A photo sent to my Facebook page shows an engineer peering from his locomotive with a big grin on his face… and not wearing safety glasses. Another viewer posted that the photographer was irresponsible for posting a photo of an engineer who was in violation and who could lose his job if management saw it. Would that really happen? They would fire him for that? Doesn’t sound plausible to me.
Yes, they would discipline the engineer for the safety-rule violation, and possibly also the photographer for unauthorized camera use on the property.
One has to be very careful about posting employment statuses on Facebook. I have a friend and coworker who would post, well, let’s say “brutally honest” things on Facebook, and it cost him his job (they were lying in wait for him to make the slightest mistake). He did get back to work with restored back pay, and is now happily retired (he’s definitely retired; I think he’s happy).
Dave Statter refers to it as “career suicide by social media.” It’s a pretty wide ranging phenomenon. As the term implies, social media has a lot to do with it. Sometimes it’s self-inflicted (ie, an individual posts something himself or in cahoots with a friend), sometimes it’s collateral damage, as with Ulrich’s example (which may have been taken by someone from public property, too).
Among the fire videos Dave posts on his site are other videos that serve as examples of firefighters behaving badly on camera. Some of it makes you shake your head in wonder.
Cameras are everywhere, and people freely post the photos that they’ve taken, especially if it could be sensational.
But it’s not always social media. A fire inspector in California brought down the wrath of the workplace safety folks when a picture of him inspecting a roof appeared in a newspaper. There was no fall protection in place, and somebody from the state agency saw the photo. Fines were paid.
It’s a mixed blessing. Knowing that you could be photographed at any time might make you work safer, but it also means that something otherwise harmless you might do (like toss a souvenier “comfort pack” out to a fan or kid) could get you in trouble.
Well, if they know about it they’ll have to apply some kind of discipline.
If someone gets hurt and a lawyer can show that the safety rule covering the situation was not enforced it’s gonna’ be big bucks.
These days, common sense is out the window. The common sense thing to do would be for a supervisor to walk up the the offending engineer and issue a simple verbal reprimand. Then let it go unless the engineer keeps doing it. But there would be no record of that. So the lawyer could claim non-enforcement of the safety rule and there would be no record to refute the accusation.
People have been fired for saying something on Facebook. Do not let this happen to you!
Any wonder real railroaders are circumspect when posting here?
Or anywhere else for that matter. I have tons of MOW photos, but they will not be posted on line until most of the people in them are retired and not subject to discipline. TTBOMK, they all work safely but why take a chance.
I would be in ths situation that it was his union affiliation that got him the legal advice that after an appearance with the entity of his “Labor Board; this individual got back to work after his " little run in”…
As a person growing up in a Mid South Community, I knew a number of railroad employees, and they all seemed tho have stories and instances of ‘friends’ who had run afoul of various job-related, work rules at their place of employment. One guy I was familiar with had a real familiarity with “the jug”; he was constantly wanred and covered for by his fellows. He would get ‘laid-off’, or fired, wait a period of time; go protest his situation and get a hearing, and be reinstated with back pay and allowances. One of his little misteps was while checking a set of 6 axle units, he set a couple of hand brakes, and then put the units in run 8 to ckeck them after maintenance. The hand brakes failed and the motors wound up in’ the pit’. After coming back to work after that he died under a back-hoe
One really has to be careful. I had someone call me the other day, and I wanted to see if I could do business with him. I googled his name, and within 10 minutes I had his bio, his Facebook and Linked In page, and even a virtual tour of his recently purchased house. I guess the key take away would be: before doing anything pretend that 20 people are watching you and ask yourself if that’s ok.
One popular definition of integrity is what a person does when he thinks nobody will ever find out. I would wonder about a person who thinks it’s irresponsible to post an image because it could affect the employment of someone who violates corporate policies/state or federal laws. I leads me to assume that in his mind, the violation is irrelevant or of comparatively lesser value and that only a secure employment has value worth protecting. IOW, an unsafe driver is as good as a safe one, as long as either’s working faults are obscured or withheld from the eyes of a more responsible management.
I know that wasn’t your concern, Ulrich, since you merely asked about the veracity of the claim that he could have been fired, but I tend to get sidetracked by ethical problems when I see them. Protectionism at the expense of public safety seems like a bizarre assignment of value to me.
The future has arrived with social media. We have met Big Brother and he be we.
