From Bob's Cluttered Desk

The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) issued a report recently that they say shows benefits paid to injured workers in the US have continued to decline, while covered employment and wages continue to rise. This was a surprise for many, since, with the exception of Oklahoma reforms in 2014, no state has taken any…

I have been in West Virginia all week, attending the All Committee Conference of the Southern Association of Workers’ Compensation Administrators (SAWCA). One of the better panels this week was comprised of insurance carriers who discussed many of the challenges they have operating across 50 states in this heavily regulated industry. I’ve heard a lot…

When it comes to violent fights, stupid shenanigans and just outright weird stories, the restaurant chain Waffle House has long been the leader to beat. It is starting to appear, however, that their long-held reign as Bell of the Bizarre Ball might be over. In the last few weeks, a new contender has emerged, and…

I recently came across an article intended to help restaurateurs better control their workers’ compensation costs. It contained a lot of good points and advice to accomplish the stated goal. However, having cut my teeth in the restaurant industry, there were a few points that the article left out.  Naturally it is my duty to correct…

I was working on a blog post this morning that turns out to have been based on an entirely fictional story. Researching it a bit further, we discovered that it was what has become commonly called “fake news,” and therefore not worthy of further dissemination. It is a shame, because its ribald nature was a…

A post appeared last week in Jon Gelman’s blog that was written by guest blogger, attorney Jon Rehm. It was subsequently republished on our site earlier this week. It questioned the reasoning and practicality of presenting awards to injured workers; specifically, he addressed the Comp Laude event held in California last month. His criticism centered on…

We had projected that this blog, From Bob’s Cluttered Desk, would see it’s 6,000,000th reader sometime around November 4, 2019. That milestone came a few days earlier than originally anticipated. As part of the 20th anniversary of this website, we decided to run a contest to mark the approaching achievement for this 8-year-old blog. We built a…

There is pretty much one thing you can count on when it comes to reality television, and that is the fact that much of it is not real. While that view is fairly prevalent here in the United States, a workers’ compensation case in Australia will no doubt reinforce the concept there as well. Last week Australian…

There are those in the field of Philosophy that will tell you that the “slippery slope” argument is not an acceptable one. In fact, in the arena of Formal Logic it is referred to as the “Slippery Slope Fallacy” and any reasoning that attempts to use it is declared to be invalid.  I suspect those…

This morning finds me in Pittsburgh to attend the 105th annual convention for the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions (IAIABC). The last few days of travel have left little time for writing – which is odd considering we are in a push to reach the 6,000,000-reader mark in the next week or so.…