Chemicals in the workplace are ubiquitous as they help workers complete their work, The benefits of using chemicals also has some drawbacks as some chemicals are hazardous and cause injury or illness. They need training that teaches them chemical safety at the proper level for their risk exposure.

Handling Hazardous Chemicals

This post offers some simple ways for handling a vexing problem for many companies. Storage and handling of hazardous chemicals.

Hazardous chemicals are chemicals that if spilled on the skin can damage it (acids are an example). Other chemicals may injure a worker who breathes in a chemical vapor. This could be blowback from a spray can – perhaps changing the process so that instead of spraying which releases all sorts of contaminants into the air, dip parts. Chemicals that splash in the eyes can damage eyesight of leave an employee blind. Safety glasses protect staff from this type of injury. Facilities in which eye incidents happen often should have emergency eye wash stations used in conjunction with goggles.

Storage of Hazardous Chemicals

Wes Maertz, CSP, technical safety specialist, Grainger, Lake Forest, IL. remarked recently that

“Chemicals have become a part of our lives, but we often forget that they are harmful if not stored properly. Safety experts estimate that about 1,000 new chemicals come to market every year.”

Adding that to the estimated 1.5 million chemicals used in the US helps people realize the importance of handling and storing chemicals the right way.

Minimizing the risk of a chemical accident or incident that harms employees and even communities surrounding the company starts with reducing the stock of chemicals kept in-house. Storage of the remaining chemicals is more difficult than most people believe. A single storage room is not the solution – you cannot simply place chemicals in a storage by alphabetical order and hope that alone minimizes risk. Like people forming groups at a party, separating and storing chemicals according to their compatibility is a must.

Not sorting them properly and storing incompatible chemicals together in one area often leads to serious consequences. These include:

•Fire

•Formation of toxic gas

•Explosion

How to store instructions are on the products Safety Data Sheet (SDS), label or other reference material on the chemical. OSHA regulation 29 CFR 1910.1200 mandates that every product has an SDS. For some materials, storage behind a wall or in another room is the right way – this information is on the label and the SDS.

Taking measures to protect employees, and properly store chemicals shows good business sense with an exceptional return on investment.

There is a simple test to determine if your business needs an emergency evacuation plan EAP. If your business has fire extinguishers on site, and if anyone needs evacuation when there is a fire or another emergency plan, then under OSHA’s 29 CFR 1910.157 you need an emergency evacuation plan.

Who Needs an Evacuation Plan?

There is one exception to this rule as well, if your business has its own firefighting team where all employees are taught, trained, and has the proper equipment for fighting fires, then no evacuation plan is needed as everyone is fighting the fire.

Nevertheless, most times, immediate evacuation is the safest policy. This is especially true when professional firefighter services are nearby and can be rapidly deployed. Still, there may be times where the employee fire brigade should be deployed. Reasons for this include:

• Giving fellow employees time for escaping
• Prevent danger to others if the fire spreads
• Protect the community from an explosion or another catastrophe

In any event, the employer must have an EAP to safely evacuate those not fighting the fire.

The Fight or Flee Conundrum

The major reason for a small or medium business evacuation is fire, and business owners need a plan for this event. On one hand, a well-trained employee with a portable fire extinguisher. On the other hand, if you decide to have trained employees using small extinguishers fight the fire while others flee, the plan is far more complicated and employee training must be at a higher level – making things more complicated.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, run by the United States Department of Labor offers the following chart to help with decision making.

Prior to fighting any fire with a portable fire extinguisher you must perform a risk assessment that evaluates the fire size, the firefighters evacuation path, and the atmosphere in the vicinity of the fire.

Small contained fires and other fires that are easy to extinguish without putting employees in danger can have an employee put it out. However, business owners must tell employees that when in doubt, get out!

Business owners have a responsibility to evacuate all visitors without delay, as well as any employee not assigned firefighting assignments. Safety is a huge issue, your insurance carrier may provide on-site safety training for your staff. Speak to your insurance advisor today.

Most business owners know how important a well-furnished, well-lit business space. Shops that have not had a face-lift since they opened fifteen years ago look shopworn. A shabby rundown business space does not instill faith in your business. Renovations are as simple as new flooring and furniture to a total facelift including the previous two items and new lighting, new workspace layouts, new display areas and more.

Many stores and office based businesses choose to stay open during renovations to keep cash flow streaming in, however, doing renovations while open presents new temporary hazards to workers and visitors. To prevent accidents design a safety plan for the renovation.

Safety Plan

The safety plan must include, and the business must enforce, that the renovation team follows OSHA and other regulatory body standards. The safety plan needs completion before construction begins along with the choice of the people who check it, the project owner, general contractor or a third-party firm.

Even when following regulatory rules and guidelines most construction work taking place in occupied areas creates debris, dust and odors that affect workers, and customers or clients in a negative and disruptive way. Write into your contract for construction that barriers and other measures will go into place that cuts these noxious odors and dust that can cause illness or aggravate chronic health problems such as asthma or contact dermatitis. The plan needs to recognize that even work done while the business is not open has an effect on the indoor air quality (AIQ).

Making Room

One of the first steps to take is to get rid of clutter and only have things close by that are indispensable. For many businesses, the first step is the hardest. Store rooms are already overcrowded and jamming them full of stuff workers need on a daily basis is a hardship. Stacking things high up on shelves and having cluttered aisles can lead to accidents, such as injuries from falling items or slip and fall accidents occurring from aisles that are not easily maneuvered through.

The good news is that you have the opportunity to fix this temporary storage problem and the “keep it, it might be useful someday” syndrome simultaneously.

You need two things to do these tasks. A storage pod available from many moving companies and a dumpster large enough to haul your waste to the local garbage recycling plant. As you make room for the stuff your employees use daily, take the things out of the storeroom that you seasonally, or records you need to keep for a certain number of years. Anything you haven’t used for a predetermined number of years, say three, automatically gets trashed. Other items (things used at least once in three years) managers decide what goes and what stays.

Depending on the size of your land, many pod companies rent temporary workspace from small two-room office pods to full-size modular temporary business space.

Plan Safety Standards

Safety Plans are usually nothing more than guides, an effective plan needs safety standards written into them or attached to them as part of the plan. Items you include are:

• Posted layouts or plan-o-grams in each section need upgrading including an evacuation route.
• Communicate renovation dates and plans with merchandise vendors reminding them to work safely and neatly.
• Make sure that new fixtures and display are on site and ready for installing in each section per your planogram or reset guide – if possible preinstall them.
• Floor sweeps – every hour during renovation
• Minimize the use of extension cords stretched across the sales floor or office doorways and aisles.
• Close aisles being renovated as well as aisles where merchandise moves in and out of the aisle is taking place
• Provide protective items for use by your employees or reset team.
• Remember customers/clients are at risk for three primary reasons
• Customers/clients include more vulnerable groups of people – children and the elderly.
• Customers/clients expect your place of business is, warning signs help alert them to hazards.
• Customers/clients, unlike employees, have a low safety awareness and do not receive any safety training that employees do get.

Create and follow a comprehensive safety plan and clients, customers and employees can transition to the construction period and thereafter.

Cold, wet weather makes for seasonal safety hazards for employees and customers of many business types. Most people usually assume that folks in the building trades are the primary workers and job site visitors subject to cold exposure injury. Other industries such as frozen food facilities, butchering operations and cold storage facilities have year-round exposure to injuries caused by damp and cold.

Outdoor Cold Climate Injury

When the Polar Express speeds through your area it leaves an indelible detrimental incident to your business in its wake. Workers and clients or customers cannot reach your place of business. When your area finally digs out, be alert to slippery sidewalks and parking lots and take the right precautions.

Cold Related Injuries and Illnesses

But there is more to employee protection than keeping them safe from slips and falls. Continued exposure to coldness contributes to several kinds of Cold Stress. These illnesses include hypothermia, Cold Water Immersion, Trench Foot, Frostbite, and Chilblains.

Hypothermia

Hypothermia comes from prolonged exposure to cold. Long exposure to cold results in an abnormally low body temperature. When hypothermia attacks, the brain is one of the first major organs affected and causes the person to think unclearly and move in a lumbering way. This illness is exceptionally dangerous as the lack of clear thinking allows a person to enter a dangerous situation, not know it is happening and ultimately unable to take precautionary measures. Some people suffer severe injuries or even die as a result of hypothermia.

