Random thing you loathe right now.

A friend of mine died Monday night. He has a wife and kids. He tripped at work and hit his head on the corner of something. He died in his sleep later that night. He refused medical treatment; but this is where I start to get angry. How can the company NOT have a policy about victims of head trauma being required to see a doctor. How can a person who has just experienced head trauma be allowed to advocate for themselves.

I get it that it’s tricky for an onlooker to be able to discern between a boo-boo on the head, and serious head trauma. I can’t stop thinking that if they made him go to the hospital he might have survived. I also can’t help thinking that because he’s black his injuries were taken less seriously than would if he was white. I wish my friend was alive and safely at home with his family.

So sorry to hear that Rawk.

I'm so sorry Rawk, thats awful.

Hey Rawk. I asked my company's health and safety officer about this. Read the first paragraph of your post verbatim. We are a manufacturer so this very same thing isn't out of the realm of possibility.

First thing is she took it very seriously and is looking into the matter later and we have one of our first aid attendants going for re-certification soon so she'll ask that to them as well. Another aspect is we are in Canada so we our health and safety is determined by a separate authority and is pretty tight. She might revisit our head trauma policy. If an employee refuses to go to the hospital (which is common right now) we don't have a firm policy in handling that. Depending on the seriousness of the symptoms and your friend refusing to go to the hospital, we would have either had them stay in the first aid room under observation or return to work under modified light duties.

Currently, because your friend refused to go to the hospital, she believes that the company is no longer liable. The caveat is that the incident report has to be properly logged. The first aid person is not a medical practitioner, they make recommendations, based on their 10 day training period, but can't force a person.

Wow Rawk, that's terrible.

But I don't know how an employer could compel someone to go to the hospital, though. At most, they can say, "look, it's vitally important that you go to the hospital, our policy is that every head injury gets treated as potentially life-threatening", but short of them being literally incapacitated, like unconscious, forcing them to accept medical treatment against their will is enormously unethical, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with examples of that being horribly applied.

Damn Rawk, that's horrible. My most sincere condolences to you and everyone else who will miss your friend.

No incident report. Supervisors here are reprimanded for ANY employee injury, which sets up a subtle but very real environment where not reporting injuries is encouraged. And that’s exactly what happened. I’ll refer to my friend as D. When the supervisor asked D if he needed to go to the doctor, and D declined, the supervisor was probably relieved that he wouldn’t have to do an injury report, thus avoiding all of the negative and inconvenient consequences that comes with that; get torn a new one by some higher-up, lose productivity due to accompanying D to the doctor, the time suck and hassle of filling out the report, etc.

I don’t know who the supervisor was, but it’s most likely a young 20 something dude. I really feel for the supervisor, because unless he’s a sociopath he’ll have D’s death on his conscience for the rest of his life. I only hope that the supervisor can turn this situation into lesson about how much more important human life is than productivity numbers. If he can’t turn this into a profound lesson, I’m worried that it will ruin his life. I can easily see this turning into addiction or suicide or something equally as tragic.

Earlier this year, I suffered a concussion at work. The asshole supervisor who’s job it was to deal with me asked me if I needed to go to the doctor. I’ll call him M.

M: so do you need to go to the doctor or what?
Me: I just hit my head harder that I’ve ever hit it in my life.
M: so does that mean you want to go to the clinic.
Me: I honestly don’t know. What do you think I should do?
M: I can’t tell you to go to the doctor if you don’t want to.

At this point I was leaning towards NOT going to the doctor because of the potential inconvenience that it would cause for the both us. Then...

Me: I just told you that I have potential head trauma. Do you really think that I’m capable of accurately answering that question?
M: look. It’s up to you to decide. If you want to go to the doctor I’ll take you to the doctor.
-I think about this for several seconds.
Me: ok. Yes. I want to go to the doctor.
M: are you sure you need to go to the doctor?

Oh Rawk... *hugs*

Where I am, the company would be shut down for a significant period of time for that, Rawk. An Incident Report must be filed for everything, we have a dedicated health & safety officer*, and we have two first aid attendants** at all times. We only have about 30 employees total. Our governing body is called WorkSafeBC and they have full authority to shut down a company for unsafe practices.

From your follow-up post, that sounds like an absolute sh*tty situation.

*she is also a shop floor employee and her work is split between 40% health & safety and 60% shop floor
**both first aid attendants are shop floor employees

Vector wrote:

Where I am, the company would be shut down for a significant period of time for that, Rawk. An Incident Report must be filed for everything, we have a dedicated health & safety officer*, and we have two first aid attendants** at all times. We only have about 30 employees total. Our governing body is called WorkSafeBC and they have full authority to shut down a company for unsafe practices.

From your follow-up post, that sounds like an absolute sh*tty situation.

