Lineman Bull$hit

**Dead Should Never Feel Normal**

**SAFETY SUNDAY | June 7, 2026**

I’ve been struggling to put the right words to pen and paper this week.

Not because I don’t have anything to say.

Because there’s too damn much.

I’ve been struggling with where to even start, with everything going on in this trade. The accidents. The close calls. The injuries. The funerals. The families. The crews carrying weight most people will never see.

Every time I think I know where to begin, something else happens, and it feels like I’m trying to speak through grief, anger, and exhaustion all at once.

So I’m gonna start at the heart of what’s wrong.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve started letting things feel normal that should never feel normal.

And I’m telling you right now…

**Dead should never feel normal.**

But before dead starts feeling normal, accidents start feeling normal.

That’s where the numbness begins.

It starts when a man gets hurt and the machine keeps moving. It starts when somebody gets flashed, burned, shocked, crushed, dropped, scared half to death, or sent to the hospital, and the first thing people say is, “Well, at least nobody died.”

I get why people say that.

Hell, I’ve said it myself.

But that line gets dangerous if we’re not careful.

Because “at least nobody died” can slowly turn into permission to move on too damn fast. It can become the phrase we use to make ourselves feel better rather than ask the harder questions.

Why did it happen?

What’d we miss?

What’d we accept?

What’d we rush?

What’d we normalize before somebody paid the price?

A man getting hurt in this trade should still bother us. A close call should still stop us long enough to get honest. A flash should still make the room quiet. A near miss should still change the way we approach the next job.

Because once accidents start feeling routine, fatalities are already standing in the doorway.

That’s the part we don’t like to talk about.

We don’t wake up one day numb.

We practice it.

We practice it every time we shrug off something that should’ve stopped us cold. We practice it every time we call luck a safety plan. We practice it every time somebody goes home different than they showed up, and everybody acts like that’s just part of the trade.

No.

The hazard is part of the trade.

The exposure is part of the trade.

The responsibility is part of the trade.

But hurt shouldn’t feel normal.

Burned shouldn’t feel normal.

Broken shouldn’t feel normal.

Scared half to death shouldn’t feel normal.

And dead damn sure shouldn’t feel normal.

I know some people don’t like the word accident. They’ll say incident, event, occurrence, or whatever language makes the report cleaner and the meeting more comfortable.

Use whatever word you need to use on paper.

I’m talking about real life.

I’m talking about the moment something goes wrong and a human being pays for it. I’m talking about the phone call no family should ever get. I’m talking about the crew that has to stand there afterward and replay every second in their heads. I’m talking about the silence left in the lives of everyone who knew them.

That silence isn’t normal.

That pain isn’t normal.

That cost should never become normal.

And yet this trade has gotten way too damn good at absorbing pain and going right back to work.

We make the post. We say the prayer. We send condolences. We shake our heads. Then Monday comes, and too many people step right back into the same habits, the same weak job briefs, the same production pressure, the same silence, the same assumptions, and the same “we’ve always done it this way” bu****it that helped get us here.

That’s not honoring anyone.

That’s using grief as a pause button instead of a turning point.

And I’m not saying this from the cheap seats.

I’ve been in this trade long enough to know I haven’t done everything right. I’ve seen shortcuts. I’ve heard excuses. I’ve felt pressure. I’ve watched good hands make bad decisions because the job was moving fast, the storm was wearing people down, the plan wasn’t clear, or nobody wanted to be the one to speak up.

Hell, I’ve made some of those same excuses myself over the years.

But I know this…

When accidents start feeling normal, men stop fighting hard enough to prevent them.

They start accepting things they used to question. They start rushing conversations that should’ve happened before the work ever started. They start assuming someone else checked. They start trusting silence. They start letting fatigue, pride, pressure, and habit make decisions that should’ve been made with a clear head and a serious respect for what can go wrong.

And silence will get people killed.

So to **EVERYONE** reading this, listen close.

Don’t let this trade beat the sensitivity out of you.

Don’t let anybody convince you that being bothered by accidents means you’re weak. Don’t let the jokes, the pride, the pressure, or the old “that’s just linework” mentality numb you to the cost of this work.

If something feels wrong, say it.

If you don’t understand, ask.

If the plan doesn’t make sense, stop the damn job.

That doesn’t make you soft.

That means you still understand what’s at stake.

To the experienced hands, foremen, general foremen, superintendents, safety professionals, owners, and anybody else carrying influence in this trade…

We’ve got to quit acting like numbness is strength.

It’s not.

Strength is giving a damn after you’ve seen too much. Strength is slowing the job down when everybody else wants to hurry. Strength is saying the uncomfortable thing before somebody gets hurt. Strength is looking at a young hand and saying, “Not like that. Not today. Not on my watch.”

We owe that to the dead.

We owe that to the injured.

We owe that to the families sitting beside hospital beds.

We owe that to the crews carrying memories they don’t talk about.

We owe that to the apprentices who are still learning what normal is supposed to look like.

And we owe it to every person who still believes we’re gonna do everything in our power to bring their person home.

Because that’s the promise, whether we say it out loud or not.

When we leave the yard, sign the tailboard, put our gloves on, step into the bucket, climb the pole, walk into the right-of-way, drive through the night, work storm, or take responsibility for the person beside us…

The promise is simple.

**Bring them home.**

Not most of them.

Not just alive.

Not broken.

Not burned.

Not changed forever.

Bring them home.

And when we fail to do that, it better still hurt enough to make us change.

Because accidents should never feel normal.

Injuries should never feel normal.

Close calls should never feel normal.

And dead should never feel normal.

Not in this trade.

Not on our crews.

Not on our watch.

**Bring Them Home…**

~Kevin
**Lineman Bull$hit™ Academy**
**Together We Rise.**

SAFETY SUNDAY 24th May 2026

THE EMPTY CHAIR

Memorial Day weekend is here.

And I know what that means for a lot of people.

Cookouts.

Campgrounds.

Boats.

Cold drinks.

Flags in the yard.

A little extra time with family.

A chance to breathe before the grind starts again.

And I’m not here to take that from anybody.

Enjoy it.

Fire up the grill.

Hold your kids.

Sit with your wife.

Call your people.

Laugh a little.

Rest a little.

Live a little.

Because there are men and women who don’t get to do that anymore.

That’s the part we better not forget.

Memorial Day is not Veterans Day.

It is not just another patriotic holiday.

It is not just a three-day weekend wrapped in red, white, and blue.

Memorial Day is about the ones who didn’t come home.

The ones who left a chair empty.

At the dinner table.

At the reunion.

Beside a wife.

Across from a child.

In the middle of a family that still looks over sometimes, like they’re supposed to be there.

That’s the weight of this weekend.

The empty chair.

And if you’ve lived any kind of life…

If you’ve worked any kind of dangerous job…

If you’ve stood in a Union hall after a bad phone call…

If you’ve ever seen a hard hat sitting on a table where a man should’ve been standing…

Then you understand that chair.

You understand what it means when somebody doesn’t make it home.

Now let me be crystal clear.

I’m not comparing linework to military service.

Far too many people do that already.

I’m not putting our trade beside combat.

I’m not making Memorial Day about us.

Memorial Day belongs to the fallen men and women who gave their lives in service to this country.

Period.

We honor that.

We respect that.

We say their names.

We remember the cost.

But if that remembrance doesn’t sharpen how we live…

If it doesn’t make us hold our people tighter…

If it doesn’t make us give a damn about the man standing beside us…

If it doesn’t make us more disciplined with the life we’ve still been given…

Then what are we really doing?

Because memory without action is just a ceremony.

And I’m tired of ceremonies that don’t change behavior.