Symptoms of Hypothermia

Early Symptoms of Hypothermia

• Fatigue
• Shivering
• Confusion and disorientation
• Loss of coordination

Late Symptoms

• Shivering stops
• Dilated pupils
• Slowed breathing and pulse
• Blue Skin
• Loss of consciousness

Hypothermia First Aid

When a worker displays symptoms of hypothermia, follow these steps:

1. Alert the supervisor and call for medical help.
2. Move the victim into a warm room or shelter
3. Take off wet clothing
4. Using an electric blanket warm the body as follows: chest, neck, head, and groin. If no blanket is available use skin-to-skin contact under loose dry layers of clothing, blankets, sheets, or towels.
5. One the body temperature has risen, keep the victim dry and wrapped in blankets.
6. Should the victim not have a pulse, start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)

Chilblains

Surprisingly, chilblains occurs in temperatures ranging from a little above freezing to about 60 degrees F. Chilblains happens when skin is repeatedly exposed to this temperature range. The unrelenting exposure to cold causes the capillary beds (groups of small blood vessels) just beneath the skin to become damaged. Chilblains damage is permanent and with skin exposure to similar conditions occur redness and itching returns especially to the ears, fingers, toes, and cheeks.

Symptoms of Chilblains

• Inflammation
• Itching
• Redness
• Possible blistering
• Possible ulceration in severe cases

Chilblains First Aid

People falling victim to chilblains should take the following steps:

1. Slowly warm the skin
2. Use corticosteroid creams to relieve itching and swelling
3. Keep blisters and ulcers clean and covered
4. Never Scratch

Trench Foot

This disease is the illness the military suffered from prolonged exposure to cold and dampness while wearing constraining boots or shoes in the trenches during WWI. If often occurs in temperatures above freezing all the way to about 60 degrees F. Trench foot can develop quickly with only 13 hours exposure to harsh elements.

Trench Foot Symptoms

In most case, victims complain of:

• Tingling in the feet
• Foot itching
• Burning pain in feet
• Swollen feet
• Blisters and infection can happen in advanced cases that have not had treatment.

Prevention and Treatment

Keeping feet warm and try is the best prevention measure against trench foot. Most cases respond well to moving the victim to a warm place, soak the victims feet in tepid water and then wrap the feet in dry toweling.

Frost Bite

When temperatures drop to freezing (32 degrees F) human bodies begin to constrict blood vessels nearest the skin and skin begins constricting. In extreme cold, or if the body exposure to mild to moderate cold continues for too long, the protective constriction of skin and closing of blood vessels reduces blood flow to some body parts to levels that are dangerously low. The result is freezing and the eventual death of these blood vessels. There are four degrees of frostbite and each has its own pain level.

Frostbite Treatment

Whether a person has first degree frostbite or fourth degree, the treatment is the same. Follow these treatment steps:

1. Move the victim to a warm place
2. If the feet are frostbitten do not allow the injured person to walk as frostbitten toes and/or feet suffer more damage.
3. Use warm – not hot water for immersion of the affected area.
4. Avoid massaging or rubbing the affected area as added damage is likely.
5. Use only the water to warm the skin. Affected areas are numb and using any electrical device to warm the skin can lead to further burns.

Employers, did you know that 73.9 percent of all workplace injuries and fatalities relate to only five preventable reasons? According to a 2010 survey, these reasons, and they’re part of the total of the cost is:

Overexertion
These injuries occur from lifting too much, pushing, holding, pulling, holding, and holding. Of the total paid for workman’s compensation (WC) claims, 26.8 percent of the costs, totaling $13.61 billion were the cost for these types of incidents.

The best way to protect your employees from overexertion injuries. Assign more than one person or give proper tools for these kinds of tasks. The initial costs of this equipment have a great ROI through lowering workers’ compensation premiums. In some instances, these solutions cannot be used; when that is the case, make sure your employees have the right training on the best techniques to do these tasks.

Fall on Same Level

This is the second most frequent cause of injury to employees in offices, on construction sites, in factories and on oil rigs. In other words, they are ubiquitous in every industry imaginable. These “trip and fall” accidents account for 16.9 percent of costs paid out by WC and equals $8.61 billion.

