Evan M. Peterson Thoughts
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Rational Fear
I'm afraid of heights. I don't avoid them, but I don't enjoy being there. It revs up my fight or flight system. I get jittery and feel queasy. A lot of people have similar responses to things I don't fear. I like spiders, I don't mind flying, and enjoy speaking to groups. If I dig a little deeper I have to admit that I really like those things because I feel mastery over the fear they can provoke.
I read somewhere that research suggests babies have inborn fear of some things, spiders being one of them. All arachnids are venomous, although few are a mortal danger to humans. Makes sense to me that babies fear them because they lack the knowledge and physical skills to deal with them, which is to kill them if you hate them or, if you're me and you can set them free, you do. It's not stupid to fear spiders or heights: being poisoned or falling can range from inconvenient to lethal.
Fear of speaking in front of groups is different. I do a lot of training – the training people tend to hate: Preventing Workplace Sexual Harassment, Diversity Sensitivity, Teamwork. I added to my repertiore last year a monster of a training. It's 13 hours over two days and it qualifies certain professionals to become (or renew their status) as qualified Substance Abuse Professionals under US Department of Transportation rules. It's a marathon so I start by making sure everyone eats breakfast – it's included in the tuition.
My least favorite acronym: I'm a SAP. SAPs face fear every day because we evaluate safety sensitive transportation employees who have violated the drug and alcohol rules. Stoned truckers, drunk pilots, railroad engineers strung out on speed – nothing good can come of people with those responsibilities having substance use disorders. When they do, their only path back to safety sensitive transportation work is through an SAP. We have to decide what kind of treatment they need, and if and when they've completed enough of it successfully to be eligible to work.
How do we do it? Extremely carefully. When I hear there's a freeway pileup or rail derailment, a boat sinks, a plane goes down – I might be caught wincing because seven federal agencies responsible for transportation safety can audit my files, which I have to preserve for five years. So I hope I'm not on their list of people to investigate. Not because I have anything to hide (I've passed multiple routine audits) but because I would hate to think someone I evaluated was in an accident and it was determined that drugs or alcohol contributed.
To push through the fear that I may eventually have to justify my judgments under those circumstances, I never stop learning, listening, reading, and reviewing. I decided I would never be an expert and continuously be a student. I would never be perfect and I would never be able to predict human behavior. But perhaps I could say that I did my best and what I did was based on the best information I had available. If I couldn't say that, then how could I live with myself after a transportation tragedy?
Another thing I did to push through the fear was to write that SAP Qualification Training. I waited over a decade first, gathering experiences and becoming more familiar with the regulations. I knew I was ready when at the last training I attended I learned more from my fellow experienced SAPs than I did from the instructor. Not because I'm a smartypants and the instructor wasn't, but because something was missing. They had important experiences to contribute, dilemmas to discuss, and extremely valuable practice wisdom.
I learned a long time ago that people get sick of listening to even the most captivating and entertaining instructor: they want to participate. After 13 hours in two days, even I get sick of listening to me. The solution was facilitating learning through participation. This was a "be careful what you wish for" moment because every time I do this training I have to head back to the office and rewrite parts of it. Not because what I presented was wrong, but because by facilitating interaction instead of lecturing, the participants participated and I learned from them. Every time.
This stuff we SAPs do isn't easy. If you qualify as a professional, you can become one after a training and passing a test. If you can't acknowledge fear doing it the first time or your hundred and first time, I suggest you lack awareness of how serious and important it is to do your best. If you can't push through your fear and focus your mind on the task before you, it's a bad career move. You'll lose sleep over it.
Last year I got a phone call. “Evan?” Yes, this is Evan. “Remember me? I'm Frank X. You were my SAP in 2008.” Not sure Frank, what trucking company did you work for? “Joe's Trucking.” Now I do. How are you? “Just got my 3 year chip and great over the road job. Thanks a lot for helping me.” You helped yourself Frank, but I appreciate knowing you're sober and your career is going well.
So do all the people on the interstate you're about to pull back on to with 35 tons behind you, Frank.