I’m tired of hard hats off, and heads bowed…

Then right back to rushing.

Right back to assuming.

Right back to half-assed job briefs.

Right back to silence when somebody knows damn well something doesn’t feel right.

That’s not honor.

That’s performance.

And the dead deserve better than our performance.

So do the living.

This weekend is about the fallen.

But Tuesday morning is about the ones still standing.

The ones still climbing.

The ones still leading crews.

The ones still trusting another man to watch what they can’t see.

The ones still walking back into the arena with wives waiting…

Kids waiting…

Mothers waiting…

Fathers waiting…

Dogs waiting by the damn door.

Lives waiting.

That’s what safety is supposed to be about.

Not slogans.

Not posters.

Not polished speeches from somebody who hasn’t had mud on their boots since Clinton was in office.

Stewardship.

That’s the word.

Safety is stewardship.

It’s looking at the man beside you and understanding his life is not yours to gamble with.

It’s knowing your silence can become somebody else’s funeral.

Your hurry can become somebody else’s empty chair.

Your assumption can become a phone call a family never recovers from.

And I know that sounds heavy.

Good.

It should.

This work is heavy.

The cost is heavy.

The names are heavy.

The ghosts are heavy.

And some of us carry more of them than we ever talk about.

Some of us can still remember exactly where we were when we found out.

Some of us still drive past a place and feel something in our chest tighten up because a memory lives there.

Some of us hear a name and go quiet.

We carry names in this trade.

Don’t act like we don’t.

Some are military names.

Some are family names.

Some are Brotherhood names.

Some are trade names.

Some are names from crews we worked with.

Some are names passed down by old hands who got real quiet when they told the story.

Some are names that never made a headline, but damn sure left a hole.

And this weekend…

Maybe we ought to let those names talk to us.

Not with guilt.

With responsibility.

Maybe we ought to let them remind us that going home is not automatic.

It’s not guaranteed.

It’s not owed.

It’s protected…

By how we lead.

By how we listen.

By how we speak up.

By how we slow down when slowing down matters.

By how we refuse to let a Brother walk into something just because stopping him might be uncomfortable.

That’s where honor becomes behavior.

That’s where remembrance becomes responsibility.

That’s where Memorial Day reaches past the weekend and actually changes the way a man walks back into the arena.

Because the real work is before the incident.

Before the flash.

Before the fall.

Before the contact.

Before the phone call.

Before the wife answers.

Before the kid sees people pull into the driveway, and somehow knows life just changed.

Before the chair becomes empty.

That’s where leadership lives.

Not in the speech afterward.

In the decision before.

So this Memorial Day weekend…

Say the names.

Honor the fallen.

Stand still for a moment and actually feel the cost.

Not the political noise.

Not the social media performance.

The cost.

The human cost.

The empty chair.

Then take that weight with you when you go back to work.

Let it make you sharper.

Let it make you more present.

Let it make you more honest.

Let it make you more accountable.

Let it make you unwilling to trade a life for a schedule.

Because there are already enough empty chairs in this world.

There are already enough names carved into stone.

There are already enough families trying to build a life around a hole that never really closes.

There are already enough crews carrying men they couldn’t bring back.

This weekend belongs to the fallen.

But Tuesday belongs to the living.

And when we step back into the work…

We owe it to both.

We owe it to the ones who gave everything.

And we owe it to the ones still waiting on us to come home.

So enjoy your weekend.

Love your people.

Say the names.

Remember the cost.

Then come back right.

Come back locked in.

Come back humble.

Come back unwilling to tolerate the kind of bu****it that gets good people hurt.

Because the best way to honor those who didn’t make it home…

Is to fight like hell for the ones who still can.

The Truth Lives Here…

Better… NEVER RESTS

~Kevin | Lineman Bull$hit™ Academy

SAFETY SUNDAY (May 17th 2026)

SAY IT WHILE HE CAN HEAR YOU

Mental health ain’t weakness… and love ain’t something a brother should have to hear for the first time at his funeral.