Most of these accidents are entirely preventable. Make sure that the exterior of your property, including parking lots have no uneven concrete, potholes, or cracks. For your business interior, start a policy of good housekeeping. Files and desk drawers are always shut when not in use, extension cords do not cause tripping hazards by crossing aisles or doorways, keep carpets in good repair, immediately clean up spills and liquids, and use anti-skid flooring where possible. When hard surface floors are wet from cleaning or liquid spills, post warning signs until the removal of the hazard .

Bodily Reaction

These are accidents from injuries that stem from bending, reaching, standing, climbing, slips and trips without falling, and sitting. They make up 11.4 percent of workers’ compensation claims at an annual cost of $5.78 billion.

The best way to cut bodily reaction injuries is by getting rid of environmental factors that cause them. For instance, replace desk chairs with ergonomically correct ones, make sure work areas are kept neat and tools that are not in use are properly stored. Employers can encourage healthy lifestyles by offering free or reduced gym memberships. Train employees to avoid situations with prolonged time with unnatural posture.

Fall to Lower Level

This, the number four reason for WC claims and usually involves workers at construction sites. These accidents make up 10 percent of all claims and cost $5.12 billion.

Prevention of these accidents not only prevent injuries, but also deaths. Keep ladders and scaffolding in good working order. When they are not, do not allow their use until repaired. Frequent inspections and regularly scheduled maintenance are key to accident prevention. Supply workers with fall protection equipment when possible.

Struck by Objects

This group of injuries is responsible for 8 percent of total worker’s comp claims. The amount attributable to these incidents are $4.10 billion.

While the plurality of these accidents is also construction site injuries, there are some easy ways to mitigate their numbers. In offices and warehouse do not stack items so that are prone to falling. On construction sites, personal protection equipment such as hard hats, safety glasses or goggles and face shields help cut injuries by falling objects. Train workers to never work beneath heavy construction equipment while it is working such as hoists or cranes. Instruct employees to always wear their seatbelt while driving on company business.

Part of your worker’s compensation premium comes from your company’s experience in managing these and other risks. Each year, as part of your annual insurance checkup with your business insurance advisor, look over your WC rating and look for claims for similar accidents. Take corrective action, tell your carrier of those actions and have your advisor get WC quotes in states that do not make you buy into a state-run plan.

Like any other workplace, proper precautions and ongoing safety inspections in offices are an excellent way to protect employees and visitors. Eliminating or mitigating most office safety hazards is easy by the correct design for jobs and workplaces and understanding the differences among people and tasks. Make sure that there is adequate temperature control, humidity control and exhaust systems to keep a comfortable environment.

The Need for an Office Safety Plan
Companies with several worker’s filing compensation claim or claims from visitors for accidents are likely facing increases in their monthly premiums for these insurances. When management and staff work together the workplace is safer for workers and visitors. Safety plans include items such as:

Who is Responsible? Everyone is!
Management offers training for all employees in:

• Emergency procedures
• Electrical Safety
• Office ergonomics
• Insure all office equipment is in good and safe working condition
• Make sure that proper storage for office supplies has easy access and adequate space

Office Staff Responsibilities

• Tell management about any safety problems at once.
• Report equipment that needs repair – never attempt the repair on your own.
• Keep a well maintained office environment

Be On the Lookout (BOLO)
Electrical Safety
Electrical safety is a major issue in office space. Improperly maintained or used electrical equipment is often a fire hazard or tripping hazard. Common issues in offices include:

• Use of extension cords that are a tripping hazard
• No part of an extension cord has frays, cuts, kinks or knots
• Make sure cords are not running through doorways so that closing doors frays the wires

Noise Hazards
Noise hazards are more common than most people believe. It is more than an annoyance. High noise levels can lead to permanent loss of hearing and deafness. To avoid disturbing levels of noise:

Buy the quietest equipment possible.
Maintain it so that it remains quiet
Place loud equipment as far from conversation areas as possible.
Isolate noise sources. Use barriers, buffers or acoustically treated material.

Housekeeping
Poorly performed housekeeping is often the cause of fires, employee injuries, and injuries to guests. Aisles within the office cannot have obstructions. When not in use all drawers are kept closes. Damaged furniture, especially chairs and drawers that cannot close need fast attention.

Management encourages employees to report all unsafe conditions and when a report comes, takes prompt action to fix the problem.

