Every once in a while, something that I see every day will just strike me differently. For instance, this bit from the sign printed on the window outside the lobby where I work:
NO SOLICITORS
In Case of Emergency Call…
Even interdimensional law firms need comp coverage
It’s the law: all employers in California have to provide work comp coverage for all their employees. Even Wolfram & Hart.
Normal law firms probably don’t have much of a premium. Evil law firms, however, might see a big increase. For this reason, I think they’re probably self-insured. That, and they can keep all medical treatment and administration entirely in-house (especially given that their “house” has locations on several worlds and lots of unofficial ties in this one), along with as much defense litigation as possible. I’d imagine they don’t incur many penalties either, since it’s likely they can turn back time to avoid late payments. And if an employee wants to argue that anything they’ve gotten is less than they deserve, I’d imagine the second phase of their employment isn’t long in starting.
Sample injured worker: Lindsey. Definitely injured on the job, so the injury is fully compensable. According to the California permanent disability rating guidelines, loss of the dominant hand between wrist and elbow, inclusive, where a prosthesis is possible, has a standard PD rating of 60%, meaning 60% of the jobs available wouldn’t hire you with that disability. When you adjust for age (assuming he’s just shy of 30) and occupation, both of which lower the rating, it ends up at 53%. This is, of course, not counting in psychiatric effects, which would probably raise the rating. So, if he settled his claim, which W&H would probably “encourage” him to do, he’d be entitled to at least $49,342.50 in compensation. And they’d have been in something of a bind later if he did settle, since he’d have ended up with minimal PD and they couldn’t legally recoup their money.
Way too much time on my (evil) hands.
Crimes against adulthood
I now have a Hermione toothbrush. I consider it revenge for all the times my mom wouldn’t get me theme merchandise when I was a kid.
Sometimes things are just perfect.
I got in to work Friday and was accosted by the back-up receptionist, who was, in a word, poinging. “Guesswhatguesswhatguesswhat?”
“What?”
Says the actual receptionist, from behind her desk: “I’m pregnant.”
Maybe this explains her diagnosis of me.
Buffy Finale: I can just see the Sunnydale news reports
(Spoilers for last night’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer finale)
EARTHQUAKE DESTROYS CALIFORNIA TOWN
By Kelson Vibber, staff writer
A 5.9 earthquake struck the Central California town of Sunnydale Tuesday morning, rattling windows as far away as Los Angeles and San Francisco and triggering a massive sinkhole which appears to have buried the entire town. In an amazing twist of luck, however, the death toll may turn out to be zero.
Emergency workers dispatched from neighboring communities have reported the scene is one of eerie silence – largely because many of the town’s residents had left over the past few weeks.
Big finale….
How did we get to here?
How did this plot appear?
The show’s all done
It was really fun
But I just can’t raise that cheer
Tell me
How did we get to here?
(You better know the tune.)
Sound and Fury
I don’t like car alarms.
Mainly it’s a matter of “crying wolf.” They go off for the stupidest reasons and don’t signify an attempted theft, so everyone ignores them. I can imagine a lot of cars have been broken into or stolen despite the alarm because people heard it and assumed it was just the usual pointless squealing.
Last night was worse. At about 12:40 AM, we were woken up by a car alarm in the parking lot, echoing between our building and the next. Figuring the owner would get down there to turn it off, we waited it out. After 5-10 minutes I figured they’d had plenty of time to throw on a robe, walk outside and deal with it. This qualified as Disturbing the Peace.
I was ready to do something I had never done before: call the cops on my neighbors. (Not that I knew which neighbors it was, but I figured they could work it out from which space the blaring car was in.) The only reason I didn’t was that it took me so long to find the non-emergency number that they had finally turned the damn thing off by the time I was ready to pick up the phone.
Hey, I didn’t want to call 911 – that would’ve just added sirens to the mix.
To top it off, every few minutes from then until 1:30 I would hear the “bleep bleep” of someone turning an alarm on and off. Just enough to knock me out of half-sleep.