Companies(not just railroads) have hired socila media specialists that look at websites to see what employees say about the company.Some people ask for pictures most do not.Some people think they are the boss and post every picture they can of a possible violation.
stay safe
Joe
In line with your comments, when I became a parent, I began holding myself to a simple standard.
“What would my daughters think if they could see me and what I was doing?”
All it takes is a hard-nosed employer and some jerk watching everything you do hoping you’ll screw up so they can get you in trouble, and you can find yourself swimming in deep sewage.
Hardnosed, or conscientious and responsible? I guess it depends on the person observing. I wonder if the good folks in Lac Megantic would have preferred the former or the latter.
We aren’t talking about major rules violations or Federal regulations being violated here. Mostly they are minor, sometimes very minor, rules that have been violated. Probably, doing it absentmindedly. Rules that by themselves would garner only a “coaching” event.
However, those “coaching” events can add up. Depending on the powers that be in charge, it’s only when being coached for the same reason multiple times will discipline be given. Our superintendent last year proposed that any employee on his territory be given a level one discipline if they had 5 coaching events for any offense in one year, not just in the same category. Even his line officers (most of them) thought that was crazy and it was not implemented. It was said that this person buys into the reasoning that some managers do, that people work safer and better when they are in fear of their job.
The thing is you can be following a rule, but a manager may not think you did it to satisfy his/her interpretation. (My conductor and myself received a coaching event once because the manager riding with us didn’t think we were calling signals LOUD
Going to work, every trip, wondering if at some point I haven’t violated one of the rules or not complied with a plethora of rules defining my every action or, perhaps not satisfying “ERAD”, which moniters every throttle possition, brake application, horn blast, and on and on. Taking a job which I have always enjoyed and taken great pride in and making it a source of anxiety. A job, where an employees good judgement was once considered a valuable tool, but now only blind complience is acceptable. This is the modern Class 1 railroad enviornment. And, now I have to worry about a posting on facebook being possibly used against me in an investigation. Great! I’m glad I’m closing in on retirement!
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SALfan
All it takes is a hard-nosed employer and some jerk watching everything you do hoping you’ll screw up so they can get you in trouble, and you can find yourself swimming in deep sewage.
Hardnosed, or conscientious and responsible? I guess it depends on the person observing. I wonder if the good folks in Lac Megantic would have preferred the former or the latter.
We aren’t talking about major rules violations or Federal regulations being violated here. Mostly they are minor, sometimes very minor, rules that have been violated. Probably, doing it absentmindedly. Rules that by themselves would garner only a “coaching” event.
However, those “coaching” events can add up. Depending on the powers that be in charge, it’s only when being coached for the same reason multiple times will discipline be given. Our superintendent last year proposed that any employee on his territory be given a level one discipline if they had 5 coaching events for any offense in one year, not just in the same category. Even his line officers (most of them) thought that was crazy and it was not implemented. It was said that this person buys into the reasoning that some managers do, that people work safer and better when they are in fear of their job.
The thing is you can be following a rule, b
I’m talking hardnosed, as in virtually no tolerance for any transgression, and VERY publicity-shy. I’m also talking about an employer which seemed to attract an inordinate number of managers who would step on their own mother to get half a step up the ladder; before becoming managers, those types would not hesitate to turn in a fellow employee to “stand out” and begin their slither into management.
Yes, Mr. Sanctimonius, I’m sure the people in Lac Megantic would have called being hardnosed about failure to tie down a train properly conscientious and responsible. I would too, because that failure actually matters. I’m talking about failures or transgressions that don’t really matter.
Do you really think the 'Mr. Sanctimonious" is helpful to my comprehension of your point? Please be assured, it’s as irritating to me as any ad hominem would be, and is therefore not the least bit of an aid to your cause. Kindly find another approach to your argumentation.
In what place of work have you any experience where the employees tell management which transgressions “…don’t really matter?” In any place where I have worked, it goes very much the other way around. It is management who determine the parameters of work, the roles of each paid position, and the descriptions of work. Management is responsible for imposing safety measures if for no other reason than their insurers would refuse to pay claims if they learned the management encouraged a culture of the routine ignoring of safety infractions. IOW, it’s the bottom line that drives policies. Some employees never figure that out, or they dont care if they ever do. They would rather protect each other for the moment than to consider the heady implications of future risks…again, as it happened at Lac Megantic.
It is one thing when management gets it wrong. It’s terrible for every employee below them. But when individual employees begin to neglect policies where their continued employment is contingent upon their orientation to those policies, why all the angst over the possible loss of employement if management finds out? What kind of an organization, o