Washington Post Laments Intrusion of Real World into Workplace

Although its fifth paragraph acknowledges that workplace safety has improved significantly in the past, this article in the Washington Post laments how dangerous it is in workplaces these days, especially jobs where you don’t get to surf the Internet or talk on the phone all day.

Not content to examine how some jobs are really hazardous, the WaPo brings it home to the white collar and near-white collar employees by telling them how some formerly safe jobs are now DANGEROUS! Suddenly, the world of terrorism, workplace violence, and new super-cool, super deadly diseases like AIDS and SARS are intruding on the workday world, and surprise, surprise, surprise, but employers are choosing not to emphasize the inherent dangers of modern life and how they apply to an above minimum wage but below “living wage” jobs.

Seems to me that the movie Article 99 covered that in 1992. The trailer depicted an angry disabled veteran chambering a round in a semiautomatic rifle as he and his comrades chained each other togethter to protest the cutting of their benefits by the ruthless Republican administration of the era. A hospital administrator tells the army of renta-cops, “Disarm that man!” The rent-a-cop replies, “Not for $5.50 an hour.” So you see, the WaPo scooped by an obscure Keifer Sutherland film.

Perhaps the WaPo forgets the days when people died on the job, or Heaven forbid, drank beer while operating industrial machinery on the job, or when children were used because they could crawl into or under the enormous, steam-belching, coal-fed machines. Instead, going to work is in many cases not much more dangerous than going to the mall, but since it’s not padded with comfortable, non-toxic foam padding, it’s still too dangerous, and someone should do something!

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