[Migrated, see pinned post] Casual Conversation

This reminds me of the old saying "It's better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it." Insurance is largely built around this principle. Not counting the corruption in exorbitant prices that's a different topic.

Are you familiar with firewatch duty? When somebody is doing any work that could produce a fire in an environment, they need to have someone there to supervise who can do something if a fire breaks out. Grab an extinguisher, hit the alarm, stuff like that. This is pretty normal in businesses, because if the guy doing the work say, welding, accidentally said some self on fire, there needs to be somebody there to put it out. The chances of it being necessary or extremely low, but the consequences of not having someone there in an emergency are extremely high.

This can lead to situations that seem silly. A buddy of mine was once on fire watch duty while someone was repairing a manhole or sewer grate or something like that in the middle of an empty parking lot. He just grabbed it off his chair and sat there shooting the shit with the guy while hanging on to the fire extinguisher for like 4 hours. There is nothing to catch fire except possibly the guy doing the work.

Anyway, keep on doing your job. On the off chance that you need to do something, it'll be good that you were there to do it. If not, at least people can sleep happier knowing that the job is being washed over by people who know what they're doing.