Friday Jokes

Friday Jokes are memes, videos, and anything funny! Tune in every week for another joke that may (or may not) relate to root cause analysis.

Phew!

07/17/2026

We’ve all experienced the dread of giving a presentation during our schooldays… And many of us have realized that we have plenty more to host.

Public speaking is one of the most common fears in the world. How can we conquer this phobia? 😰

• Know that this isn’t about your speaking skills.

You don’t have to be an amazing speaker to give an insightful presentation, especially if your field is in QHSE. Take a deep breath and remember the point is to relay important information, not to grade your performance.

• Consider any rebuttals and questions.

When it comes to topics as important as incident investigations, you don’t want to look unprepared. You should have a comprehensive timeline of the events, capturing all relevant details.

The more evidence you collect, the less likely you are to be caught off guard later.

• Stay honest.

If you are hit with a question you don’t know the answer to, it might be tempting to exaggerate or assume some details. This defeats the purpose of your investigation. The whole point is to find and improve the system failures at play.

If you make information up, you’re sending your team on a goose hunt to fix your best guess. It’s okay to say “I don’t know” sometimes. That shows opportunities of improvement in the company’s auditing, record keeping, and investigation systems.

In conclusion, a strong presentation is the result of a robust investigation, not a charismatic speaker.

Bad Call

07/10/2026

“The employee wasn’t paying attention.”

No kidding, Sherlock.

With time being such an invaluable resource, many companies are weary to invest much of it into their incident investigations. But this mentality can have rippling effects on your company:

• Time is an investment.

Many teams make the mistake of rushing investigations to get operations back online as quickly as possible.

The problem is that surface-level findings lead to surface-level solutions. The root causes remain addressed, meaning the issue will pop up again eventually.

• Employees notice a lack of care.

If yet another investigation is concluded with a root cause of “human error” and a corrective action of “retraining”, that lack of effort sets a standard for your entire organization.

If management can’t take the time to ask why people are making mistakes, why should the workforce bother, either?

• Blame spreads like the plague.

No one wants to take accountability in a work culture that attempts to fix people instead of systems.

Stopping investigations at “human error” teaches workers that deflection, dishonesty, and distrust are necessary tools to use when they inevitably make a mistake.

Take a few extra moments to ask why the employee wasn’t paying attention. You may discover several opportunities for systemic improvement.

The Endless Cycle

07/03/2026

Does work ever feel like a frustrating cycle of speed and safety?

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Too often, workers are given conflicting instructions: get the job done quickly, but get it done safely, too. Being safe and fast at the same time is certainly possible, but management needs to consider the following before jumping into discipline:

🐌 Find out what’s slowing the team down.

If production is too slow, a scolding isn’t going to fix the root causes. Investigate the processes to see if the work can be optimized.

A strong set of procedures, for example, should serve as a helpful checklist. In many cases, poor writing or formatting can slow things down.

❌ Never reward unsafe behaviors.

This might seem obvious, but many management teams inadvertently do so.

Rewarding a high level of productivity can encourage workers to skip steps or violate protocol. Management should only be rewarding high productivity as long as it’s achieved safety.

🍬 Stop the flavor of the month.

Workers notice when the values of management flip-flop every quarter.

Speed and safety are both important, so your root cause analysis system should be strong enough to improve both at the same time.

Read the Room

06/29/2026

Procurement sees big savings… And every other department sees skimping.

Procurement is often butting heads with every other team, regularly taking cost-cutting a little too far. The conflict might feel inevitable, but we can address some of the pain points systemically:

⬇️ Values trickle down.

When leadership is constantly pressuring procurement to spend less and less, of course they’re going to make sacrifices to save costs.

If management doesn’t see the impact of cost-cutting, your oversight / employee relations system may need further investigation.

🗣️ Communication should be 2-way.

On that note, the obstacles of all teams should be heard and understood.

Just as we expect procurement and leadership to listen to our frustrations, we should be willing to hear their limitations and develop compromises together.

💰 We can’t have fast, cheap, and great.

It’s also important to understand that capital is an investment. While optimizing costs is important, there is such thing as spending too little.

When it comes to safety, maintenance, quality, or any department, procuring too little can cost more in the long-run from their subsequent incidents.

Follow the Instructions

06/19/2026

Are workers failing to follow procedures? Don’t be so quick to blame their competence. Just because the instructions are technically correct doesn’t mean they’re intuitive:

🖼️ Bad Graphics

Graphics are seldom blatantly wrong like this, but they are sometimes unclear, confusing, or unhelpful. Take a look at your procedures and ask: do these graphics enhance or disrupt the process?

🏃 Too Many Actions Per Step

Step-by-step procedures should only have one action per step. Otherwise, a worker can easily miss a step or experience information overload.

❓Poor Formatting

Even if the task is complex, the procedures should be as easy to navigate as possible. If the procedure is not properly indented, sequenced, or even punctuated, a reader is bound to make a mistake eventually.

The Domino Effect

06/12/2026

“We don’t have time to sweat the small stuff.”

Maybe that’s because you wait until it snowballs into something big.

Many companies only use root cause analysis reactively, waiting until disaster has already struck to look into the system failures.

These failures can be caught and fixed well before a major incident occurs.

If you were to perform an audit of day-to-day operations right now, chances are that you would find something wrong:

• A missed step in the procedure, likely one that is commonly unfollowed.
• A piece of equipment that has never worked quite right.
• A slight surplus or deficiency of materials. 

Before you brush it off as something not worth investigating, take a moment and ask, “Could this problem contribute to a major accident?”

If the answer is yes, we recommend investigating it now rather than later.