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day. We paused to honor them.

The mothers, wives, grandmothers, and women standing behind the men in this trade carry more of this life than most people will ever understand.

They’re the ones waiting on the phone call.
Watching the radar.
Holding families together.
Raising kids while we’re chasing storms, answering callouts, missing dinners, missing birthdays, and pretending we’re not as tired as we really are.

So yeah…

They deserved that day.

But this Sunday, we need to talk about what we carry back home through the door.

Because May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

And I already know some of y’all tighten up when you hear that phrase.

Mental health.

There it is.

That phrase, this trade still doesn’t know what to do with.

Some guys hear it and roll their eyes.
Some think it’s soft.
Some think it’s HR language.
Some think it’s just another poster somebody tapes to a wall so they can say they care.

And I get it.

A lot of this stuff has been packaged wrong. It’s been made soft, corporate, polished up, and watered down until it doesn’t reach the men who actually need it.

But let me say this plain.

If you don’t think mental health belongs in our conversations…

You ain’t paying attention.

Because this trade doesn’t just test your body.

It tests your mind.
It tests your patience.
It tests your marriage.
It tests your temper.
It tests your faith.
It tests your ability to walk back into your house and still be the man your family needs after the job has taken damn near everything out of you.

And for too long, we’ve acted like that part doesn’t count.

We’ll talk about voltage.
Cover.
Grounding.
Switching.
Rubber goods.
Fall protection.
Traffic control.
Every hazard on the job.

But we don’t talk enough about the man sitting behind the steering wheel on the way home.

The tired man.
The angry man.
The numb man.
The grieving man.
The distracted man.
The man who just saw something he can’t unsee.
The man who almost got hurt.
The man who almost got somebody else hurt.
The man who did everything right and still watched everything go wrong.

That man matters.

Not because he’s weak.

Because he’s human.

And we’ve gotta stop acting like human beings can absorb this trade forever and never crack.

The truck gets parked.
The line gets re-energized.
The lights come on.
The ticket gets closed.
The crew scatters.
Everybody goes home.

And the world thinks the job is done.

But sometimes the job ain’t done.

Sometimes it rides home with you.
Sometimes it walks through the front door wearing your boots.
Sometimes it sits at the dinner table with your family.
Sometimes it lays in bed beside you while everybody else is asleep.

And it doesn’t always show up as tears.

A lot of times it shows up as anger.
Silence.
Distance.
Drinking.
Not caring.
Snapping at people who didn’t do anything wrong.
Sitting in the driveway because you don’t know how to walk in the house yet.
Being in the room but not really being there.

And we call it stress.

We call it being tired.

We call it part of the trade.

We say, “I’m good.”

Knowing damn well we ain’t.

And sometimes we crawl into a bottle because we don’t know where else to put it.

I know that road too.

I’m not saying that from a stage looking down at anybody. I’m saying that as a man who’s been there.

I know what it’s like to try to quiet the noise the wrong way.
I know what it’s like to pour something over pain and call it coping.
I know what it’s like to tell yourself you’re just taking the edge off when the truth is…

The edge is becoming your life.

I’m not proud of every place I’ve been.

But I’m not ashamed to tell the truth about it either.

Because shame is what keeps men sick.
Shame is what keeps men quiet.
Shame is what convinces a man he’s the only one fighting that battle.

And he ain’t.

A lot of us have carried things the wrong way before we learned how to carry them better.

That doesn’t make us broken beyond repair.

It makes us responsible for telling the truth now.

This trade has done a pretty good job teaching men how to survive the work.

But we haven’t done nearly enough teaching men how to survive what the work leaves behind.

There’s a difference.

We teach a man how to climb.
How to frame.
How to cover up.
How to ground.
How to switch.
How to run storm.
How to restore power in the middle of somebody else’s worst day.

