The guy at the bowling lane next to mine was wearing an elaborate brace on his wrist, typical equipment favored by those who take this otherwise relaxing game seriously. A few minutes after watching him roll his third consecutive strike of the evening, I considered buying a brace of my own. But the orthopedic support in question wasn’t in place to ward off bowler’s wrist. The wearer explained that he had worked for years as a short-order cook and had contracted a serious case of carpal-tunnel syndrome. “My doc says I have to keep this thing on so I can collect disability,” he said between swigs of beer. Hold the stethoscope, I thought. If this strapping strike-thrower could roll a 12-pound bowling ball down the lanes all evening, how in the name of Ben Gay was he too infirm to flip hamburgers at work? Don’t bet your health insurance premium waiting for an answer on that one. If you grew up around hard-working people, chances are you know — or are related to, married to or are yourself — someone looking to collect workers’ compensation. Don’t get me wrong. Compensating workers for on-the-job injuries is one of the greatest concessions ever granted to labor, right up there with paid vacations and free long-distance calls made from our desk phones. Thousands of workers are legitimately injured — some even killed — each year on the job, and their families wouldn’t survive without workers’ comp. An independent study by producers of the PBS series “Frontline” discovered that only 1 percent to 2 percent of claims are false. But somewhere along the line, it seems that workers’ comp became something of a lottery for folks like Mr. Wristache back at the bowling alley. When I moved furniture years ago, guys would wrench their backs and joke that “this could be my lucky break” hoping that a severe enough injury, or the appearance thereof, meant they’d never lift another sleeper sofa in their lives. I worked for a time at a phone soliciting firm beside a woman who wore a neck brace to bolster her case for compensation due to repeatedly bending her neck to answer phones. I always wondered how the injury managed to disappear just in time for her to go slam-dancing at a nearby punk club. Maybe all of these folks were, indeed, suffering and unable to work like they used to. Or maybe they just realize that not working is a job clearly worth fighting for.

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