Most states demand that businesses, regardless of size, take every reasonable action to keep their premises safe for employees and visitors. The definition of visitors is fairly loose. Basically, it is anyone not employed by the business and covered by its workmen’s compensation insurance policy.

This means that clients, customers, delivery persons, repair persons, outside maintenance contractors and anyone who comes to the business premises needs protection from foreseeable dangers.

There are different types of people who come into a business and each has a different level of required care for its class of visitors.

Invitee

This is a person whose invitation is explicit (by appointment, for example) or implicit (a customer looks at the goods and services for sale in a shop). A business owner’s duty to an invitee is to exercise ordinary care and make the property generally safe without any dangerous conditions.

Licensee

A licensee in not an invitee or trespasser. An example of a licensee is a party who enters the premises for their own convenience or gratification. Think of a person ducking into your entryway to avoid the rain. The duty of care is far less than for an invitee, and the business is only liable to a licensee for willful and malicious harm.

Trespasser

This group of people enter the premises lacking an implicit or explicit invitation. They come on the business property for their own enjoyment or benefit. The only duty of a business owner is a negative one – the business cannot build any mantraps the willfully and maliciously causes a trespasser harm. Many states have an exception to this limited responsibility; if the business anticipates, suspects or knows of the presence of a trespasser it must exercise ordinary care and avoid inflicting injury on a trespasser through any kind of active negligence.

Common Workplace Visitor’s Injuries

Slip and Fall Accidents

These are the largest cause of visitor injuries. Injuries happen when a visitor trips, slips or falls and suffer injuries. These accidents often stem from things such as uneven floorboards, electrical extension cords crossing aisles or doorways, spills or liquids on the floor, and poorly installed carpet or carpeting that has tears or rips.

Negligent Security

It is normal that businesses have a duty to their invitees to make sure they are safe from foreseeable. A business is liable for the criminal acts of a non-employee when the business fails to keep the premises safe from criminal activity. Usually claims of negligent security stem from places such as:

• Hotels
• Motels
• Parking garages
• Apartment complexes

Businesses in high-crime areas (a parking garage in such an area needs adequate lighting, video cameras and warning signs that video surveillance is ongoing, and other security measure as needed.

Attractive Nuisance

This is a legal doctrine that applied mostly to children, even if they are trespassers. Hotels with outdoor pools need adequate fencing, a pool cover, locks and lighting, as the pool is attractive for kids to try to use after trespassing.

Defective Property Conditions

Businesses are often liable for dangerous or defective conditions. These include faulty elevators, faulty escalators, crumbling stairways and more.

Speak with your business insurance advisor about these risks and how to protect yourself, your business and employees from legal liability for them.

You see them all the time, those ugly floor signs warning folks about wet floors from floor washing or cleaning up spills. So do you need those wet signs – yes you do! A business has a responsibility to make sure that their environment is safe for both employees and visitors. But, businesses have many other risks that need their attention as well.

There are three types of injuries that account for more than ninety percent of all injuries in a places of business. Most of them are preventable and failure to take common sense steps to protect everyone on your business premises leads to insurance claims and lawsuits. The three most common types of business place injuries relate to:

• Slip and Fall Accidents
• Negligent Security
• Attractive Nuisance

Slip and Fall Accidents

Most businesses report that their majority of business place injuries are slip and fall accidents. This is why it is important that wet floors have caution signs warning people that floors are wet. There is no need that the signs be ugly though.

Often, slip and fall accidents occur outside the business’s facility. Cracks and broken concrete, uneven pavement, parking lot potholes all need prompt repair. Until repairs can happen, cones or other means of warning people help people avoid being injured by the hazard.

Negligent Security

Every business has to take ordinary precautions to protect visitors on their premises from criminal attack. When a visitor on premises is subject to a third-party theft, or physical harm from criminal activity. Types of businesses that are normally involved in claims about negligent security includes:

• Arenas and Stadiums
• Motels
• Parking Lots
• Hotels
• Apartment buildings

Businesses in high-crime areas are especially vulnerable to legal liability for negligent security. All businesses must take proper commonsense security measures for people on their premises. These include:

• Security lights
• Video cameras
• Warning signs
• Security guards for businesses in high-crime areas
• Other measures as needed, such as emergency call and sirens in parking lots.

