Elfin Safety, sir, it's more than my Jobsworth

It’s a bit narcissistic, but I’ve been reading past entries in this, my very own blog.

I think it’s a turn of the year thing, looking back at achievements or lack of them in 2010. One conclusion stands out, I have some pet likes and pet hates. The hates seem to include being told what to do rather than persuaded: see the improved and upgraded services pieces if you want to know more. Another is the close cousin of the instructing petty dictators, the “jobsworths”. And then there are the Health and Safety Act (usually pronounced Elfin Safety) industry workers.

Maybe a bit of defining is needed here; you’ve all heard the expression, “it’s more than my than job’s worth to do that, sir!” Translation - “of course I know how to do that, and could if I wanted to, but I’m not. So nah-nah-na-nah-na to you.” Well a perpetrator of that approach is a jobsworth.

“Could you send someone to clean the outside of my windows please?” This for a flat in central London. “Well we’d need scaffolding, which will need an erection permit, and a parking suspension permit to deliver the scaffolding and there’s insurance against injury to passers by and then another permit to get the scaffolding down.” “But it’s on the first floor! How do the top floor people get on? Whatever happened to the friendly local window cleaner with ladders, a bucket and a well worn piece of chamois leather? Can’t you just send some-one to wash them.” “The ‘Elfin Safety’ act requires it, sir. It’s more than my job’s worth even to ask one of our men to take a look.”

And then there’s the approach in Lebanon. I watched in horror as a maid of all work climbed onto the balcony guard rail of the appartment opposite, without any kind of safety harness, hung precariously onto the top of the hinged windows and cleaned away at the outside of each in turn. Perhaps I should say that our flat is seven floors up. I got pins and needles in the soles of my feet just watching her ersatz high wire act.

So which is the right way to go about things? Is it the strangulation at source of any kind of personal risk or the attitude of the circus performer who does away with the safety net?

Some years ago I tripped over a sawn-off tree trunk stub; no more than six inches tall (15 cms), it was sitting there in the middle of a pavement, silently minding its own business. I was sober, honestly, but it was night time and there’d been a power cut so no street lighting. My left foot caught it while striding at full throttle. Next I’m doing a Harry-Potter-on-a-broomstick impression, but, as I was without a broomstick things ended quickly and painfully when I did a three point crash landing; the three points were right elbow, left knee and a glasses case in an inside pocket. The pained obscenities drew the assistance of a couple of policemen who helped me wheezing to my feet, the glasses case had cracked a couple of ribs.

“Who can I sue for this?” I asked a lawyer friend the next day. She’d practiced in the UK and here in Lebanon. First there was a confused silence and then gentle laughter. “There’s no Elfin Safety Act here, and it’s more than my job’s worth to try to sue anyone in local government.”