Good morning dear readers!

Your humble blogger was doing research on Workers’ Comp as he almost always does to help him fall asleep at night when I came across an article regarding barista wrist injuries.

To be fair, at first I misread the title and thought this was a report on workers comp barrister wrist injuries sustained while doing all that wrist wringing while litigating cases at the Board.  Halfway through the article I realized it was about common injuries sustained by coffee shop employees.  Well, in for a penny in for a pound.

Insurance Journal reports on a study performed by AmTrust insurance company which found that the most common injury for coffee shop employees was wrist injury related.  The study also found that the average wrist injury in a coffee shop employee resulted in almost one year off work!

This got me running numbers in my head immediately.  So if you are going to follow along, pop that Tylenol, down that scotch, and let’s begin.

In San Mateo, California (just as an example), the minimum wage is $15/hour.  So, let’s say your average coffee shop is trying to stay above minimum wage and pays its workers $16/hour.  $16 per hour times 2,000 hours/week equals an early salary of $32,000.  So, a year of TD at that rate is $21,333.

Add to that lifetime medical treatment (let’s remember between smartphones, typing and continued work as a barista these injuries do not get better with time).  Roughly speaking, let’s estimate $25,000 in medical treatment over the life of the claim, including carpal tunnel release surgeries, wrist guards, and perhaps even some chiropractic care.

Then let’s talk PD.  Estimating permanent disability due to loss of range of motion, perhaps an add-on for pain, and possibly grip loss, let’s assume 10% permanent disability on one wrist which is worth $8,772.50.  Finally, let’s assume there is a medical legal exam ($2,000) and generic claim administration costs.  So, again, speculating at costs, let’s just say that all goes smoothly and the insurer is out $60,000.

Now during that year that the barista was off work, the coffee shop had to pay someone else the same $32,000 a year to get the job done.  The employer still had to carry the costs of insurance, taxes, etc.  So with all those costs in mind, I cannot help by wonder if anyone has been to the Metreon recently in San Francisco?

“What’s with the non-sequitur?” you might ask.  The SF Metreon has a fully automated barista.  It does not take breaks, it does not get sick, and it does not charge overtime.  It does not file lawsuits against its employer for slights, real or imagined.  So while all the costs above are for a worker and his or her replacement for $8 hours/day 5 days/week, the automated barista will work whenever the shop is open – be it 8 hours or 18, Monday through Sunday.

According to this article, the CafeX (as just one example) costs $25,000.  That means for the cost of one wrist claim as speculated above, a coffee shop could have two robot baristas, and thus avoid the need for a Barrister (see what I did there?).

As average length of disability compounds with the growing cost of labor, how long before the terminator serves your next latte?