*she is also a shop floor employee and her work is split between 40% health & safety and 60% shop floor
**both first aid attendants are shop floor employees

Canada is parsecs ahead of the US when it comes to health care. I’m glad that our neighbors to the north are doing it right. Also leaps and bounds ahead of us when it comes to worker safety it seems as well. I’ve been told that OSHA has been legally neutered by the Trump administration. I haven’t fact checked that yet.

Despite that my workplace is generally an injury prone environment, and that we have at least 500 people on property during most work shifts our nurse is only sporadically available in person. We actually share that one nurse with another facility that has at least as many employees most of the time. And both facilities run a 24 hour operation. I’m guessing that when D fell and hit his head, the nurse was not on property. I’m on pretty good terms with the nurse, so I’ll try to talk with her when I can catch her on the property.

4am. Some asshat sitting in the parking lot outside below window play music through the car speakers loudly. Wakes me up and pulls me out of REM sleep. Then takes forever to fall back asleep. Wasn't even good music either. Maybe moving isn't so bad after all.

Workplace squabbles.

Unfair distribution of work. With no difference in earnings.

Folks who leave their problems at the door and pitch in as best they can, verses those who broadcast every struggle and require self serving priorities.

If you cannot do the job. Get out. Or, the company needs to implement a pay scale per duties undertaken, and stagger start times, or adjust hours. Or, move those who cannot or will not from the more demanding shift.

Watching those on the same rate of pay simply coast and look on as I run myself into the ground is breaking me down. Get more capable and willing individuals in. Please!

I'm in discomfort. Sometimes pain. I'm having marital issues. (Thankfully not right now. It's a good day or three.) I've a family member in hospital. I'm mentally all over the place. Yet I still get it done. That's employment. So, to get more expectancy on me as unfair leniency and excessive consideration is, going forward, put to other's, is deflating. That's not teamwork. That's charity.

Jonman wrote:

Wow Rawk, that's terrible.

But I don't know how an employer could compel someone to go to the hospital, though. At most, they can say, "look, it's vitally important that you go to the hospital, our policy is that every head injury gets treated as potentially life-threatening", but short of them being literally incapacitated, like unconscious, forcing them to accept medical treatment against their will is enormously unethical, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with examples of that being horribly applied.

Yeah, this. People can't be compelled to undergo medical evaluation without consent, except under very specific circumstances such as psychiatric holds or situations in which no consent can be obtained in a situation that reasonably demands urgent evaluation and treatment. This is true even for head trauma, which doesn't automatically make someone incompetent to make their own medical decisions, and doesn't shift the burden of medical decision making on their supervisor/employer.

All that said, a workplace with a good occupational safety program would absolutely have advocated strongly for medical evaluation, within a program that carries no adverse incentives (lost wages, excessive paperwork, negative evaluations, etc.) for reporting of safety events.

This particular case is a tragedy, and I'd guess was maybe a subdural hematoma. For my money, medical evaluation at company expense of any head trauma should be a condition of employment, and mutually agreed-upon by both parties so that there's no discussion when it happens. Incident reports should also be mandatory. I'll be fascinated to hear what OSHA has to say about an employee death that followed an unreported work-place injury. Perhaps a silver-lining in this very dark cloud is that the workplace's safety program will get a much needed rebuilding from the ground up.

RnRClown wrote:

Watching those on the same rate of pay simply coast and look on as I run myself into the ground is breaking me down. Get more capable and willing individuals in. Please!

This pretty much killed me when I worked for Comcast as a tech. I started as a service tech and once they realized I was really good at troubleshooting I got put on project work and escalations, but was still graded by the same metrics so my numbers always sucked. This cost me raises and promotions because I was doing all the hard, sh*t work no one else wanted to do. Can't promote the troubleshooting guy to commercial so he can get a raise because then we wouldn't have him for escalations. While all the guys actually causing the escalations are getting the promotions and raises.

Even after I got promoted to network I had the same issues. I got asked to run network escalations in two adjoining counties, and to do that I had to be added as a user to their systems. Well, now that I was on their system, their systems counted in my end of year ratings. So I couldn't get a raise or promotion because I occasionally had to help out the neighboring system that was failing (because their techs sucked), even though all my nodes were passing.

I wish I could offer advice, but alas all I have is sympathy. Hang in there, and do what you can to find some work/life balance.

Coldstream wrote:

This particular case is a tragedy, and I'd guess was maybe a subdural hematoma. For my money, medical evaluation at company expense of any head trauma should be a condition of employment, and mutually agreed-upon by both parties so that there's no discussion when it happens. Incident reports should also be mandatory. I'll be fascinated to hear what OSHA has to say about an employee death that followed an unreported work-place injury. Perhaps a silver-lining in this very dark cloud is that the workplace's safety program will get a much needed rebuilding from the ground up.

