Monday, January 11, 2010

Sleeping On The Job.


It is never a good idea to sleep on the job, especially if you are a prison guard. Working there is dangerous enough when you are fully alert. This picture has been making the rounds. It was taken at Rikers Island late last year. The guard was sleeping while on duty in the infirmary. She has been reassigned pending an investigation. The guard who took it has also been transferred for violating a no-cellphones policy. The union has jumped to her defense. One statement they made was "Many correction officers are forced to work 70 to 80 hours of mandatory overtime.
Since we don't know the particular circumstances of that particular officer, we are not going to condemn her. She may have been sick." I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but if she was sick she had no business being there. Also I would like to know what time frame that overtime accumulates. Is it a week, two weeks, a month, how long? The one quote that I don't agree with is a knock on the guard who took the picture. "We believe it was highly suspect for the other officer to take a picture and potentially jeopardize her safety." How did the other officer jeopardize her safety by taking a picture? Didn't she jeopardize her own safety by sleeping?

Too many times now people want to play the blame game. "The devil made me do it." "I had too much sugar and I couldn't think straight." "My parents never taught me it was wrong." There are too many excuses. It is refreshing when you actually hear someone admit they are the one who messed up. It is too bad that doesn't happen more often.

1 comment:

Caron said...

I agree that too many people don't just apologize and get it over with. All that blaming and the excuses just make you look smarmy.

The word verification for this comment is shnessit, which makes me think Snoop Dogg works for Blogger.