gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Body count

I don't have a September 11 story worth telling. Thank God. Like everyone else in Canada, I arrived at work to see everyone gathered around a TV screen in shock and horror.

Among the things I remember from that morning: uneasiness at working directly beneath the CN Tower (which seemed like a likely target if the airplanes-into-towers thing went local), and the feeling that as a journalist, I should be doing something to cover the biggest story in years. Of course, I was working on a children's television pilot at the time, and was of no use at all. But feeling scared and useless were by no means unique.

(For a much better story, read the captivating account that my J-school colleague Karen Mah wrote about living beside the World Trade Center.)

I wasn't going to blog at all today - there will no doubt be many better things to read. But as I was parking my bike on this crisp September morning, I remembered another story of lives cut short that is worth telling.

On the southeast border of the CBC's Front Street offices is an unusual memorial called 100 Workers.

It's a long stone wall featuring the names of 100 Ontario workers who died in workplace accidents over the past 100 years. Actually, there are only 99 names - the final plaque is left blank, awaiting one of the nearly 1,000 workers who are killed on the job in Canada every year.

The installation spans the parkette between CBC and the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board offices located in Simcoe Place next door. But that connection isn't obvious. Most people who see 100 Workers are tourists, passing by on their way to a Jays game, a ride up the CN Tower or a Hippo bus tour of the harbour.

Given that frame of mind, the passers-by are usually caught off guard by small bronze plaques that read "pinned between tractor, scoop and ram", "engulfed in flames in a chemical explosion" and "bullet wound in chest."

I lock up my bike a few feet behind this monument each day, so I get to overhear snippets of tourists' conversations as they saunter along and read the names. The first reaction is always the same - a sort of snickering "holy crap, lookit this one!", followed by an attempt to find a method of dying more gruesome than the others. But after about a third of the wall, the snickering stops and the message sinks in. Not everyone sees the blank final plaque, but those that do are quieted for a few paces.

100 Workers is much more than a body count. There's a story behind each plaque, and each name. For example:

"Engulfed in flames" is Sean Kells.

He was 19 years old, killed on his third day of a job he didn't know was dangerous. When the 100 Workers monument was unveiled, Robin Kells was furious that his brother's entire life was reduced to a single line about his death. But he came around.

I have a small connection to another plaque, and I keep waiting for an opportunity to explain it to some meandering tourist who reads it out loud, as they often do.

"Bullet wound in chest" is Edmund Tong.

Tong was a Toronto police detective who was murdered when he pulled over a car containing two bank robbers. Those robbers - Steve Suchan and Leonard Jackson - were members of the notorious Boyd Gang of the 1950s, and the subject of one of the first items I did for the CBC Digital Archives.

The Boyd Gang is often remembered fondly for their daredevil ways - they busted out of the Don Jail twice, the first time using a hacksaw blade hidden in Jackson's artificial leg. Their second jailbreak became the subject of CBC-TVs first news report.

Captivating stuff - but every time I see the plaque, I am reminded that they were also cop killers. And yet, even cop killers have families, and their deaths are mourned.

Suchan's mother was a cleaning lady at a law firm. One night she begged famed lawyer J.J. Robinette to defend her son. He lost the case, and Suchan was sentenced to death. So was Jackson, who had merely been along for the ride. The two men were hanged simultaneously, with their backs together. Robinette was so upset that he left criminal law to become legal counsel.

I screened another archival clip (which was too laden with copyright issues to use) featuring an interview with Jackson's son, who watched his father hang. The guards forced Jackson to remove his artificial foot, and his son had to watch his dad hop awkwardly on one foot towards a gallows that he had to share with the real murderer.

That image bothers me. I can't see Jackson's death bringing the world any more satisfaction than Tong's, or Kells', or the 3,000 people who died on September 11th, 2001, or the 1,000+ American soldiers or the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed since. Every single one was preventable, and every single one is missed by someone. They died because they showed up for work, or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How many blank plaques do we need, exactly?

Trading places

I have a friend who is changing jobs, moving on to (as they say) "new opportunities." That's something I haven't done in a long time – though I've worked for different shows and different websites, I've been at CBC for a decade.

It got me thinking about a couple of conversations I've had with other folks who have changed employers. By making the switch, they discovered things I would have never considered. Here are two examples.

- Neal used to work for a major advertising firm. On a canoe trip to Algonquin, he told me about his two biggest accounts: Mercedes, and then Coca-Cola. Both were plum clients – big names, big budgets, established brands. But according to Neal, when it came to advertising, they were like matter and anti-matter.

"Mercedes are just plain good cars," he told me. "We could do zero advertising, and throw stuff at customers as they entered the showrooms, and they'd still buy the cars." (For the record, that was not the creative strategy Neal pitched.)

"But Coke is just sugar and water," he explained. "It's all about the advertising."

Image is about the only reason people buy Coke, or buy it instead of Pepsi. The product constantly needs new ideas and maximum creativity to stay afloat, a model that Neal preferred. Interestingly, neither client made his company rich. They were high profile loss-leaders, accounts that would win the company awards so they could gouge less sexy clients.

- On the blue collar end of the spectrum is Jason, who fixes trucks for a living. Until recently, he fixed cars. Sounded about the same to me: wrenches, oil, manual labour. But at a birthday party, I asked him about the switch, and he was ecstatic.

"When someone's car breaks down, they get mad. It's an unexpected expense, they have kids to pick up from school, and they need their car back yesterday."

Fairly or unfairly, car owner frustrations are usually leveled squarely at the mechanic. For trucking firms, on the other hand, it's all in a day's work.

"We have a fleet of trucks, and when one breaks down they just put another one on the road. It's an expected cost of doing business." Jason fixes the trucks, and nobody yells at him.

All of this got me thinking... I wonder how my workplace experience would be summed up in a single pithy anecdote.

But I think I've been here too long, and I don't have any immediate plans to leave. Wrong guy to ask.

So I asked some new(ish) employees for their takes. Here are a couple:

While very impressed with the level of intelligence and professionalism on the part of CBC employees, I was caught off guard by the extreme bureaucracy and conservatism. As soon as I walked through the doors, I got the sense that I entered a time warp. While other companies I've worked at are moving forward with progressive ideas, attitudes, the CBC still seems entrenched in an old-fashioned bubble a la 1970. (e.g. time cards, no concept of flexible hours, working from home etc.)

It's true: I've been working here on the internet for ten years, but I still fill out a thick, green paper time card each week, using a ball point pen. I presume they are carried away by pneumatic tube to a stenographer for card punching. But she's right about the intelligence and professionalism, too: there isn't a single person I work with who isn't smart, capable, and completely deserving of their job. Any CBC bashers that think otherwise can e-mail me and I'll give them a tour so they can see for themselves. Here's another:

I guess for me the biggest difference is the red tape... compared to the smaller places I've worked at, there are far more people and steps involved in getting things done.

On the upside though, the projects at CBC are much cooler than my previous jobs... just simply because of the content of each project... it's news, sports, arts, or entertainment... aside from the banner ads on the website, my work is detached from the world of marketing and advertising.

Amen to that. From my fuzzy recollections of life in the private sector, I don't remember having to write up a Project Charter every time I wanted to blow my nose. Then again, I didn't have to make a profit doing it.

I think this is why secondments, work exchanges and internships are such a good idea. Employees get to trade places for a while, distill these sorts of lessons learned, and bring them home.

If only you could keep the demo Mercedes...