I’ve been thinking quite a bit about stupidity lately. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about developing an entire conference session presenting an analysis on the economic benefits of stupidity. Now, I must explain that I am not talking about stupid people per se, but rather non-stupid people who may occasionally do stupid things.
And, of course, how that reality affects workers’ compensation.
Let’s approach it this way. If you think you are a stupid person, would you please raise your hand?
I am willing to bet that no one reading this actually responded affirmatively to that request, so, for the purposes of this discussion we will say that there are no stupid people reading this article. There is a possibility, of course, that someone who is stupid may not have the intellectual capacity to recognize the condition, but for now we will maintain the “no stupid reader” premise.
Next, I would ask, “Who can think of at least one stupid thing that they have done in the course of their lifetime? Please raise your hand.”
Virtually everyone reading this article should have raised their hand, or at least envisioned themselves raising their hand, to that one. Some may not have raised their hand because doing so in their cubicle, home office, or sitting in their jammies in bed, might have made them feel, well, stupid. If you simply failed to respond because you don’t think you’ve ever done at least one stupid thing, I would refer you to the first question. You got the answer to that one wrong, and our “all readers are not stupid” theory is shot to hell.
Finally, I would ask, “Have you done something stupid today? Please raise your hand.”
Before you respond to that one, I would remind you that you have taken several minutes out of your preciously short day to read this article, so answer carefully.
The bottom line is that most of the people reading this article are of normal intelligence. Yet the fact remains that we all have at one or more points in our lives done something stupid. People with average intelligence can do stupid things. Highly intelligent people can do stupid things. And stupid people truly excel in the category. It is the one area where they can absolutely claim dominance. Stupidity can at times be ubiquitous, in that no one can permanently escape its clutches.
For instance, Captain Smith of Titanic fame may have said, “THAT Iceberg? I thought you were talking about lettuce.”
Or we might have had Napoleon Bonaparte, on his march to Moscow: “Russia in winter? How bad could it be? I didn’t even pack a coat — we’ll be home by Tuesday.”
General Custer at Little Bighorn: “Outnumbered? Pfft. I counted, and there’s like… twelve of them. Tops.”
Thomas Edison’s accountant: “You’re spending HOW MUCH on a light bulb? Just buy candles, Tom.”
The engineer on the Hindenburg: “Hydrogen, helium — they both start with ‘H.’ What’s the difference?”
King George III, circa 1775: “Let them have their little tea party. They’ll calm down by spring.”
And Dr. Frankenstein, at his IME: “The claimant says he can’t return to work, but I literally WATCHED him get off the table and walk.”
Yes, stupid can at times touch each and every one of us. And thank God for that little fact.
People toiling in workers’ compensation should learn to appreciate and celebrate the existence of stupidity. Quite frankly, if it wasn’t for stupidity, many of us might not have a job.
Again, we are not saying injured workers are stupid. Instead, some of them may be people of extraordinary intellect who for the briefest of moments made a stupid decision. The forklift driver who was texting while driving and literally cut a coworker in half. The truck driver watching porn on his iPad and drove off the road. Or the employee repairing a broken viewer on a camera, and when testing the not yet dry repair found he had glued the camera to his eye. The guy in Montana who got high and then tried to feed bears in an enclosure. Yeah, that ended well. That last one might just have been a dumbass.
Not all accidents are the result of stupidity. Some are just freak happenstance, or the result of unavoidable events such as equipment failure or the momentary distraction. Yet other accidents may be the direct result of stupidity, but not of the injured worker. Sometimes stupid decisions or actions made by supervisors, coworkers, or customers are the cause behind a workplace injury to an innocent person otherwise intelligently toiling along.
It doesn’t really matter what the source is. The important point is that stupidity is a major force driving our little corner of the economy. We should embrace and applaud it for what it is. To not do so would be, quite frankly, well, stupid.
I am reminded in closing of the words of Governor William J. Le Petomane, in the movie Blazing Saddles, which in itself was a brilliant tribute to bigotry and stupidity. He said, “Gentlemen, we have to protect our phony baloney jobs.”
Do you have a workplace injury story that can be directly attributed to stupidity? Share it in the comment section below! Please, no personally identifiable information, and keep it clean. But sharing these stories may help in the development of an entirely new type of conference presentation. And how stupid is that?