$afety $aves – by Tim McEntire

The High Price of "Just Another Day": Breaking the Cycle of Complacency

It’s 5:30 AM and you’re starting your day, fully caffeinated but still somehow half awake.  It’s been a tough season but break up is right around the corner. The air is sharp enough to cut, the frost is thick on the boom of the feller-buncher, and the crew is moving with the practiced rhythm of men who have done this a thousand times. In our line of work, that "thousand times" is both our greatest asset and our most lethal enemy. We call it experience, but if we aren’t careful, it quickly curdles into something far more dangerous: complacency.

Complacency is the invisible hazard. You can’t flag it with neon ribbon, and you won’t see it on a topo map. It is the autopilot that kicks in when a task becomes so familiar that our brains stop looking for what could go wrong and start assuming everything will go right. In the woods of Montana, where the terrain is steep and the weather is unforgiving, that split-second lapse is often the difference between a close call and a

very bad day.

There is a strange irony in logging safety: the greenhorn is often safer than the twenty-year veteran in certain routine tasks. Why? Because the greenhorn is terrified. He respects the raw power of the machinery and the unpredictable weight of a hung-up larch. He is hyper-aware because everything is new.

The veteran, however, has developed environmental desensitization.  After years of standing near active skyline corridors or working on 40-degree slopes, the brain stops sending "danger" signals. We begin to treat a lethal environment like a standard office cubicle. This is the “Expertise Paradox”: the more skilled you become, the more effort it takes to remain mindful of the risks.

As we move further into 2026, the way we log in Montana continues to evolve. We are more mechanized than ever. While purpose-built cabs and leveling systems have removed us from some of the "blood on the ground" risks of manual felling, they have introduced a new breed of complacency: the “Isolated Operator Fade”.

When you are sitting in a climate-controlled cab with a touchscreen interface, it is easy to feel invincible. You’re physically removed from the noise, the dust, and the immediate feel of the ground. Complacency here looks like checking a phone while the processor is running or assuming everyone is in the clear.

We all know the pressure of the spring break up rush. As the ground starts to thaw in early spring, the push to get those last loads to the mill reaches a fever pitch. This is the breeding ground for the most common symptom of complacency: shortcut culture.

• PPE Neglect: "I’m just jumping out to clear a limb; I don't need the hardhat."

• Maintenance Bypassing: Skipping the pre-shift walk-around because "the machine ran fine yesterday".

• Communication Silence: Failing to call out a "near-miss" on the radio because you don't want to slow down the turn.

  
  

How do you know if complacency has moved into your camp? Look for these "weak signals":

1. The "Good Enough" Standard: When "it'll hold" replaces "it's secured."

2. Mental Absence: You finish a task and realize you don’t actually remember doing it.

3. Low Engagement: Safety meetings that have turned into pencil-whipping sessions where no one actually talks about the day's specific hazards or worse, safety is not talked about at all.

4. The "Invincibility" Talk: Comments like "I've done this for thirty years and never had a scratch".

   
   

To fight a silent enemy, we need loud, intentional actions. Here are three ways to reset the "safety clock" on your job site:

1.       The "Brother’s Keeper" Audit Safety isn’t just an individual responsibility; it’s a crew pact. We need to move away from the idea that calling out a buddy for a safety lapse is "snitching." In 2026, being a professional means having the backbone to tell your best friend to put his saw chaps on. Encourage a culture where "near-miss" reporting is celebrated as a lesson learned rather than a mark against the crew.

2. The 20-20-20 Rule for Operators For those in the cabs of bunchers, loaders, or skidders: every 20 minutes, take 20 seconds to look 20 feet (and beyond) around your machine. Break the "tunnel vision" of the task. Check your surroundings for widowmakers, ground shifts, or ground-crew movement that you might have tuned out.

3. Predictive Maintenance, Not Reactive Repair Complacency often hits hardest during repairs. We get frustrated by a breakdown and rush the fix. Ensure Lockout/Tagout isn’t just a policy in a binder but a physical reality every time a wrench touches a machine. Grounding moving elements and setting the parking brake should be as automatic as breathing.

Logging is more than a job; it’s a legacy in this state. But that legacy is built on the men and women who come home at the end of the shift. As we look at the remainder of 2026, let’s challenge ourselves to stop treating safety as a "requirement" and start treating it as a skill.

Complacency is a choice we make every time we decide a routine is too simple to be dangerous. The woods don't care how many years you have under your belt. The tree doesn't care that you have a mortgage or a family waiting at home. It only reacts to physics and gravity.

Next time you find yourself thinking, "I've done this a thousand times," let that be your red flag. Stop. Take a breath. Look around. Because the thousand-and-first time is exactly when the woods will test if you’re still paying attention.

Stay sharp, stay vocal, and let’s get everyone back to the landing safely!

And remember $aftey $aves!