🧥

06/05/2026

“Why are you not wearing your PPE?”

Maybe because it feels like this: 🧥🧥🧥

PPE enforcement can be a headache for many teams. In management’s eyes, putting on some extra protection is such a simple task. To operators, there’s more to the story…

❌ It’s bad gear for the job.

Sure, throwing on some gloves is easy, but performing the work while wearing them might not be.

Can workers make precise movements in a bulky pair? Can they stay cool in a heavy set?

There’s likely an alternative more conducive to the operators’ environment.

🤝 Enforcement is more than discipline.

Punishing workers caught without PPE will not magically solve a cultural problem.

Is leadership setting the example? Do operators know how to voice their concerns?

Fixing a company culture is a long-term process that takes communication, commitment, and time.

⚠️ There’s more to safety than PPE.

Enforcing the rules is important, but PPE is at the bottom of the Hierarchy of Controls for a reason.

Protective gear is the last line of defense against a hazard. It should serve as a redundancy in case other controls fail.

A workplace that is reliant on PPE to reduce incidents is not a safe one.

All in all, reminders or scoldings won’t fix repeat PPE violations. There’s more complex issues worth investigating.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

05/29/2026

If you punish truthfulness, you’ll make an opponent out of your interviewee! 🤼

This is a tricky subject for many investigative interviewers.

On one hand, we want to build rapport and gather accurate testimonial data. On the other, that data could be used against the employee or their colleagues. In many cases, it’s not entirely in the investigator’s hands.

Here are our suggestions to handle this situation:

👂 Listen to the whole story.

If someone admits to making a mistake or violating a procedure, gather as much information behind it as possible. The more context you have regarding human error, the more you (and management) can understand the systemic failures that facilitated the behavior.

🤞 Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

If you expect your interviewee to be honest, the least you can do is show truthfulness, too. Never tell someone they won’t get in trouble if you don’t know that with certainty — especially for major incidents.

💡 Involve management in the process.

You’ll always have a hard time getting accurate information from your interviewers in a blame-oriented culture. Teams notice when workers are punished for honest mistakes. No one wants to self-incriminate themselves.

That’s why it’s important for management to understand the root cause analysis process. There’s no point to find systemic improvements if leadership only chooses discipline as the corrective action.

A simple walk-through of the investigation can make the difference between progress and punishment.

Not to Lecture, But…

05/22/2026

“Does TapRooT® RCA use Five-Whys?”

No, we do not.

Five-Whys is a simple but popular root cause analysis methodology. It involves asking “why” five (or more) times until a root cause is defined. It has gained so much traction for a number of reasons:

✔️ It’s quick and easy.

This methodology is perhaps the least resource-intensive one out there. An investigation can be complete in a matter of minutes, which is especially appealing for those juggling investigations on top of normal workloads.

While we don’t want investigations dragging on, event-learning is still meaningless if it’s not effective. Time in an investment, so consider what’s at stake before choosing the easy route.

🤝 It’s not proprietary.

Five-Whys is not copyrighted. Anyone can teach it, no matter their experience, knowledge, or intent. This is why so many other RCA groups teach Five-Whys or even incorporate it into their own systems.

As such, the method has spread like wildfire. Keep in mind, though, that common practice is not always the best practice.

🤔 It initiates deeper thinking.

Credit where credit is due, Five-Whys does push investigators to look past surface-level problems.

Stepping into an investigation with an inquisitive mindset is beneficial, but the method provides no guidance from there. So many Five-Whys investigations end in weak corrective actions, like training and procedures, because the investigator doesn’t have the tools for effective problem-solving.

Even though Five-Whys is so popular, TapRooT® RCA will always preach for better investigations.

Changing His Tune

05/18/2026

The supervisor when I make a mistake: 👹

The supervisor when he makes a mistake: ☺️

Human error can be frustrating for the entire team. Management can get sick of dealing with recurring incidents, and operations can feel like their discipline is unfair. Here’s how to balance enforcement and fairness:

🧠 Understand Our Biases

Actor-Observer Bias is the natural tendency to blame internal characteristics (laziness, incompetency) when others make mistakes, but to blame external characteristics (workload, stress level) when we make mistakes.

With this heuristic in mind, an incident investigator should focus more on evidence than personal opinions.

⚠️ Avoid Inconsistency

If a supervisor can avoid repercussions from the same mistake that got an operator disciplined, the workforce will notice.

Always give the involved employee the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, when someone trusted makes the same error, inconsistent enforcement will be interpreted as favoritism.

🔧 Fix Systems, Not People

Discipline achieves nothing if someone is bound to make the same mistake later down the line. Instead of warning or punishing workers, investigators should work to create better human factors design.

Don’t let human error be a bed of thorns. Nurture your event-learning into a stronger system!

I Must Break You

05/08/2026

Operator error can feel intimidating, especially for your poor equipment.

Many technicians mistakenly end Failure Analysis (FA) at human error. Incorrect use will break equipment, yes, but the root causes stem deeper. Here are a few areas to investigate:

🖋️ Procedural Discrepancies

Double check if your procedures are all correct and up-to-date with your latest equipment upgrades.

Even if the procedures are technically accurate, a confusing format or inaccessible location will facilitate mistakes, too.

📋 No SPAC Enforcement

A strong set of procedures won’t achieve anything if they aren’t being enforced. Is your management team conducting regular audits?

🤷 Poor Human Engineering

A nonintuitive interface will always invite misuse, no matter how many times the supervisor says to “be more careful.”

Investigate the equipment’s labels, displays, and controls to see if the complexity can be reduced.