Mr. O was a smart man. After a long time in the group he knew all the loopholes in order to make his daily working life as pleasant as possible – and he made use of them. This had already begun in his normal everyday life.
Every morning he got up and made himself a hot coffee and a toast. One morning the toast had got stuck in the machine and the smoke had fumigated the whole flat, but Mr. O didn’t waste money on smoke alarms, because Mr. O was a smart man and preferred to repair the toaster himself. With a knife.
Afterwards Mr. O drove his car to work, he was late, so Mr. O drove a bit faster than usual and at a speed of 190 – in town – scolding an elderly woman who, with her cautious driving style, had almost helped him to a rear-end collision: “Move over, you snail,” he shouted and put his mobile phone back on the passenger seat after commenting on the latest ‘meme’ in his WhatsApp group.
On the stairs to the first floor to his office, Mr. O avoided the handrail as usual and thought of the incident a few months ago when he accidentally spilt his coffee in the stairwell because he had tripped. He had moved on quickly after that and had left the puddle behind. A little later a colleague had slipped right there and broke his leg. He did not like the colleague. It was a beautiful day for Mr. O.
Arriving at his office, he climbed over the numerous cables leading to his private microwave and a fan heater, which he had secretly and arbitrarily connected. He typed his computer password from a piece of paper he had stuck to the screen as a reminder. Then he waited impatiently for the PC to boot up. Unfortunately, 5 minutes later his boss was waiting for him to join to a meeting in another building. Mr. O did not feel like it. But Mr. O was a smart man and had a plan.
He headed for the other building, dawdled through the corridors and later decided to argue that he was lost. After 20 minutes he finally turned around to quickly return to his PC, where Candycrush was already open and, as always, promised a relaxed morning. Mr. O looked forward to his morning off and walked through the yard’s construction site, passing the ‘Do not enter site’ sign. “Barriers are for conformist losers,” he thought. Mr. O was a smart man.
At that moment a lorry passed Mr. O’s way and knocked him down. His injuries were so severe that he became disabled, was unable to work and lost his job. Mr. O became very sad and felt alone. One day he met an acquaintance in the supermarket, just as he was putting a can of ravioli from his unemployment benefit into his shopping trolley: “Mr. O – you are a clever man. You don’t have to work anymore and you can enjoy your free time every day,” said the acquaintance.
Mr. O did not think he was so smart any more.
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Occupational safety concerns us all. If you see that a colleague is behaving incorrectly, immediately inform him/her or report the incident to the RWE Security Reporting Portal.
Written by: Dana Turi