We were both fizzing with anger. Her cat had left the building, possibly to avoid her ranting.
The OSM is not a woman prone to flights of fancy. Unlike me, she takes a meticulous approach to anything she does. She has a gong to prove it.
She knows the importance of proper process. She spent decades determinedly working on ways to improve processes where she found them wanting in many areas affecting consumers of health services.
She also knows a thing or two about fair treatment of women workers.
In 1974, newly graduated, she joined about 600 other dental nurses to march on Parliament to protest about their poor pay and conditions.
Noel O’Hare, who wrote a lively history of the profession, described the march as like "lancing a boil of discontent that had built up over decades".
"It was about the lack of respect they’d been shown as grown women and professionals ...
"The march was a statement that they weren’t going to put up with it any more. It changed everything."
Given that background, on Tuesday last week when the news broke of the scandalous abuse of process over the pay equity changes the government was ramming through, it was no surprise the OSM was livid.
We are supposed to believe while Finance Minister Nicola Willis had concerns about the pay equity scheme shortly after she took on the portfolio, she had to keep mum about them until last week.
Suddenly, weeks before a Budget which is looking ropey after foolish decisions taken last year on tax cuts, this becomes such an urgent issue it must be pushed through Parliament without notice and no opportunity for anyone to properly peruse it.
The secrecy ludicrously included not producing a regulatory impact statement because of fear it might be leaked.
What a load of absolute hogwash.
Act New Zealand leader David Seymour gleefully told us Work Relations Minister Brooke van Velden had saved the Budget with this legislation, and the Prime Minister had to admit the move would save the government billions.
Ms van Velden’s feeble attempts to answer the many questions from those opposed to the Bill did not provide any useful detail.
It does not help that she always sounds emotionally absent and patronisingly patient, like a parent pretending they are not angry when dealing with a naughty child.
The government is still waahing (as my 3-year-old granddaughter would say) that its worthy intentions have been misunderstood, suggesting apples are being compared with oranges to convince us the process being replaced is silly.
A little examination shows the comparator process is detailed, examining the skills, responsibilities and effort behind various jobs rather than comparing the specific tasks undertaken.
If the programme needed tweaking, let’s involve us all in that consideration.
We have not seen any cost-benefit analysis on the new law, making it harder for women to make claims and delaying reviews of claims already settled, contrary to provisions in contracts already signed.
I am no economist, but it strikes me among the benefits of paying more women fairly are they spend more, pay more tax, can buy better food for their families, have less stress in their lives and are more likely to stay in their jobs than seek other employment, go on the dole or move to Australia.
Having spent 10 and a-half years working as a teacher aide, before such workers settled their equity claim. I know the impact of undervaluing work dominated by women.
In my time in that job, which had limited hours and eight weeks without pay each year, people without extra income support could not survive.
That shut out young single men and women who might have been great at the job but could not afford to do it.
Teacher aides say their pay rates are no longer equitable, having gone backwards by up to 17% since their settlement in 2019, but the agreed review set for 2023, stalled because the Ministry of Education did not accept their position, has now been pushed out another four years by the new law.
I am not sure this government has grasped how angry this legislation has made women across the country, not just those directly affected by the new rules.
Its cynical scrambling to shift the news focus to concern about the impact of social media on our under-16s is a nonsense. There will be much huff and puff about this and nothing meaningful will come of it. It will prove too complex.
If coalition politicians are stupid enough to think women enraged by the pay equity law change are like easily distracted toddlers, perhaps they need to bone up on what happens when you lance a boil.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
