Well, it happens to the best of us. You start out with the best of intensions but are soon thwarted by a jackass, commonly know as “the boss”.

In a prior life, I was a warehouse supervisor for a major grocery store chain. Since I show little compassion for idiocy or remorse for feeling this way, as you can imagine, I was very popular.

Anywho, regardless of what they thought of me, my goal was always to get the job done and follow the rules. That is, unless it meant one of “my guys” would be endangered.

The following is a letter I sent to my boss in response to my decision to allow smoking inside the building. A decision that was made easy due to the fact that the typical Central New York snowfall had over-stressed a awning meant to shelter and protect us from the dreaded annual 180 inches of “white hell”.

Note: Names have been changed to protect the “not so innocent”.

(name deleted),

I would like to thank everyone who has shown concern about smoking in the hallway. It is refreshing to see concern for the health and well being of our Associates. However, I am interested to know why this same concern was not shown for the awning’s serious situation.

As you are probably aware, on Friday, I learned that a section had fallen due to the excessive weight of the snow. When I heard this, I began to doubt the stability of the remaining sections, especially the perishable food side of the warehouse, which had many times the snow of the section that had already collapsed.

There was no mention of any precautions to be taken or even a note alerting anyone that a section had fallen earlier that day.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the section above the warehouse entrance had begun to bend and warp. At that time, I advised everyone to avoid exposure to that area.

In short, I told them to smoke outside at another area or, if need be, inside until our maintenance department could remove the snow.

Now that the snow has been removed, the “no smoking” policy will again be enforced and the complaints should cease. I apologies for the inconveniences to those who object to the smell of smoke, however, I do not apologies for taking action on this situation. No one else seemed to think there was much to worry about.

It’s a good thing the section I had noticed callapsed later that night after we had gone home. Imagine if that piece had fallen a few hours earlier when someone was standing outside the entrance smoking!

OSHA wouldn’t have had a difficult time showing negligence on (name deleted)’s part due to the fact that one section had already fallen and the possibility existed that other sections could fall, possibly injuring someone.

I cannot understand why our maintenance department did not at least remove the snow from the section above the entrance. Neither would OSHA.

To finish, I would again like to assure you that this was an isolated incident and, perhaps, it could have been handled differently, however, I was only concerned with the immediate danger to our Associates, our company, and ourselves.

Thank You,

-HIGHg
Whse Supervisor

Long story short, this letter was passed on to those whom had complained about the smell of smoke in the building.

I never heard anything about it again.

Unless you count “my guy’s” appreciation for their safety.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 2:21 am and is filed under Random Crap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.