But who teaches him what to do after his first bad call?

Who teaches him what to do when the close call won’t quit replaying?

Who teaches him how to come home heavy without handing that weight to his wife and kids?

Because that’s what happens.

What we don’t deal with, we hand to somebody else.

We hand it to our families.
We hand it to our crews.
We hand it to the apprentice who catches us on the wrong day.
We hand it to the Brother who needed patience and got anger instead.
We hand it to the people close enough to catch the shrapnel.

And then we act like it’s just stress.

No.

Sometimes it’s pain we never dealt with.
Fear we never admitted.
Grief, we never had time to feel.
The trade taking pieces of us while we pretend not to notice.

That ain’t toughness.

That’s damage.

And we’ve gotta stop worshiping damage like it’s character.

Real toughness ain’t pretending nothing touches you.

Real toughness is admitting when something did.

Real toughness is loving your family enough to not make them pay for what you refuse to face.

And real toughness is looking another man in the eye and saying something this trade still gets weird about.

“I love you.”

Yeah.
I said it.

I love you.

I’ve said it to rooms full of linemen, foremen, apprentices, safety professionals, executives, contractors, union hands, non-union hands, and strangers I’d never met before that day.

And I’m not ashamed of it.

Not even a little bit.

Because I mean it.

I say it because this trade has buried too many men who probably never heard it enough from the people standing shoulder to shoulder with them.

I say it because there are men in those rooms carrying things nobody knows about.

I say it because some of them are one bad night away from making a permanent decision over a temporary storm inside their chest.

I say it because love is not weakness.

Love is responsibility.
Love is stewardship.
Love is accountability with a heartbeat.

Love is saying:

Your life matters to me.
Your family matters to me.
Your future matters to me.
Your soul matters to me.
And I want you to make it home.

Not just alive.

Whole.

A lot of men in this trade are starving for Brotherhood but allergic to the language of love.

They want loyalty.
Respect.
Trust.
Someone to have their back.
Someone who gives a damn whether they make it home.

They just don’t want to call it love.

But that’s what it is.

Strip away the pride.
Strip away the image.
Strip away the tough-guy act.

What do you call it when a crew refuses to leave a Brother behind?

What do you call it when a Journeyman takes the time to teach an apprentice the right way because he wants him to survive?

What do you call it when a foreman carries the weight of every hand under him?

What do you call it when a Brother checks on you after the bad call?

I call it LOVE.

And I’m done dressing it up as something else just to make uncomfortable men feel better.

Because My Brother’s Keeper can’t stop when the grounds come off.

It can’t stop when the tailboard ends.

It can’t stop when we’re released from storm.

If I’m My Brother’s Keeper in the right-of-way, then I better be My Brother’s Keeper when the job is done, and he’s still carrying the weight of it.

That’s safety.
That’s leadership.
That’s stewardship.

And yeah…

That’s LOVE.

Mental health ain’t sitting outside the fence line.

It’s right in the middle of the job.

A tired mind misses things.
A numb man stops caring.
A distracted foreman misses the shift in the crew.
An angry Journeyman teaches by intimidation rather than through leadership.
A grieving apprentice doesn’t hear the warning.
A burned-out hand quits speaking up.
A man carrying too much starts taking shortcuts because he’s just trying to get through the day.

Then something happens…

And everybody acts like it came out of nowhere.

It didn’t.

It was building.

We just weren’t looking.

Or worse…

We saw it and didn’t want the responsibility of seeing it.

That’s the hard truth.

If we can talk about Stop Work Authority, then we'd better be able to talk about stopping a man before he breaks.

If we can preach Qualified Observer, then we'd better be willing to observe more than the work.

If we can talk about job briefings, maybe we need to start paying attention to the crew's condition, not just the circuits.

And if we’re gonna keep saying “everybody goes home”…
Then we'd better start asking what kind of man is actually going home.

Because alive is not enough.

