Written by Robert D. Sollars
Want to unsubscribe? Sorry to see you go but…Send a blank e-mail with unsubscribe in the subject line to robert@sollarsviolencePrevention.com
The nursery rhyme I used to start these last two posts is applicable in the sense that words can, will, & do hurt individuals. Maybe not physically, but where it really counts the most…mentally & emotionally, and the more fragile the mental state… Words can be used to be hurtful, threatening, or imply violence towards them.
But words can certainly hurt someone with the intent, words, intensity, and how venomous they are spouted towards that person, just ask a number of women I’ve been associated with in my extended stay on this marble.
Workplace, school, domestic violence WPV/SV/DV can take many, many forms with verbal assaults, even if they are good-natured teasing, those words hurt people. Words, whether they be English or not can hurt. A person can always use words from television or movies that are made up to perplex or confound someone…hurtful they may be but few people even know what p’TaK means and where it comes from or a varool for that matter.
WPV/SV/DV is usually thought of, at least in the media, law enforcement, and most people, when someone walks in and starts shooting at anything and everything that moves. But that simply isn’t the truth, and about as far from the truth as anything can be.
When someone uses a weapon, which can be innumerable in the extreme, to physically harm someone to harm another. Like what kind of weapons can hurt for a lifetime besides firearms, you ask?
• Ceramic coffee cups.
• Hot liquids & chemicals, such as hot coffee or other such liquid.
• Metal rods/poles/scrap metal.
• Maintenance tools, what do you think of pipe wrenches or hammers?
• Pens &pencils (if sharpened…I have a story about that!
• Any office equipment, that can be picked up and hurled at another.
• Vehicles, when used to hit and kill a person.
• Human or animal waste including urinating in the break room coffee pot (Wire Rope Corporation of America 1988).
• Cigarette lighters, 3rd degree burns if left long enough…and add in putting out cigarettes on a person’s skin.
• Books, notebooks, paper bundles…if they hit just right…
• Landscaping equipment. Ever been hit by a rake, hoe, or other such items?
Need I go on with the number of weapons around you?
The answer to can we prevent any incidents of violence is simple. Yes & no. It just depends on which facet of violence we encounter in the course of the day. But also keep in mind that absolutely nothing can ever guarantee violence or not will erupt. Some people will defy the attempt to quantify their behavior and actions into a comfortable zone of being inside the box and go off on you or someone else.
To finish up these posts, it is absolutely imperative that you have a plan to prevent violence and a plan on handling anything that pops up as untraditional violence, including the long-running specter of DV, which can be terrifying and tragic in the extreme, I.e., verbal assaults, coffee cups, or anything else that could potentially harm another either at the facility, while they are coming to or leaving it, or even while they’re at home – especially if they are working at home for their job.
It happens to Anyone…Any Time… Anywhere… For any Reason
I May Be Blind, but My Vision Is Crystal Clear
Permission to share? Of course, with full attribution.
Copyright 2021 Robert D. Sollars
