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Just as I was packing up to leave my no win, no fee office last night, the IT manager said he had to clear a drainpipe that evening and he was a bit nervous about the wobbly ladder he'd have to climb, and it set me thinking about the reasons for compensation claims that come into the office.
That's because ladder accidents are a common reason for a fall from height claim. He didn't appreciate me mentioning that, or enjoy the idea that there might be a kind of cosmic irony in someone who works for a personal injury firm suffering one.
Last night, that was a gently amusing bit of teasing; when he said "see you tomorrow", the staff here said "ooh, if you're lucky". Which was okay. Except now it's the morning after and he's not in yet.
It's strange how the job sneaks into your head; I'd never have worried as much if we all worked in a different industry. Maybe he's not fallen off the ladder, but has been involved in a car accident on the way in? The claims forms we see show how people may end up with a whiplash injury or worse through no fault of their own when another driver does something silly. Maybe when he does get in he'll accidentally bump into a filing cabinet, knocking off a precarious pot plant and suffer a work injury?
Fortunately, he walked in while I was writing that paragraph without a scratch - just taking the kids to school, apparently. Phew.
Why, then, should it be that I'm not as prone to link the birth injury stories I have to research in this role to the any-moment-now niece or nephew that's about to enter the family? I mean, I know that the incidence of birth accidents is low in modern medical practice, but I also know that most ladders are climbed and most journeys are driven without personal injury, and the worst work injury I've seen in this no win, no fee office is when a gust of wind slammed the toilet door on my fingers, so it's not just the facts being reassuring.
At this point, I think it's me showing the initiative with my guilty feelings - getting the emotion in early, before it's necessarily needed, on the assumption that the worst has happened because I teased the IT manager about it the night before. If he had hurt himself I'd probably have felt the guilt, not for causing the fall from height, but for tempting fate.
This is the result of watching too many films, I think, and knowing that whatever happens at point A should fit into the carefully constructed plot, so that the event at point B reflects back upon it. I know, of course, that ladder accidents in real life have less to do with gentle ribbing the night before, and more to do with failed risk assessments or faulty training of employees - but it's hard to get gut feelings to recognise that.
