Workplace paper trails an exercise in arse-covering

Arse-covering, sorry, risk-management, is a skill that is first learned from brothers and sisters – or if an only child, the family dog. “It was not me, it was him/her” is a familiar refrain to any parent in Poirot-mode.

Teachers would be forgiven for believing that most family dogs lived on a diet consisting solely of the homework they set.

Some schoolyard excuses continue to be fit for purpose in the world of work. “I am sorry I am late, the buses/trains/trams/airport were on strike/cancelled/flooded with people/water”.

It is striking that, beyond transport glitches, there are few good excuses for work performance developed at school. This is a definite gap in the curriculum that needs addressing.

Some workplaces seem to exist almost entirely of blaming others for one’s own performance. I need not remind us that I write this during a federal election where the national sport of catching out politicians, and then wringing admissions of mistakes out them shares more than a little with fox hunting.

Occasionally, even in politics, the fox ruins the fun by stopping in its tracks, holding ups it paws and saying “yes, I nicked your chickens”, presumably in the hope that their going off half-cock will be seen as poultry error, saving them from the prospect of their chickens coming home to roost.

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The inquiry is a unique workplace arse-covering ruse. If only we had the cunning to respond to our teacher’s demands for overdue homework by announcing an inquiry to be led by our mum and other supporters, with a final report due about a year after we leave the joint.

Of course the best operators avoid the need for inquiries by employing the ruse of the report. Reports, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual are now so ubiquitous and extensive, that they are unsurpassed in their ability to eliminate errors at work.