Alive is the floor.
Alive is the bare minimum.

We should fight like hell for that every single day.

But there’s a difference between sending a man home alive and sending him home whole.

There’s a difference between making it back to the driveway and actually making it back to your family.

There’s a difference between surviving the shift and not letting the shift steal the best parts of you.

So… here’s my challenge this Safety Sunday.

Check on your people.

For real.

Not the fake version.
Not the quick version.
Not the “you good?” while you’re halfway turned around.

Call the Brother who’s been quiet.
Text the hand that’s been different.
Check on the foreman who carries everybody else and never gets asked how he’s doing.
Talk to the apprentice who jokes too much.
Sit with the old hand who doesn’t know how to talk about the things he’s seen.
Pay attention to the guy who says he’s fine too fast.

And when you ask…

Ask like you mean it.

Ask in a place where he doesn’t have to protect his pride in front of everybody.

Ask again.

Sit still.

Shut up.

Let the silence do its work.

Sometimes a man doesn’t need a speech.

Sometimes he just needs a Brother who won’t flinch when the truth gets heavy.

And if it’s you…

If you’re the one carrying too much…

Tell somebody.

I don’t care how long you’ve been in the trade.
I don’t care how many storms you’ve run.
I don’t care how many apprentices you’ve trained.
I don’t care how hard everybody thinks you are.

Tell somebody.

A Brother.
A friend.
A counselor.
A pastor.
A doctor.
A mentor.

Somebody.

That ain’t weakness.

That’s maintenance.

And every man in this trade understands maintenance.

You don’t wait for the boom to fail before you inspect it.
You don’t wait for rubber goods to blow apart before you test them.
You don’t wait for a rope to snap before you look it over.
You don’t wait for a pole to hit the ground before you sound it.

So why the hell do we wait for a man to break before we care about what he’s carrying?

That ain’t safety.

That’s negligence.

And maybe that word stings.

Good.
Maybe it should.

If a man is talking like he might hurt himself, or like he may not make it through the night, don’t leave it at a good talk in the parking lot. Stay with him. Get help. In the U.S., call or text 988, or get emergency help involved.

Because awareness ain’t the finish line.

Awareness without action is just noise.
Awareness without brotherhood is just branding.
Awareness without courage is just another poster nobody reads.

This trade doesn’t need more posters.

It needs more men willing to tell the truth.

More leaders willing to see the whole person, not just the production number.

More crews willing to protect each other after the job, not just during it.

More Brothers willing to say:

“I see you.”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t carry that alone.”

And yes…

“I LOVE YOU.”

Say it.
Mean it.

Don’t whisper it like you’re ashamed of it.

Don’t wait until there’s a casket in front of you to find the courage.

Say it while he can still hear you.
Say it while it can still reach him.
Say it while it can still pull him back from whatever edge he might be standing near.

Because one day...

You may wish you had.

And when you go home tonight, don’t hand your family the version of you that’s too proud to be honest.

They deserve more than the leftovers.
They deserve more than the silence.
They deserve more than the man who survived the work but never really made it home.

And so do you.

You deserve to make it home too.

Not just breathing.
Not just standing.
Not just functioning.

Whole.
Present.
Honest.
Human.

Because getting home matters.

But being whole when you get there…
That matters too.

I LOVE YOU!

Better… NEVER RESTS
~Kevin Robinson

Lineman Bull$hit™ Academy

*tAcademy

THE ROOM WAS FULL... BUT THE GAP WAS STILL THERE

I spoke in Michigan this week.

And before I say anything else…
I need to make one thing clear.

I am truly grateful for the opportunity to stand in front of that room.

Almost 300 Union hands.
Brothers and Sisters of this trade.

Journeymen.
Apprentices.
Foremen.
General foremen.
Safety professionals.
Leadership.

Men and women who know what it means to work on the line… in weather… under pressure… in the middle of conditions most people will never understand.

I don’t take that lightly.
I never will.

