Not because of any concern about the peoples’ work being done. But because the office had recently been the subject of one of Walter Jacobson’s “Perspectives” reports that showed workers goofing off.
THE
OFFICE COULDN’T afford to have any more public embarrassments. That is what I’m
sure is being felt these days by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District –
which is being sued by two of its former police officers who are upset that
they were fired for a series of infractions.
Including
being caught talking about goofing off on the job in ways that included napping and drinking.
Yet
we have two former police officers who have the nerve to take their case to the
courts, where they’re not only suing their former employer, but also the
Illinois State Police and Motorola.
They
want someone to pay, and pay big, for the fact that their behavior on the job
was less than professional and that they got caught!
IN
THIS PARTICULAR case, the two officers were showing a new recruit around the
water district’s plant in suburban Stickney and they were telling him about the
secret place where they kept a refrigerator stocked with beer so they could
drink, or nap, while on duty.
They
also used racial slurs to describe at least one of their colleagues.
The
reason we know about this conversation is because that the new recruit’s radio
microphone was activated, and their conversation was not only picked up, it was
broadcast over a frequency used by the Illinois State Police.
Hence,
according to the lawsuit now pending in the U.S. District Court, the rights of
the police officers were violated by the water district when they were fired
for goofing off on the job and using racial slurs.
BUT
THE STATE police also violated their rights by broadcasting their message to
everyone in the area with a police scanner set to the right frequency, and also
by Motorola – which came up with defective equipment with open microphone
problems.
As
pointed out in the lawsuit, there were at least 21 incidents in December 2014
that officials did nothing to fix. Which resulted in these particular officers
being denied their right to drink on the job, as well as make insulting
comments about whomever they wanted to.
Which
is the most pathetic part of this whole affair – someone wants to take absurd
behavior and try to turn it into their right. As though they’re somehow doing
us a favor by drinking on the job and going about spewing slurs about everybody
who isn’t exactly like themselves.
It
comes across as a bastardization of the rights that we are supposed to have in
this free society – if anything, it winds up providing the justification for
those in totalitarian societies to mock us as being hypocritical.
PERHAPS
IT’S BECAUSE I keep in mind any time I’m knowingly around recording equipment
to watch what I say. And law enforcement officers who openly wear such devices
ought to know this better more than anyone else.
Unless
they’re the type of officers who expect such technology to be used against
other people, and not themselves. Which sounds like the real violation of
anyone’s rights.
I
just wish I had known of this line of logic, because then I could have told my
supervisor in Cook County government where to stuff it. It was my right to nap
or goof off, regardless of what Channel 2 news cameras might pick up.
Although,
somehow, I suspect that attitude would have got me fired long before any
attempt to catch a little sleep off in the distant corner of the office where
we were out of sight of the bosses.
-30-
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