In our daily work as safety professionals, we are guided by a lot of codes, standards, regulations, and rules that are intended to establish a baseline, albeit a minimum level of risk control. These codes, standards, regulations, and rules can be confusing to many who tried to read or interpret what the agency/group intends with their requirements. In fact, there are two (2) itty bitty words used in these codes, standards, regulations, and rules that can have a huge impact on the application of a requirement. These two words:
- and
- or
So often I have discussions with friends and clients about a specific OSHA or Fire Code requirements and we differ in our views because of one of these words is being read differently than it is used. Most often we just interchange the words and that can result in wildly confusing requirements. Now I am not trying to play on words like politicians do, but these two little words make all the difference in how a code, standard, regulation, or rule reads. For example: