So the first workplace incident I’ve even
been involved went down recently
The girl who helped me extract the glass
from my finger, for a reason I just don’t get, passed by my boss and briefly
mentioned it as a workplace incident. It was not, as it happened because I
dropped by phone one day, and got the sharp of glass when I was at home in my
bed, but still, that happened.
The thing about my workplace is that they
are kind of paranoid about safety and keeping people and equipment from harm.
Both of which can result in a lot of money being lost, and a lot of people
being unhappy, and who wants either of those? So I was at work, the glass in my
finger about as present in my memory as it was still in my finger, so I had no
idea why I was being called into my bosses office one morning.
Maybe I was getting a promotion? A raise?
An added benefits package? A complimentary top of the line recording kit for me
to take home? Well no, and I didn’t seriously think it was any of those. In
fact I was rather confused, I never missed deadlines, I have always worked
overtime, I’ve never stolen or broken anything.
But I was called into the office, and the
conversation began with “How are you feeling?”
My boss isn’t an unfriendly person, but
he’s also not exactly a touchy-feely type. He treats us a bit like Malcolm
Tucker would treat his closest and most dear family, with less swearing.
“I’m fine, I was addicted to ‘Teen Titans’
recently, but I’m all better now.”
“That’s great. So I recently got a report
that you had a glass splinter in you?”
“What?” I had totally forgotten about it.
What followed was a long conversation about
the procedure for broken equipment or safety hazards in the workplace, and how
I always have to report it to him as soon as possible so it can be taken care
of. Now, I normally interrupt people all the time, to the extent that friends
of mine have punched me out of frustration, but I never interrupt my boss. So
when he finally stopped talking, it was just silence for a while.
He expected me to report what was broken,
and what I should have done to report it. But the thing is, that isn’t what
happened. I dropped my phone outside of work, got the glass in my finger out of
work, didn’t break anything in work, in fact the only thing at work that did
happen was the glass got removed, which, when you think about it, is a good
thing.
So the silence dragged on for a while. Probably
for about 40 seconds which, for silence, is a really bloody long time. Finally
I said
“I actually got the glass in my finger at
home, there’s nothing broken here, I’m pretty sure…”
Then even more silence occurred. My boss
had filled out workplace incident paperwork, gotten out the numbers of glass
repairmen and equipment suppliers to replace whatever was broken, and probably been
quite stressed that more people would get injured and start making a fuss about
it. But all of that stress and frantic writing came to naught.
He wasn’t happy, in fact he was quite
frustrated, mostly at himself, but also at me for not explaining myself
properly, and also at the girl for not explaining it properly. He didn’t shout
or anything, but I could tell that the anger ran deep. So once again, without
saying anything, I got up and left the office. It was like the most awkward
scene our of a movie, except it didn’t cut away, or resolve itself with some
kind of punch line.
So nothing especially bad happened, but
that was my first workplace incident. Perhaps the lesson is something like
‘Make sure to explain things properly,’ cause otherwise people won’t quite get
you.
Till next week
Andrew Lyons.
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