Monday, October 19, 2009

Zero Tolerance, Work Edition.

Zero tolerance isn't found only in schools. Bill Jones, a bus driver for the Springfield, Illinois Mass Transit District was suspended for one day without pay earlier this month for violating the District's dress code. The offending item of apparel? A pink tie. He was wearing it in recognition of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In Springfield St John's Hospital and The American Cancer Society have been promoting a "Real Men Wear Pink" campaign which encourages men to wear pink on Friday's during October. That didn't matter to the head of the Transit District. After his suspension a memo went out stating it was all right to wear pink, but the suspension and the day without pay is still in effect.

In one sense it is good that they recognized the over-reaction, but not to return the mans pay is ludicrous. Why is it a lot of bosses have a problem admitting that they made a mistake? Trying to fix it half way only compounds the problem. It ends up leading to unwanted publicity, including about a two minute discussion on The View. It is not clear whether he mentioned he was going to wear the tie before he did it. Regardless, docking him a days pay is overkill.

2 comments:

Al Penwasser said...

I don't get it. I can't believe they had a problem with a man wearing pink. Unless a tie was ALL he was wearing, it's a load of crap. Which is brown.

Jeff said...

Has this person not watched any football--college or pro--over the last few weeks? As the son of a breast cancer survivor, I'm royally offended.