s way.

Kevin says I’ve almost understood.