You Can't Trust The Innocent

I am the oldest child of seven. The first to lose innocence is usually the oldest, and until the next one down catches up the old fella is at the constant risk of innocent betrayal.

Working life is much the same. The new arrival, especially in a first job, comes in clean (mostly) and oblivious to whatever schemes, scandals, scams and sleight of hand  the incumbents have been sliding past the various layers of management. A special induction in addition to the official version needs to be carried out way before the tyro is allowed to take the wheel, any wheel.

My first full time job was with a plastics manufacturer, and it was right on last year of the Sixties. This was some distance from my long term ambition to be a journalist. That prime aim was missed thanks to the existence of only two daily newspapers serving Auckland and the fact that only one, The New Zealand Herald, was offering a cadetship for the upcoming year. I was promising enough that I was granted an interview with one of the senior editors, my Mum driving me into the city to the Herald offices. The interview went well enough.

About here is a side case of innocence leading to an error. The week before the interview my Mum had been at a wedding where she had met Orton Hintz, the Editor of the Herald. Apprised of my ambition he suggested that Mum and I pop in to say Hello when I finished my interview. Thus as we walked past Mr Hintz office door, Mum asked if I wanted to call on the man. In a fit of hubris (a word I had never read or heard) I said to Mum it was best that I rely on my own attributes rather than try to slide in on a connection. So that is how I ended up working in a Quality Control laboratory, blowing up PVC pipes until they burst.

Top right is the ACI Plastics factory in Carbine Rd, Mt Wellington. Under that 

bland roof I'm soaking plastic in acetone. (Photo National Library of New Zealand)

Not long after I started I was asked by my boss if I would like to be a factory representative on the Safety Committee. Part of the reason I was asked was that the committee needed a mug to write the minutes and I was deemed to be a bit more literate than the factory manager or a shift leader. The chairman of the committee was the Personnel Officer, a fairly human title compared to the one adopted when workers were repurposed as resources. He was a tall gangly Englishman, a pom in the New Zealand parlance, with a wandering around face, black dyed hair and teeth that looked like the aftermath of a bulldozer rampage through a cemetery. 

The first meeting was short and routine. My minutes, a literary format I may have skipped over during my education, were handwritten and immediately sent (by me) to be copied onto that old fast fade flimsy, and circulated around the management, including the union. The content was largely dictated by the Personnel Officer.

A month later the second meeting was meatier. The PO assumed I was sufficiently trained to manage on my own. There were a few absentees from the meeting and the Chairman was a bit free with his comments. He delivered some fairly robust comments on the union representative (absent) and the union. This he felt free to do as there were no union members present, bar me and I didn't count. Just a kid. 

Sure enough, I wrote all this into the minutes, and as before copied and distributed the result. Unfortunately for the loose mouthed PO, he got his copy last, by which stage considerable fuss was being made. He was all for tearing into me himself but my boss told him to clear off. Instead my boss quietly told me that I should always give the minutes to the chairman to approve before distributing them. I did one more Safety Committee meeting, then they found someone else to attend and write minutes.

Some boring lessons from that; don't fudge, if you do don't tell. Honesty, policy and all that. But most of all don't trust some literate, earnest, honest fool fresh out of school.

© 2020 John K. Madden All Rights Reserved