Sometimes it helps to have somone to bounce ideas off of. On my first job I cannot tell you how many times I used to walk into my bosses office, describe a problem, find the answer to the problem without him saying a thing and walk out. It just helped to talk it out and know that there was a second opinion.
Every situation is unique. So the second person can say, "Hey watch out for ______ that you cannot see from up there"
Plus if something unfortunate does happen you have someone there to take care of the injured person.
When I ran the maint. department I implemented a preventive maintenance program. It started to be a hard sell because I realized that it is hard to prove what you prevent.
I read an interesting article about this. Before a PM program, your days go fast, you run around and put out fires(meaning machines go down), you feel needed and you look like a hero. However after you implement a PM system, things break down less often. So your day goes slower and you do not look like such a hero. However your real job is to prevent fires. I feel that the safety observer is there to prevent fires.
I will now step off my soap box.
Scott
