Soccer, lipstick and conformity... a tale of safe communities

I recently attended my first Toronto Football Club (TFC) game. I am a big sports fan so it was great to go to the BMO stadium and cheer with all the wild fans.  And when I say wild I mean crazy wild.  I drove into the city around noon (the game didn’t begin until 3:30), and by that time it seemed that everywhere was a sea of people dressed in the red jerseys of the TFC.

Before the game, a few friends and I out went out to eat and I felt like I had entered a red twilight zone. Unfortunately, I hadn't know that if you don't want a black eye by the end of the game, you better be dressed in red.

Well, this news sent me into a bit of a panic - especially since I was wearing a blue shirt, the colour of the opposing team!

Gotta get a shirt

I quickly starting hunting around for a store that would sell any TFC apparel in downtown Toronto; after hitting more than five sports stores, I was no closer to being dressed in something more appropriate.

I was beginning to sweat. I thought about painting my face red with the lipstick in my purse, but realized there wasn't enough left to cover my face!

As I walked into the stadium, I could feel everyone staring at me – and I swear I heard somebody making derogatory comments about my shirt. (I haven’t been that embarrassed since my mom bought me a shirt from BiWay in grade 6!)

The power of conformity

Out of sheer desperation, I did the unthinkable – I bought a overpriced T-shirt from the stadium store. They only had men’s sizes left and I couldn’t even get a red shirt (it was black with a red logo on it)... I paid more than $30 and I was never so proud to wear a way oversized t-shirt!

On my home after the game, I got to thinking about the power of conformity. Elementary and high school students aren't the only ones faced with peer pressure – the natural desire to want to fit continues all our life.

And it made me think about what it would look like if - across every industry, in every size of company - good health and safety programs were like wearing red-t- shirts to a TFC game...

If champion companies would not only invest in health and safety for their own companies, but also put pressure on all on their suppliers who, in turn, would pressure all their partner.

As we like to say here at MySafeWork, health and safety would become the “new green."

OK, we're mixing our colour metaphors, but you get the drift:

Not all peer pressure is negative.