No Short Pants…
Posted on May 23, 2009 - 10:01pm by Marshall J. Gruskin in Trucking
While I was tightening the last strap on a load, a “supervisor” came from nowhere and told me short pants and sandals were not allowed on the property. “Why?”, I asked. “Company policy”, I was told. “So you waited to tell me this after more than an hour? Let me finish this strap and I’m out of here – and I’m not wearing sandals.” I held back what I really wanted to tell this freak of corporate bureaucracy.
When I went inside the dumpy trailer that was the shipping and receiving office, the same moron pointed to a sign that said no short or sandals. “For the next time you’re here”, he said. “Why don’t you post that OUTSIDE”, I said before walking back to my truck not saying thank you. I’m saying thank you a lot less these days. By the way, there are were NO discernable safety threats at this place that would make wearing shorts a problem.
As more workers are being laid off or terminated, a disturbing number of what were formerly nerdy creepy middle managers, in a effort to remain employed, are taking lower level jobs like loading and unloading trucks in warehouses everywhere. And so, a whole new “flock” of anal retentive morons are now working in shipping and receiving. This was certainly the case with my NO SHORTS PANTS enforcer of ridiculous company policy. This idiot couldn’t be trusted with a pencil. In fact, whenever he needs to write anything, I’m sure his supervisor (a former VP) needs to come down from some higher floor with a key to unlock the pencil box. And he better not be wearing short pants or sandals.
Following up on posts by Porter, Linda and Everitt all this “oversight” is out of control. There is OSHA, the DOT (both at the Federal and State level) and the FMCSA, the CVSA, the UCR, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration; the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators; Transport Canada; and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation in Mexico, the US Customs, Homeland Security and of course the FBI, the State Police and Highway Patrol, local cops and the ATA and OOIDA, the Federal Highway Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It’s enough to make your head spin and I’m sure there are more to add to the list.
Tough. You took away my radar detector, but I will continue to wear my beloved shorts everywhere I go. Many places that insisted on drivers wearing so much PPE (personal protection equipment) that you either got heat stroke, couldn’t move or both, are going out of business. Many were union shops primarily in the Northeast or places like Gary, IN. Hey, one of my first tattoos will be the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. And, most definitely, Linda, we are getting dumber as a nation. And Porter, moving to Mexico is looking better and better.
Photo credits are: http://www.sarasotaemporium.com/barney%20fife.jpg, http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W3tjOl_HpD0/SLlidTuzaPI/AAAAAAAAAH8/u85_78QbNvU/s400/dam_workers.jpg,
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“Safety”
That is used for a variety of coercive activities, many not having much to do with safety at all. Mostly it’s “follow the rules” but the enforcing personnel either have no discretion nor the intelligence to know when the rules don’t or should not apply.
My first experience with “safety” officers was back in viet nam. When things were slack (I was in munitions hauling bombs to B-52’s) safety was very important. When things got “hairy” though, for example , LineBacker II, well “safety” took a back seat to “get er done.”
Some years ago I was hauling a piece to an oil refinery south of San Antonio Texas. It was summer and it was HOT. Way past a hundred degrees in the shade and there was no shade. “Safety” dictated that I wear a Nomex coverall that covered me head to foot while on the premises. I never got within half a mile of the actual refinery itself, unloading my piece in the back of beyond out amongst the cactus and rattlesnakes. Still I had to wear the Nomex suit, AND steel toed boots, And a hard hat, AND safety goggles.
I about died from heat stroke.
Be Safe.
Back in the late 80’s I saw a driver get his head split open with a piece of steel pipe and a forklift operator get fired because they failed to fellow stupid rules of the loading dock. The driver was handed a hard hat at the gate and threw it on the floor of his truck and preceded to chain down his load while being loaded by the forklift operator. Two big signs on the entrance to the lot and on the building next to the loading area read “hard hat at all times and remain in your truck while being loaded”. As the ambulance hauled the driver off to the hospital the supervisor fired the forklift driver for not following the rules. Sometimes drivers are like teenagers, if I don’t understand the rules then they must be stupid. I was taught as a kid that when I’m in someone’s house to follow their rules no matter how stupid I think they are, and give thanks for being invited into their house. You must be from the its “all about me” generation.
If you’re referring to me? No…I was born in fifty one. I’m a boomer.
I wasn’t advocating breaking the rules either. In both instances I mentioned I very carefully followed the rules….even when it made things less safe. In fact during the viet nam conflict I almost got an article 15 cause I did.
You see the speed limit in the bomb dump was ten miles per hour. Only problem was that none of the lights in the truck I drove worked. I worked nights. None of the instruments worked either. Guessing the speed was all you could do. I guessed too slow it seems. I was threatened with dereliction of duty for driving too slow. Then… when I drove what I considered to be the proper speed i was threatened (again) for driving too fast. Then…during Linebacker II I was threatened with a commendation for working three or four days straight with no sleep.
Didn’t get the commendation though…reckon it was something I said?
Yup….you should always follow the rules. Even when they are stupid. Our lord and masters know best. It worked at Nurenburg for the germans and it worked for Captain Calley at Mai Lai..
Oooo, Lee, wrong again. Generation Me describes anyone born in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s. I was born in 1955.