Riotous Retirement by Brian Robertson, Ron Smallwood Page A
Authors: Brian Robertson, Ron Smallwood
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Gabriel explained confidently. “You will need full, well written reports clearly specifying the problem and its exact location together with details of the best method of how to fix the problem.”
“If we could perhaps leave it at specifying the problem and location, that might be enough,” Helga responded.
Gabriel ignored that comment and went on to ask about the team. Helga explained that he was the only member so far and immediately she knew that if anyone else was interested, finding out that Gabriel was ‘team leader’ would be enough to squash any enthusiasm.
“Look Gabriel,” Helga bravely went on to explain “I was not thinking so much of a team with a leader as just a few residents working co-operatively together.”
“Yes, yes, we all know about democracy and all that bullshit. Just you leave it to me Helga. We’ll call it the Safety Sub-Committee and no mention of team or leader but I’ll write your reports and keep them in order. Don’t you worry.”
After Gabriel left the office Helga considered the situation. She was doubtful if this was going to work but at this point she thought it wise to lock in Gabriel’s obvious enthusiasm for the task and persuade another two or three residents to work with him. This might be just the thing to keep Gabriel out of any more bother. She just hoped that he didn’t turn out to be the bully he so obviously had the potential to be. She had to get this group up and running before the next visit from the village operator’s Environmental Health and Safety Director, Mr. Cedric Colliston, and his team who were to audit and rate the village with regard to health and safety.
Helga was worried. Managing Gabriel and keeping his ego in check as the leading light in the safety committee was one thing, but controlling him in a group that included the Environmental Health and Safety Director on a village inspection was something completely different. How the hell was she going to manage this?
D-day arrived and Helga had still not come up with a plan to exclude Gabriel from the village EH&S inspection. She had not even been able to exclude him from sitting at the table in front of the residents at the meeting where Cedric Colliston was informing the assembled group about the village operator’s new EH&S policy.
“Our health and welfare aspirations, ambitions and desires for this village as with all our villages is an overarching core value of our company’s strategic policy that we have coined as a leading element of our mission statement in retirement village operation and as village operators we bring this to all our villages.” Cedric paused here and gazed out at the completely blank faces of his attentive, but so far completely baffled, audience. He continued.
“We must never compromise on endeavouring to seek out all courses of action pertinent to garnering environmental health and safety action plans and paths to avoid safety hazards that are likely to bring risk to the health and welfare of any village resident.”
“Hear, hear,” interrupted Gabriel and started to clap.
Helga knew Gabriel had been listening carefully and, like her, had probably recognised the phrase ‘avoid safety hazards.’ It was the sum total of her understanding of the speech so far.
“We are implementing and embedding world class processes and practice to support our vision,” Cedric continued. “Our environment, health and safety management system is frameworked for implementation and development of EH&S at all levels of our organisation and identifies this village operator company and regional governance procedures and responsibilities for environmental health and safety at all levels including residential entities.”
Suddenly a loud voice from the back of the room could be heard by all. “Hear that Bill? You’re just a bloody residential entity!” It was Mac. Mac made every serious meeting into a comic turn if the opportunity arose and particularly if the speaker
“If we could perhaps leave it at specifying the problem and location, that might be enough,” Helga responded.
Gabriel ignored that comment and went on to ask about the team. Helga explained that he was the only member so far and immediately she knew that if anyone else was interested, finding out that Gabriel was ‘team leader’ would be enough to squash any enthusiasm.
“Look Gabriel,” Helga bravely went on to explain “I was not thinking so much of a team with a leader as just a few residents working co-operatively together.”
“Yes, yes, we all know about democracy and all that bullshit. Just you leave it to me Helga. We’ll call it the Safety Sub-Committee and no mention of team or leader but I’ll write your reports and keep them in order. Don’t you worry.”
After Gabriel left the office Helga considered the situation. She was doubtful if this was going to work but at this point she thought it wise to lock in Gabriel’s obvious enthusiasm for the task and persuade another two or three residents to work with him. This might be just the thing to keep Gabriel out of any more bother. She just hoped that he didn’t turn out to be the bully he so obviously had the potential to be. She had to get this group up and running before the next visit from the village operator’s Environmental Health and Safety Director, Mr. Cedric Colliston, and his team who were to audit and rate the village with regard to health and safety.
Helga was worried. Managing Gabriel and keeping his ego in check as the leading light in the safety committee was one thing, but controlling him in a group that included the Environmental Health and Safety Director on a village inspection was something completely different. How the hell was she going to manage this?
D-day arrived and Helga had still not come up with a plan to exclude Gabriel from the village EH&S inspection. She had not even been able to exclude him from sitting at the table in front of the residents at the meeting where Cedric Colliston was informing the assembled group about the village operator’s new EH&S policy.
“Our health and welfare aspirations, ambitions and desires for this village as with all our villages is an overarching core value of our company’s strategic policy that we have coined as a leading element of our mission statement in retirement village operation and as village operators we bring this to all our villages.” Cedric paused here and gazed out at the completely blank faces of his attentive, but so far completely baffled, audience. He continued.
“We must never compromise on endeavouring to seek out all courses of action pertinent to garnering environmental health and safety action plans and paths to avoid safety hazards that are likely to bring risk to the health and welfare of any village resident.”
“Hear, hear,” interrupted Gabriel and started to clap.
Helga knew Gabriel had been listening carefully and, like her, had probably recognised the phrase ‘avoid safety hazards.’ It was the sum total of her understanding of the speech so far.
“We are implementing and embedding world class processes and practice to support our vision,” Cedric continued. “Our environment, health and safety management system is frameworked for implementation and development of EH&S at all levels of our organisation and identifies this village operator company and regional governance procedures and responsibilities for environmental health and safety at all levels including residential entities.”
Suddenly a loud voice from the back of the room could be heard by all. “Hear that Bill? You’re just a bloody residential entity!” It was Mac. Mac made every serious meeting into a comic turn if the opportunity arose and particularly if the speaker
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