bad day to be drunk at work

[squidwood]

Today, I informed my supervisor that a fellow employee was possibly drunk at work.He was also reported by two other employees and was asked to take a breathalyser test.He declined and was let go.
How bloody stupid can people be?
We work in the steel industry with heavy lifting eqpt, trucks and giant fork lifts.
Unbelievable!

[NAKID]

What an idiot! He's lucky he didn't kill himself or someone else. You did the right thing...

[IZ]

seriously..how dumb!!   


Although..I was at Aikido last week and some of the guys were talking about random beer cans being in the pop machine and little fridges stocked with alcohol.  Hmmm.. 

[madmax178]

when I worked at the grocery store, one of the managers came in drunk all the time.  The finally got rid of him after about 20 years

[Howie]

Tough thing to do, but in an industry like yours you only have two choices.  Hide him and sober him up or report it.

[ducatiz]

My dad had a similar situation (but it was an accounting firm).. They let the guy go, he kept coming in drunk.

Turned out his wife had been cheating on him and had walked out a few weeks before.

He hanged himself 2 weeks later.

Dad had to take time off from work, he swore he'd never fire someone again for a personal problem but would force them to get help.

Sometimes these drunks are really troubled and just need a helping hand.  I agree this guy shouldn't have been driving heavy equ, but you never know what is making the guy drink.  He could hang himself or he could come in the following week and shoot up the place now.

[TiNi]

What an idiot! He's lucky he didn't kill himself or someone else. You did the right thing...

i agree you did the right thing, he could really end up hurting someone.
What the owner does with reported drunk, is not your problem.
do not feel guilty, this guy could hurt someone.

[monsterduc]

There was a fellow construction manager at one of my sites who was known throught the division as a drunk.  At the start of the project, my boss had an informal meeting with the four other superintendents on site to let us know to let him know if "Todd" ever came in drunk. 

The truth is Todd came into work looking rough almost every day and usually once a week, he was pretty loaded - evidenced by his intoxicating breath, bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and cheerful mood.

None of us ever called the boss.  Our reasoning was that Todd's reputation was known from the division president down.  If they were serious about doing something about him all they had to do be on site a few times a week, which is very easy since area managers (my boss' title) spend four of five days in the field.  We were upset that the higher ups were trying to push the burden of watching Todd on us when they knew full well how easy it would be to fix the problem on their own.

Todd is no longer a liability for that company.  He was laid off with the rest of us construction managers. 

[herm]

EVERY day is a bad day to be drunk at work.
nothing good will come of it.

//off topic//

hey iz_az..........tell me more about that avatar pic you have. i like it

[Super T.I.B]

When I was working on the wharves as an apprentice heavy vehicle mech, at least 4 blokes would turn up drunk every day. They would go to the pub before work, have maybe six beers for breakfast, sneak up to the pub between meal breaks for a quickie, go to the pub for lunch and down 4-6 beers in 40 minutes and after lunch, another couple of quickies they bought back with them. 

It was tolerated, nothing ever happened, I sometimes had to go with them  to the pub for lunch  . We would get calls from the boss to go and fix a mobile crane on a wharf or whatever, he would know which pub to ring! 

I remember the tradesman and I getting a call while at the pub to fix a crane that wouldn't start. All the tradesman took was a hammer.

The crane started straight away after he smacked it a couple of times with the hammer. 

Ahhh, good times.