Anytime I am given the chance to speak to the people who carry this trade on their backs, I consider that an honor.
And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

But gratitude doesn’t require silence.
Respect doesn’t require agreement.
Brotherhood doesn’t mean we avoid hard conversations.
Sometimes it means we have them because we owe each other that much.

And that is where I am after Michigan…

Because I’m going to be honest about something.
If I’d known in advance about the ground-to-ground gloves-and-sleeves policy…
And if I’d known about the dielectric overshoe policy ahead of time…
I wouldn’t have agreed to present…

Not because I don’t respect the people in that room.
I do.

Not because I don’t respect Union labor.
I damn sure do.
I carry my ticket in my pocket.

Not because I’m afraid of hard conversations.
That is exactly where I live…

But because I won’t knowingly walk into a room and lend credibility to something I believe deserves to be challenged at the foundation.

There are policies that improve the work.
There are policies that protect the worker.
There are policies born from blood, consequence, investigation, learning, and experience.

And then there are policies that sound good in a conference room but start falling apart the minute they hit the field…
The right of way…
The rubber glove work…
The underground cabinet…
The muddy easement…
The storm job…
Or the actual hands doing the actual work.

That’s where we have to be careful…
Because policy without field reality is not safety.

It’s liability management dressed up in safety language.
And I’m tired of pretending those are the same thing.

This trade already has enough real hazards…
Electricity.
Backfeed.
Induction.
Traffic.
Weather.
Bad footing.
Poor communication.
Rushed handoffs.
Production pressure.
Unclear switching.
Fatigue.
Complacency.
Assumptions.
Human error.

We don’t need to manufacture more confusion by stacking policies on top of workers without making damn sure those policies are understood… practical… defensible… and connected to the real work being performed.

And that brings me to the part I cannot stop thinking about…
A large portion of my presentation was centered on the ET&D Best Practices.

Stop Work Authority.
Cradle to Cradle.
Qualified Observer.

Not as buzzwords.
Not as filler.
Not as something to check off so we can say safety was covered.

I talk about them because those Best Practices are supposed to be living tools in this trade.

They’re supposed to show up before the work starts.
They’re supposed to show up when the job changes.
They’re supposed to show up when a hand senses something that doesn’t feel right.
They’re supposed to show up when the crew needs another set of qualified eyes locked onto the critical steps of the work.

Stop Work Authority isn’t supposed to be a poster.
It’s an OBLIGATION…
A Qualified Observer isn’t supposed to be some vague title handed to whoever is standing nearby.
Cradle to Cradle isn’t supposed to be a phrase people hear once and forget.

These Best Practices are supposed to mean something…

They’re supposed to protect the hands doing the work.
They’re supposed to give structure to judgment.
They’re supposed to slow the crew down long enough to see what speed and pressure are trying to hide.

Because of that gap…

I had to change my message in real time.
I walked into that room with a direction.
I knew what I intended to deliver.
I knew where I wanted to take them…

But once I realized there was a disconnect around the foundation of the ET&D Best Practices…

I had a choice to make.
I could keep pushing through the presentation I prepared…
Or I could meet the room where it actually was.

So I changed the message…
Not because I was unprepared.

Because the room needed something different than what I thought they needed when I walked in.

That’s what teaching requires.
That’s what leadership requires.
That’s what this work requires.

You don’t just dump information on people and call it training.
You read the room.
You listen for the gaps.
You adjust the message.
You bridge what they know to what they need to understand.

And within the time I was allotted…
That is exactly what I tried to do.

I tried to bridge the gap.
I tried to connect the policy to the practice.
I tried to connect the language to the field.
I tried to connect the Best Practices back to the hands they were created to protect.

Because if the foundation is not understood…

The rest of the message does not land the way it should.

And that’s why the question has been eating at me.

