The Somebody Else’s Problem field (SEP field) is a fictional technology from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “5-part trilogy” by Douglas Adams. It is a cheaper and more practical alternative to an invisibility field.
Simply put, an SEP field is an energy field similar to an invisibility field. When somebody, or something, is surrounded by a SEP field, the human brain perceives it as “somebody else’s problem”, and therefore will be incapable of paying attention to the object (or even seeing it, or recognizing its existence) unless it is being specifically looked for.
In the book, the unfortunate Arthur Dent is pulled through an eddy in the space-time continuum by Ford Prefect into Lord’s Cricket Ground a day before the Vogons are to destroy the Earth.
A UFO (a spaceship powered by the Bistromathic probability drive owned by the character Slartibartfast) lands in the middle of the cricket ground during an England vs Australia test match, and the assembled crowd completely ignores it.
The SEP field requires much less energy than a normal invisibility field (a single torch battery can run it for over a hundred years) due to the natural propensity of humans to see things as Somebody Else’s Problem.
Is this not like hazards in the workplace? Somebody Else’s Problem!