Accidents in the workplace

There seem to have been a few accidents in the workplace lately but few of the people who have had them seem to be any the worse for wear. I guess it must be the healthy environment created by that bright new future that’s causing us all to have to go to SpecSavers.

The latest series of workplace accidents have happened at, ACC, which probably means they weren’t accidents at all; they were in fact pre-existing conditions. Actually the more I think about that, the more it makes sense.

ACC’s accidents began to emerge with the wholesale release of private and confidential information about ordinary New Zealanders to a lot of unsuspecting recipients including rather unfortunately for the Corporation, a feisty individual called Bronwyn Pullar.

As we all now know, Bronwyn is not the sort of woman to simply roll over and ask the corporation to roger her all over again. Furthermore their choice of Bronwyn as the recipient for these files was also stupid on the grounds she was a long term ‘client’ with a long term grievance against them. People in this position have nothing to lose and can make a Government department’s life very difficult. Bronwyn taped the whole sorry saga and left the fibbers with no wriggle-room.

But the micro-brains that have been running ACC have been left to their own devices and allowed to develop their own culture of blame against their clients, which is an interesting twist for a ‘no fault insurance scheme’.

After battling with them for almost 10 years, Bronwyn, who appears to have a perfectly reasonable claim, tooled herself up with a powerful ally in the form of Michelle Boag and met with the corporation to try and get things sorted out.

Of course as we know, they decided to fabricate the details of the meeting, leak personal information about Bronwyn to the Press, and accused her of blackmail.

Following this outrageous attack Bronwyn decided to finally allow the media, with whom she had been in contact for the last 10 years, to go public with her side of the story. The revelations that came from that interview she gave to TV3 were game-changers.

Since the programme aired only three days ago, the Chairman of ACC, John Poorjudgeofcharacter has ‘stepped aside’. He has not been fired and ACC Minister Little Bo-Tox won’t say he was asked or pushed, although her body language on TV One News told a very different story. The official blurb is that this guy is only leaving because his new job as the head (case) at ANZ National Bank would have him far too busy to bother with the malingerers at ACC (not that he ever did anyway).

So once again an incompetent person who couldn’t run a major Government Corporation efficiently and who has been caught out in more than one public lie and defamed a client doesn’t get sacked; instead he is able to move smoothly into another overpaid sinecure and nobody so much as even tells him off. Good luck to any customers at ANZ National Bank. If I knew somebody like him was moving into the top spot at my bank I’d be worried. ANZ National Bank should be too, because the man fucked up his last post and although I know banking and dishonesty aren’t mutually exclusive of one another, to have such an example out front is not a good look.

However Poorjudgeofcharacter is not the only ACC head we should soon be seeing rolling into the little basket; the mysterious Dr Burgess who is able to diagnose from halfway across town without even seeing the patient needs to bite the bullet as well. His association with ACC needs to be cut and his own ethics body might like to investigate the probity of arriving at diagnoses without consultation. He might be better off practicing in Haiti if that is the way he works.

Burgess’ unauthorised contact with the allegedly independent specialist raises ethical issues as well, and possibly privacy ones too. But worst of all is his unauthorised accessing of Bronwyn Pullar’s files after he was told he was to have nothing further to do with her files. Burgess went on to access the files on at least seven further occasions after being forbidden to do so. Staff who have done this at IRD and WINZ have been sacked. He should be too and police should be called in to determine if criminal charges are appropriate. I used to like A Clockwork Orange, but since the main characters began living out their fantasies at ACC I’ve gone right off it.

As I write this I learn that Ralph Stewart has also been shown the door by an increasingly panic-stricken Little Bo-Tox who sees her Ministerial posts under threat.

Stewart was the other wanker who told us all he had not heard Bronwyn’s tape when it was well-known her legal representatives had played it to him.

She who has been called the Crusher is obviously feeling the crush herself as she has apparently also informed two other ACC directors; Rob Campbell and John McLiskie they can forget about being re-appointed either. Of course the cynic in me (where would that be then?) says Bo-To is more annoyed these bumbling fools allowed this to get into the public arena and get some of their doo-doos all over her rather than for the nasty shit they threw at Bronwyn Pullar.

