Transition

With so many folks on vacation this week, I thought I’d take a moment to introduce some new folks to all of you. I’ve worked at some pretty interesting places over the years. I’ve worked with some very nice people, very personable. On the other hand, I’ve worked with some really outrageous characters! When I relate the stories from past jobs, people can’t believe some of these people were employed!

Let’s go back a few years to a service industry company I used to work at for many years. The service guys who worked with us, wellsome of them were rather sketchy. One day, very early in the morning, the phone rang in the office. It was a man on his cell calling to complain about one of our service guys. I thought at first he was calling about bad driving, but it only it got worse. This man says he regularly drives alongside this driver because he must live near him. He sees him on a regular basis and he was also a customer of our company. On this particular morning, this service driver decided it would be a good idea to stop along a main thouroughfare, pull over to the side of the road, and pick up a KNOWN prostitute and let her into the car. The caller, who was at this point obviously a very conservative man, was VERY upset and was aghast that this employee would not only pick up a prostitute, but in a COMPANY vehicle!!! I was so embarassed and irritated that I was the one dealing with this upset customer and had to make excuses for this idiot co-worker. WHY would he think he wouldn’t get caught?? He was stopping in an area known for prostitutes. Even if, IF, this was all very innocent ( I HIGHLY doubt that though) and he knew her or was trying to give her a ride (not THAT kind of ride! Get your mind out of the gutter!) in his truck, it’s all about the perception. The company name, phone number, business license & contractors license is ON the truck! What a really bad, not thought out idea!! And during rush hour! Not in the middle of the night or during off peak hours.

So since it was so early in the morning, the manager hadn’t even dragged his butt into work yet. So I had to take down this callers’ name and phone number and tell him I’d have the manager call him back. Poor guy, he didn’t believe me at first, but I reassured him that the second the manager walked in, I would have him call him back. And he did of course and just shook his head in disbelief that he now has to fire a guy who had been there for a few years. A good worker too, it seemed like such a waste.

In another circumstance, I had to turn in my OWN service guy for bad driving!! I didn’t want to do it, but he was driving very dangerously and on a busy crowded freeway. I was off that day and I spotted our trucks logo ahead of me. I was driving about 65-70mph on this busy freeway. I see that he is up ahead of me, but I wasn’t sure who it was. Then I saw his vehicle # on the side and I knew who it was. He was driving at least 75-80mph and was towing a trailer behind his truck. VERY bad idea to drive that fast while towing a trailer! It’s a bad idea to drive that fast in ANY vehicle, let alone a 2 ton service truck full of equipment while hauling around a 1/2 ton trailer!!! Since I didn’t have this drivers cell phone number to warn him to slow down, I was forced to call the office. And who answers the phone?? The manager of course! And our work phones have caller i.d., so the manager answers the phone “Hey, Sassy! What’s up??”. I said to the manager “Hey, I’m on the freeway and so-and-so is driving ahead of me. I don’t really want to get him in trouble or written up, but he’s got to slow down! He’s hauling a trailer behind his truck and the freeway is crowded. Before he gets a ticket or causes an accident, get him on his cell and tell him to slow it down”. So the manager agreed not to bust him or expose me, so he called the driver and told him that another driver called in to tell him to slow his truck down.

Have any of you had to bust a co-worker for doing something wrong or unsafe?? Let me know!

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