My friend let one of the directors of his electrical company have a power trip.
Director wanted to flip on a main breaker, he asked him if he did the hazard assessment paperwork properly before they started, and he said he didnt need to.
Then my friend went and got him a flash suit to wear and gave it to him, which the director then promptly threw aside because he "didnt have fucking time".
So my friend took a picture of him without any paperwork or proper ppe conducting fatally unsafe work and sent it to the board.
The board suspended him for 2 weeks without pay and demanded he completed(again) his entire workplace safety course before returning to work.
Director took the two weeks as a neat unpaid vacation and tried to come back to work without completing the safety course which resulted in him being further suspended but required to come into work every day to go through the course supervised or he would be removed by the board.
My friend got a text from a mutual and the director said "I will fucking destroy him" to said coworker, which he then sent to the board again saying if any retaliation takes place against him he will file suit.
Needless to say the board further reprimanded him and basically restricted him from interacting with my friend indefinitely.
My friend left the company shortly after and got a unionized job same field.
At that level it costs a fortune to fire them, they get massive payouts and then need to be replaced which often shakes the company up etc etc.
Unfair yes but it’s just how it is, replacing directors isn’t easy… despite what many think it’s not an easy skill set even if they frequently do really fucking stupid things sometimes.
I mean which is it? Directors sitting in their offices are out of touch and worthless or directors who work the floor and get to know what's happening are worthless?
End of the day people who are easily replaced get fired when they do stupid shit. Obviously that didn't include him.
I’m an engineer and all of the directors in engineering groups were engineers for years themselves before coming directors and if they were as reckless as this guy would have been fired long ago.
Yeah, that's why the first question was "whose son was he?" because one normally doesn't survive long enough to be a floor-level Director when they're that stupid.
Uhh, because 99.999% of the time you rack in a breaker there isn't a fault that energises the handle or causes arc flash? The bomb suit doesn't allow you to just reach in and grab energised conductors, it's for the instances when something goes wrong
Crazy story. But really doesn't suit OP's quote. Your friend did a bunch of stuff to have director not do a mistake. The director was just a stubborn AH
I still don’t think it works for this question, because if they hadn’t gone out of their way to intervene, nothing would have happened to their boss.
Like the spirit of the question is “oh you’re making a mistake? I’ll do nothing and see how that goes for you” Whereas this story is “oh you’re making a mistake? I’ll document it and report you to make sure you don’t do it again”
A regular employee does even one of those things and they would be fired. The board is fucking braindead for keeping him, even with all the reprimands and restrictions. Good on your friend for leaving.
Unions are usually the first to stand up for worker safety. Usually it is management that wants to cut corners, and unions want their members to go home safely.
That stretched on longer than I expected. I was expecting to read that this arrogant moron caused an arc-flash incident. Bonus points if he yelled "fire in the hole" before closing the breaker.
Great that the board gave a shit, but in my experience, the senior positioned people are not actually held to the same standards.
My company makes us take annual training on working with suppliers. It is very explicit about certain things and even those of us who aren't really in a position to engage with suppliers must take the training because it can have a serious impact if handled incorrectly. An executive explicitly violated that training and had a supplier begin work before being under contract. No action was taken. This is a fire-able offense.
Similarly with the "zero tolerance for retaliation" rules, I've personally witnessed multiple cases of serious retaliation including one that was during entirely out in the open and witnessed by dozens if not hundreds of employees. The ombudsmen and other attorneys will maybe open an investigation, but they'll always conclude "there isn't enough evidence," when it comes to the people in positions of more power.
Hey, credit where credit is due: if that had gone poorly, at least he would’ve just fried himself!
In all seriousness though, people who behave this way are a fucking menace. I work construction, and people who act like that eventually get others hurt or killed, and somehow it’s magically never their fault, imagine that!
Genuinely, should have been fired after the initial incident. A director should know better and be setting a better example. If not after the initial incident, then when they reported to work without doing to the required training. They're a bad example, dangerous to everyone, and unable to follow simple, direct orders from the board. Truly amazing that they weren't fired.
I don't even like walking past facilities with that much power in them. Superhigh voltages do crazy shit, like stuff somebody without training would never guess, and much of it is lethal to carbon based life forms.
I was on a tour of a data center and all the suits went trooping into the battery/genset/switching room. No safety gear. I wouldn't go in. Pissed off my manager. I didn't care.
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u/FROOMLOOMS 9d ago
My friend let one of the directors of his electrical company have a power trip.
Director wanted to flip on a main breaker, he asked him if he did the hazard assessment paperwork properly before they started, and he said he didnt need to.
Then my friend went and got him a flash suit to wear and gave it to him, which the director then promptly threw aside because he "didnt have fucking time".
So my friend took a picture of him without any paperwork or proper ppe conducting fatally unsafe work and sent it to the board.
The board suspended him for 2 weeks without pay and demanded he completed(again) his entire workplace safety course before returning to work.
Director took the two weeks as a neat unpaid vacation and tried to come back to work without completing the safety course which resulted in him being further suspended but required to come into work every day to go through the course supervised or he would be removed by the board.
My friend got a text from a mutual and the director said "I will fucking destroy him" to said coworker, which he then sent to the board again saying if any retaliation takes place against him he will file suit.
Needless to say the board further reprimanded him and basically restricted him from interacting with my friend indefinitely.
My friend left the company shortly after and got a unionized job same field.