True about the working backwards. I have been hands on for quite a while.

It seems though that there is a field where you kind of write safety concepts/systems or check them against regs. Like to get operators certified (and audit the certs). It sounds even more detached from ops, but I figured certifications sounds like well paying jobs - and honestly, if it’s gonna be friggin office work (to get away from the shifts, I can’t do it for much longer) then I‘d rather be compensated well. The certification is at the top of the value chain because without it the business won’t even start making money. So I guess that’s where the moolah accumulates, right.

Plus, in line with what you wrote, certs are white collar business; I‘d rather punk and be punked with management than the crews - i do report incidents in my current job and it’s my experience that the guys on the ground self-clean their teams from dangerous guys. Most of what I report is just good guys taking acceptable shortcuts gone wrong, at a ratio that could have happened either way. Had it worked, everybody would have taken his fast hard work for granted again. I never preached to the guy in oil stained hi-vis. Occasions where someone clearly didn’t know what he was doing are ultra rare at that level, at least where I work, they have superb training before anyone hits the yard.