I’m exhausted. It seems like nobody saw it happen. The company hasn’t said a goddam thing. Nothing! I learned about it from our security guard, who is not an employee of the company I work for. We have a guard service.

Now the rumor mill has been running rampant and nothing I’m told can be trusted. Well that’s not entirely true. I have another friend who works closely with D, but I’m pretty sure he’s dealing with too much grief and has been staying home. Also, my safety rep has the most bare bones account of the incident, and should be reliable. I’m so angry. I want answers and I’ll probably never get any.

I have a friend who is a lawyer and is pretty knowledgeable about workplace liabilities. She says that the company is f*cked. I hope to god that his kids can at least get college money from a legal settlement.

This whole thing is really hurting me.

America is a late-stage capitalism hellscape I do hope the company ends up being forced to make your friends family whole (in the legal compensation sense) but it still breaks my heart to know in america they will have to be forced.

I put my car project on hold for the winter. The garage isn't heated and it's too small and dirty to get a space heater in there. The front of the car is half-taken apart and will likely sit that way until spring. I have a plan to get the garage clean but to do that I need to get the car out and to do that I need to put it back together and...

It's a minor loathe for sure. But whereas the car is normally something that cheers me up, right now its another little thing I haven't done yet, and it sticks out in my brain and makes the big things I deal with just a little more difficult.

BuzzW wrote:

I put my car project on hold for the winter. The garage isn't heated and it's too small and dirty to get a space heater in there. The front of the car is half-taken apart and will likely sit that way until spring. I have a plan to get the garage clean but to do that I need to get the car out and to do that I need to put it back together and...

It's a minor loathe for sure. But whereas the car is normally something that cheers me up, right now its another little thing I haven't done yet, and it sticks out in my brain and makes the big things I deal with just a little more difficult.

Perhaps you could go out for 5 or 10 minutes each day and just do *something* with it and then little by little by little it can get put back together even before spring!

RawkGWJ wrote:

Also, my safety rep has the most bare bones account of the incident, and should be reliable. I’m so angry. I want answers and I’ll probably never get any.

If it gives you a sense of agency, you always have the option of putting in a complaint (anonymous or otherwise) to OSHA regarding the safety climate at your workplace. You might not get answers right now, but with a dead employee and no accident report, OSHA sure as hell will. I fear that only time will heal your pain right now, but perhaps some future good can come out of it to help with closure. Take care of yourself!

I can vouch from personal experience that the OSHA folks I have worked with are dedicated to their mission and have a lot of compassion.

dejanzie wrote:

I didn't put a cap and scarf on my daughters (3Y & 5Y old) before walking them to school this morning, and about halfway along realized I really should have. They didn't complain on the route, but I got a text message from our youngest' teacher that she was crying because of how cold she was. I drove to school and dropped off caps and scarfs for both.

I feel SO bad right now, but they should get home any minute now so I can give them a big hug and apologize profusely for being such a horrible dad

***HUGS***
We've all been there, Dejanzie, try not to be too hard on yourself.

As for the American healthcare system... I don't think I can express my opinion here as the words would all be censored. Y'all know what I think, but good grief does it break my heart every time I read about it.

Today's the last day of my 2 week vacation. I had planned to do a number of projects... but only did one of them.

Wet farts.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Today's the last day of my 2 week vacation. I had planned to do a number of projects... but only did one of them.

I’d consider that a win. You did accomplish something.

MaxShrek wrote:

Wet farts.

You mean sharts.

I can't stand when somebody writes or says "When Adolph Hitler passed away.." I know he *technically* did, but having trouble seeing him as a person makes me think saying "he died" or "he killed himself" seems much more appropriate.

In some regions of the US, anyway, that’s exactly what “passed away” means. It’s just another way to say “died”. No added respect implied. Some people may use it as a euphemism if they think the form of death is not suited for discussion, but that’s not the same as respect being offered.

“Passed away” certainly is softer and has a more peaceful sound to it. When I worked at the mortuary we always used phrases like “passed away,” “passed on,” or “left us” in reference to a “loved one” (never “deceased” or other synonym).

People are too squeamish about talking about death. There are societies that have a much more honest and open relationship with death as a concept and don't shie away from it, and the people are actually notably happier and more comfortable with it as a result.

I just remember my 9th grade Journalism class, about how when you write about someone dying in a reporting context, you do not use euphemisms. You say John Doe died on Thursday, not "passed away" or "is no longer with us." Ever since then, I do my best to avoid any euphemisms about death. Somebody died. It's that simple.

My buddy died last week after suffering a head injury at work. I won’t be using any soft euphemisms for what happened. He didn’t “pass on” or “leave us”. He was treated with cold disregard for his injuries and now he’s gone. There’s nothing soft about what happened to him. I’ll never see him again, and that sh*t is hard. Not soft.

Yep. This is a common attitude in pastoral and health care families. You get, I won't say numb, but used to it.