The cull-out can’t have finished yet, though because there are at least two other ACC knob-heads who should also go. Managers Philip Murch and Hans Verberne are the pair who concocted the allegation they had been blackmailed by Ms Pullar and called the cops in to investigate. Given they knew their allegations were baseless these two idiots should be charged with making a false complaint to police and then sacked as well.

So accidents or otherwise? Well I can’t help finding it extremely ironic that a corporation that spends half its time trying to deny accident victims support by labelling their accident induced injuries as ‘pre-existing conditions’ should be so accident prone themselves. A much better case can be made for their recent ‘accidents’ to be viewed as pre-existing conditions.

Your claims are well and truly denied ACC – time to remember what you were set up for.

Ruth is stranger than Richard

You know those weeks when you think you couldn’t make up the sort of stuff that has been happening, because nobody sane would believe it? Well this has been one of those weeks.

One of the odder events this week was Gezza Browneye letting fly with his idea of a satirical send up of Finland. We shouldn’t have been surprised of course because this was the same danger to shipping who called Christchurch mayor Bob Parkup a clown. A fair call you might say, but somewhat ironic coming from Oliver Hardy’s double.

Of course the Finns had his measure and according to Finnish comic, Tuomas Enbuske that measure would be three ordinary people.

But on a more serious note; you would have to question the mental capacity of someone like Gezza letting fly with an off the cuff ramble like that just to try and score a point or two over David (the) Shorn. Any half way intelligent person would know that such an outburst in Parliament would lead to consequences that included the boss having try and explain to the Finnish president - especially after he had to mumble a grudging apology to young Bob only a couple of months back following the clown comment.

Another of the stories you couldn’t make up was the ACC privacy breach saga. I don’t expect too many of us are surprised at a government department making a cock-up of such huge proportions – after all this sort of thing has happened many times before. But what many of you might have missed was a much more disturbing admission/boast alleged by Deborah Coddington who reckons Bronwyn Pullar should have just returned the files and let things alone. I can’t find the audio but Coddington claims Mary Wilson interviewed an ACC specialist claimant barrister recently who blithely said he had been receiving wrong files regularly for six years and simply immediately sends them back each time.

So who was this twerp? And is he really a barrister? If so he needs a shake-up because unless somebody makes a fuss about this sort of stuff that results in resignations and sackings, there is no incentive for them to be more careful.

In this same week we had the story of the twit in Whanganui who drove himself to court. Nothing strange in that, you might think until you learn that he actually drove IN to the court, as in up the stairs and in through the front door. He was dobbed in by a member of the public after he reversed out and had another go at finding the ideal parking spot to view proceedings. In explanation he said he was "frustrated with the failures of the system". Hmm – I should imagine after that display they will be more than happy to accommodate him, albeit not in the manner he had in mind.

Meanwhile in the good ol, USA a pilot on a JetBlue flight from New York flipped out in flight. He began ranting about an Iraqi bomb on board and how they were all going down (presumably out of the sky – if not his timing was lousy). Either he was tripping off his face or he had done one loop the loop too many. The co-pilot had to lock himself in the cabin and take control of the plane while three or four passengers had to wrestle the foaming flyer to the ground until the plane landed and he was carted off to bedlam or whatever they call it in Amarillo Texas.

But I was just thinking; how could the passengers be sure which of the two flyers was telling the truth? It could have been a very ugly mistake if the guy freaking out had every reason to and the evil co-pilot was the one who was going to ensure their collective demise.

Footnote

Lovers of the more obscure sorts of music may well recognise the title of this blog. For those who don’t; it is the title of an album by Robert Wyatt, a percussionist, pianist, singer and more who used to be in bands such as Soft Machine, Wilde Flowers and Matching Mole and was a recent collaborator with Bjӧrk. In case you haven’t guessed, it is a play on the old adage, “truth is stranger than fiction.”

And it was a very good title for Wyatt to use because he has had an interesting life. He was born Robert Wyatt-Ellidge in 1945; the son of a BBC journalist and an industrial psychologist. His half brother is Julian Wyatt-Glover; a noted Shakespearean actor who has also featured in many films including one each of the Star Wars, Indiana Jones & Harry Potter sagas. Robert began as a drummer and a pretty good one at that. But like many drummers he liked partying hard out a bit too much for his own good and in 1973 he managed to fall out of a four storey window which put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He gave up drumming for the most part, because he couldn’t use his feet, but simply picked up where he left off with the rest of his music and has continued to record and tour ever since.