Friday, May 19, 2006

Worker's Comp Only Covers So Much

In each lunch room at our company is a Cal/OSHA list of injuries for the year 2005. On the list you have seperate columns for:

A) The department name.
B) The date of the injury.
C) The type of injury.
D) The body part that was injured.
E) The days lost as a result of the injury.

The injuries for the most part are pretty mundane stuff when it comes to physical labor. Things like carpal tunnel syndrome, elbow strain, and "psyche" stress which can be spelled with an "e" according to the Merriam-Webster Online. http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/psyche
Though I can't recall having seen it spelled as such.

Some of the days lost do not seem proportional to the particular injury. I don't know the particulars of each on the list, but someone received over one-hundred days for a knee strain. That doesn't sound entirely excessive. But check this out, someone got only four days for a crushed finger and another had zero days off for heart angina. No Beavis and Butthead, I said an-gi-na.

That's like, stop grabbing your chest and turning red! Suck it up you wuss and get back to work! Will someone get defibrulator or prop this slacker up? I don't want to lose my bonus!

I scanned the list and conspicuously absent were listings for loss of sanity, and lost of soul. Which happen more often then they should at my company. I guess OSHA doesn't recognize these as valid workplace injuries or distress. Or Worker's Comp won't cover them.

5 Comments:

Blogger Katie Schwartz said...

oh my god, the shame! heart angina gets you bupkas. what a shondj. any specific details about the type of knee strain? perhaps it's the kind you get from kneeling in front of a superior for too many hours, hence the 100 days of vacay.

Fri May 19, 11:17:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

"perhaps it's the kind you get from kneeling in front of a superior for too many hours, hence the 100 days of vacay."

Heh-heh-heh...

Sat May 20, 07:58:00 PM PDT  
Blogger AngelConradie said...

the company i used to work for simply labelled the loss of a soul as a knee strain! mwaaaahahahahaha...

Mon May 22, 12:48:00 PM PDT  
Blogger BeckEye said...

Yeah, soul suckage deserves some compensation.

Wed May 24, 04:53:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

Angel,

((shudder)) Like Yogi Berra once said, "it's like deja vu all over again."

Becka,

Yeah, they compensate us with even more soul suckage.

Wed May 24, 08:19:00 PM PDT  

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