Some bosses care more about protecting their bonuses than protecting their people.

So, what would you do if your safety officer got angry about losing his “no-accident” streak instead of caring about an injured worker? Would you just move on to the next case?

Or would you spend a little extra time documenting every detail in case things blew up later?

In the following story, one office employee finds himself in this same situation and luckily chooses the latter.

Here’s how it all played out.

Always cross your Ts and dot your Is

I used to work in the office of a few companies in the DoT trades.

At one, I had a guy walking off-site with a coworker on a Friday night who slipped between the crane treads.

He managed to gimp home on public transportation, but when he went to take his work boots off, he knew there was something seriously wrong.

So, I got the call on Monday that he broke his leg/ankle.

I wrote it all down, talked to the boss, and got the 411 for doing the workmen’s comp report because there are HUGE fines if you don’t report workplace accidents within a certain time frame—usually 24 hours.

The Safety Officer wasn’t happy.

Now, we were subs, so not only did I have to report directly to the project’s workers’ comp line, but I also had to report to the contractor’s safety officer for their compliance.

I get the safety officer on the phone, “Hey SO, I am calling to report a workplace accident from Friday, three days ago. Here’s an overview of…”

SO: “GD IT!!! We’ve gone over a hundred (I forget the exact number, but it was more than 100 and less than 200) days without an accident. This is going to mess UP my bonus!” (Insert more muttering and swearing)

He provided all the info and ended the call.

Me: “Well, SO, I understand how disappointing that must be, but the poor worker has a broken leg. I think we need to keep our perspective here.”

SO: “Fine, whatever.”

The SO barely took note of what I said and hung up pretty quickly.

To make sure there were no issues, he wrote clear notes of how this case was handled.

I write out my notes: I talked with SO of BIG Co from this time to that, and outline the details of what we covered during our conversation.

I then called the workmen’s comp line for the project and got a to-do list so the worker gets paid while out of commission.

There’s no problem with the time lag, as I called within hours of being informed. Whew!

I make a file, add all my notes and copies of the worksheets I make, and then move on to the next fire to put out.

A few weeks later, a higher-up from the company contacted him about a fine.

Well, it was a good thing I did all that because a month or so later, Big Guy from Big Co called me up and tried to tell me that they got a huge fine because of us, and per the contract, we were on the hook for something outrageous like $50K.

I didn’t even read my boss in at that point.

I say, “Big Guy, you mean the accident I reported on… wait a moment. Here’s the file, on Monday, within an hour of being told. I spoke with SO for 8 minutes, and we covered these details. Oh, he did mention being upset to lose his safety bonus.”

Silence.

The Big Guy couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.

Me: “Are you sure you want to pull out contracts about reporting standards? I’d be happy to include my notes on all that I did that day and have followed up on.”

Big guy: “No, that’s fine. I’ve got it from my end.”

Me: “Well, BG, have a great rest of your day then.”

Wow! That sure turned around there at the end.

Let’s see how the fine folks over at Reddit relate to compliance issues like this.

This person dealt with that type of stuff for 30 years.

According to this reader, they tweak the saying.

Here’s someone who just wants to know the fallout.

For this person, it was more like meticulous compliance.

Luckily, he took the extra step.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.