Flagging Management Overreaction 0

Stupid, but typical of American management:

James Krapf, 31, an 11-year veteran of the department, disobeyed an order to clear decorations from the outside of his locker, a policy established in August in response to a cartoon that some found offensive. Krapf took down two other stickers from his locker Thursday but refused to remove a small American flag in the upper left corner. He was sent home.

I saw this type of stuff a lot when I worked for large organizations. Someone does something improper, as in the backstory to this, displaying a cartoon that someone else felt had racist implications.

Rather than dealing with the issue–the cartoon–management makes a blanket rule, no locker decorations. It is classic “punish everyone rather to avoid dealing with the problem.”

At one of the large organizations I worked at, long business trips–often a week or more–were frequent. Employees on trips over five days were allowed to get their laundry done at the hotel.

Now, anyone who has ever used a hotel laundry service knows it is expensive. You are paying, not just for the laundry, but for the hotel to hold the laundry for pick-up, for someone to pick up and deliver the laundry from the plant, and for the hotel to hold the laundry for you to pick up when your work day is over (in some cases, even deliver it to your room), all on the same day.

Then management discovered that one person (who happened to be part of my little department) was bringing his laundry from home to be done on expense–he commonly was putting in for laundry bills in excess of $100.00 ($25.00 to $30.00 was typical for four days worth of laundry back then).

His manager should have been raked over the coals for approving the darn expense reports in the first place. Instead, management responded by disallowing laundry service on all expense reports without advance permission from God.

That’s when we started washing out our skivvies in the hotel sinks (hotel shampoos double effectively as laundry soap).

Now, I’m not a big fan wearing American flag lapel pins or other American flag stuff; ostentatious displays of the symbols of patriotism often fall into the “Methinks thou dost protest too much” category. I have found that those who ostentatiously display the flag on their clothing or belongings often do so in support of distinctly unAmerican ideas.

Besides, most of wearable flag stuff violates flag etiquette (which mandates, among other things, that the flag or representations thereof should not be used as wearing apparel).

But this is a loser for the management of the Chester City Fire Department.