Attractive Nuisance

This is a legal doctrine that protects children, even if they trespass, who suffer injuries due to an attractive nuisance.

The roots of the attractive nuisance doctrine dates to the age of railroads. A six year-old boy suffered a crushed foot while climbing on a railroad turntable in 1873. The United States Supreme Court found that the railroad, the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad was liable for the boy’s injury (Henry Stout). The Supreme Court found for Stout ruling that the temptation to children was an implicit invitation to come on the premises. Once the child status’ changed from trespasser to invitee, the railroad had to take actions to prevent the child from getting to the turntable.

• The top-ten nuisances are:
• Construction sites
• Swimming Pools
• High-voltage power lines
• Water hazards caused by rain or abandoned quarries
• Refrigerators and freezers
• Abandoned cars and unlocked parked cars
• Working farms
• Excavation trenches, sewer drains, wells, drainage ditches, quarries, holding tanks and open pits.
• Trampolines, jungle gyms, Play sets, tree houses, and skateboard ramps
• Railroads

Some of the above reasons have mixed results when brought to court, other appear as settled law.

However, the best way to avoid legal liability for an attractive nuisance is to take the correct measures to prevent a child to get access to the hazard.

Schedule an appointment with your business insurance advisor to make sure you have the correct liability insurance, need an umbrella policy, and if he or she can give you a liability check list for you to do a self-audit for your business.

It’s a great debate among workers’ compensation carriers and underwriters. What is the effect of the Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA)on workers’ compensation.

No agreement so far as to whether it will raise costs or reduce them. One school of thought has employees going through their AHCA benefits for on the job injuries. The opposing view suggests better service through the workers’ compensation benefit arrangements and moving medical bills to workers’ compensation.

Some predictions:

1. The ACHA will increase awareness among individuals about health care in general and the result will be greater usage of health care facilities.

2. Raising demand will tie up current health care assets and create new ones to meet demand.

3. Companies will need to arrange access to emergency health care needs to assure worker benefits are delivered.

4. Other government health care concerns will be incorporated into business response plans. Americans with Disabilities Act requirements for both employees and visitors will be fully integrated and combined to the highest level of compliance. The Family Medical Leave Act will be somehow combined into workers’ compensation plans to allow the second income time to care for the first.

Whichever direction this new law pushes the workers compensation benefits, or perhaps ultimately absorbs the medical benefits portion of the coverage, businesses must be prepared to provide medical attention for their injured people.

Even the nature of illness and disease is under review. Very recently, obesity became a disease. Twenty percent excess body weight is now a disease which employers must consider in an overall health benefit decision.

Contingency planning should include first response medical attention, alternative transportation, available providers, and rehabilitation services.

A policy of light duty work requires planning before any claim.

Since the workers’ compensation and AHCA begin to merge medical payments arrangements and responsibilities, business must view these traditionally separate benefits as one

The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act does not require employers to maintain workers’ compensation coverage, but allows workers to sue in its absence. Employers are required to insure vehicles in which workers ride to a federally mandated standard.

Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) concerns railroad workers who work on interstate railroads or intrastate rails which connect ti interstate systems. The interstate nature of the rail system required a non-state application of workers’ compensation laws.

FELA allows workers to sue their employers for negligence without allowing the employer the traditional common law defenses like assumed risk or contributory negligence. A comparative negligence standard is used.

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, better known as the Jones Act, essentially extends FELA benefits and standards to maritime employees. The same recoveries and rights are available to employees and their survivors.

Death on the High Seas Act adds remedy for the survivor family members when an employee dies more than three miles off shore from any state. Seaworthiness of the vessel, negligence, wrongful acts or other torts generally cause this act to be enforced. Remedies are similar to the Jones Act and FELA.

Remedies for injured employees include Maintenance and Cure. Essentially, since the vessel at sea provides food and shelter for the employee, an injured employee is entitled to food, lodging and medical care until the maximum medical cure has been achieved. This standard of care is no fault in nature. The employee does not need to sue to perfect this remedy.

Most companies will not be effected by these special situations; however, consider the globalization trend and worldwide commerce of very small firms. Be aware of maritime compensation or railroad shipping if you plan on using these conveyances, or invest in them. Other industries that cross state or national lines may be subject to specialty remedies in the future.