How does a room of almost 300 Union hands not know about the ET&D Partnership…
Stop Work Authority…
Cradle to Cradle…
Qualified Observer…

And still not clearly understand where their company policies and those Best Practices come from?

That question has been sitting heavy on my chest.

Because Best Practices are not magic.

They’re not just some safety department phrase.
They’re not corporate buzzwords thrown into a PowerPoint so everybody can feel like something meaningful happened.

Best Practices come from the work.

They come from the field.
They come from incidents.
They come from near misses.
They come from fatalities.
They come from lessons paid for by people who did not get to come home the same way they left.
They come from the hard collision between standards… experience… investigation… and reality.
They come from labor and management sitting at the same table and saying…

WE HAVE TO DO BETTER…

They come from the understanding that the man in the bucket… the apprentice on the ground… the foreman carrying the job… the general foreman coordinating the work… and the family waiting at home all deserve more than guesswork and slogans.

So I have to ask it again…

How did almost 300 Union hands not know that?

How did we get to a place where people can work under policies every day and still not understand the source… purpose… intent… or weight behind the Best Practices that shaped this industry?

That’s not an insult to the room.
That’s an indictment of the gap.

The gap between what gets written and what gets taught.
The gap between what gets enforced and what gets explained.
The gap between what leadership assumes everyone knows and what the field is actually carrying.
The gap between compliance and understanding.
The gap between policy and ownership.

And that gap is dangerous.

Because when workers do not understand the why…

They either blindly comply…

Or quietly resist.

Neither one is leadership.
Neither one is culture.
Neither one is how professionals are built.

Union hands are supposed to be the standard…

That doesn’t mean perfect.
That doesn’t mean above correction.
That doesn’t mean immune from hard conversations.

It means we are supposed to know the work.
Know the rules.
Know the history.
Know the reason.
Know the blood behind the language.

Know when something is protecting us…

And know when something needs to be challenged...

That is the responsibility that comes with the ticket.

You don’t get to just say “I’m Union” and then stop learning.

You don’t get to wear the title and ignore the obligation.

You don’t get to stand in the room while policies are handed down and never ask where they came from… what problem they solve… how they are supposed to be applied… and whether they actually make the work safer.

The ticket is not decoration.

It’s a burden.
It’s a responsibility.
It’s a promise that you will carry the trade forward better than you found it.

And that means asking hard questions when something does not line up.

So yes…

I spoke in Michigan.

And I’m grateful that I did.
I’m grateful for the hands that listened.
I’m grateful for the Brothers and Sisters who showed up.
I’m grateful for every conversation before and after.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to bring my heart… my experience… my scars… and my belief in this trade into that room.

But I also walked away with something heavy on my mind...

We have a knowledge gap.
We have a communication gap.
We have a leadership gap.

And if almost 300 Union hands can sit in a room and not clearly understand where Best Practices come from…

Then the problem is bigger than one policy.
Bigger than one presentation.
Bigger than one company.
Bigger than one local.

That is an industry problem.
Industry problems require industry courage.

We need to stop treating Best Practices like optional trivia.
Let's stop treating policies like commandments handed down by people who never have to work under them.

We need to stop letting safety language replace field education.
And we need to stop confusing obedience with understanding.

Because this trade does not need more blind compliance.
It needs better leaders.
It needs better teachers.
It needs better questions.

It needs more Journeymen willing to say…
Explain it.
Show me where it came from.
Show me how it applies.
Show me how this protects the hand doing the work.

And if it doesn’t…
Then let’s have the courage to say that too.

That’s not rebellion.
That’s stewardship.
That’s Union accountability.
That’s Brotherhood.
That’s Sisterhood.
That’s how a trade stays alive.

That’s how we honor the ones who paid for these lessons before us.

That’s how we make sure Best Practices remain connected to the best people this industry has…

The hands in the field.

Better… NEVER RESTS.

The Truth Lives Here…
~Kevin
Lineman Bull$hit™ Academy
*tAcademy