The OP is in a union environment (he’s mentioned this specifically in other threads), and union contracts can establish meaningful probationary periods. I’m usually right there with you on probationary periods are a polite fiction, but this is the exception to watch out for.
I don’t think the newbie was morally wrong for reporting it, but it would have been a hell of a lot nicer and strategic to let the other driver know he was going to. Sucking up to management is fine behaviour, but it’s best not to do it at the expense of your fellow employees.
I’ve been in a situation where we did like tattletales… specifically, where the tattler was telling on someone who was endangering our collective reputation as a school, or classmates’ careers, or our physical integrity; in at least one case, his unethical behavior was endangering lives (that dude ended up in jail on something he’d been doing at his job - it wasn’t us who told on him).
The fear of losing your job if you’re found out to not have told can be very powerful. Would I have told in the OP’s case? Probably not. But I understand doing it.
I’m glad it wasn’t me in the situation!
A couple of things to clear up that might have been vague:
I’m pretty sure the Veteran driver wasn’t told specifically who ratted him out. Management isn’t going to say, “Harry Snitchinstein, badge #6145 saw you tap a mirror against a pole”. Obviously its to their advange to just say, “we know you did it, but we’re not revealing how we know”. They way he probably found out who it was happened by people being blabbermouths- somebody sees/does something, and in an hour all the drivers know about it.
What it boils down to in the situation is that the new guy probably had no way of knowing for absolute certainty that a supervisor did/didn’t know he witnessed another driver do this. So he has 2 choices:
1: Stick up for the other driver and say nothing. Maybe nothing happens and the veteran driver’s driving record is preserved. But if a passenger in the new driver’s bus calls in and says he saw it happen, and that the new driver did nothing, he’s in trouble. Since he’s on probation, its totally management’s call on how to handle it regarding potential punishment/termination. Would he get fired for something like that? There’s no way to guarantee he wouldn’t is the big thing in this situation.
2: Rat out the other driver essentially by filing a report that he witnessed another transit vehicle make contact with a fixed object (A universal no-no, even if its mundane like the bus clips a rubbermaid garbage can or something benign). By doing this, he is preserving his own job security. The Veteran driver is not going to get fired for tapping a mirror because of his seniority; his punishment will be very marginal. Thus its a better trade-off for the new guy to make this decision.
Of course, people have mentioned that by taking Option 2 the new driver now runs the risk of alienating himself from the veteran driver. That’s true, but as other drivers in the driver’s room have told the veteran driver, the point is you shouldn’t be hitting shit with the bus in the first place! :o If that Veteran driver tried to ‘get even’ it would be really easy for the new driver to go to HR (if he wanted to take it that far, I would honestly try to drop the matter myself at that point) and point out that he is suffering from retaliation for doing his own job.
It’s a matter of what’s more important.
- Having a job that provides financial security for your family.
- Being known as a “stand up guy” by your former coworkers.
I’ll take #1, if Mr. Veteran Driver doesn’t like it, he can pay my mortgage and send my kid to college for me. I don’t care if it’s a 1% chance that I get caught non-reporting, it’s one more percent chance of getting canned than I want.
Sucky situation, to be sure. How exactly, though, would anyone find out that you saw something definitely? I guess if there were a really loud CLANG! when the sign was hit, then you wouldn’t want to take the risk of a passenger reporting it. But on the other hand, are you expected to know what every single noise that happens around your bus represents?
What if the guy just happened to be looking in a different direction at the time, heard a clang, looked over and saw a sign wobbling a little? Technically, he didn’t “witness” anything, he can only infer what happened in that situation. I don’t know how comfortable I’d be reporting something that I didn’t directly see, and I don’t know how management would find out that I definitively saw something that happened somewhere in the vicinity of my bus.
I know it’s all about CYA in these situations, but a system like this (or any zero-tolerance system, really) seems like it generates a set of problems along with the ones it solves.
Things that happen at work are treated differently than your everyday life. My husband is a construction safety officer, and the construction equivalent of a bus hitting a mirror but not doing any damage would need to be written up and investigated as a near miss. Near misses are documented and tracked for purposes of prevention and training; why did the mirror hit something? Do the drivers need refresher training? Does something need to be adjusted in the buses or the environment? You can’t fix a problem that you don’t know about.
I think you mean “nay” here. I’d say more but I fear Gaudere.
No one need have “blabbed” the ID of the new driver. The older driver knew where and when the incident happened, and very likely knew which other busses cross his path, and where. All he would have to do is look at the schedule for that date and know who was driving the other bus.
And regarding all the cameras, even if a camera caught the accident and the new driver’s bus in the same frame, that is no proof that the new driver actually noticed what happened. If it was a street corner or an onboard camera, it might be impossible to tell which way the driver was looking.
Well the problem is that being known as the office D-bag doesn’t exactly help your career either. I realize that bus driving is a mostly solitary profession, however there is still such a thing as reciprocity. If you screw over your coworkers, they will likely screw you over when given the opportunity. Or, in the case of newer employees, they may simply oastracize them which would prevent them from learning what they need to be successful.
Generally, creating a situation that encourages your staff to inform on each other is generally demoralizing and creates a negative work environment. What is the purpose of reporting these incidents? Is it to make improvements or simply to tally “demerits”?
These are public employees. Their salaries are paid by the taxpayers and passengers. It is about accountability to the public and for the public safety. This is not a situation where first and second line managers are making a bad call about how to motivate workers, it’s a reality of working for government (widely considered to be somewhat demoralizing). That level of accountability may well be set by the city/county.
If employees aren’t required to report incidents, they will never report incidents. One would hope that by requiring everyone to report their own incidents, and those of others, that people would own up to their own mistakes before someone takes out a van full of nuns.
True that. Someday one of those people might be promoted to being your new supervisor and have you pidgeonholed as ‘the office douchebag’, which does you no favors. Especially the next time a promotion opp comes up.
It can even be more in-your-face.
Being known as the office snitch will get everyone looking over everything you do. Every tiny mistake made being blown out of proportion. People who would normally have much empathy about a guy trying to support his family won’t have any to the snitch because ‘he tried to get X fired’.
Even worse, they can start making things up. There is no defense against that. 5 people say you did this…you say you didn’t.
I understand the folks that look at this ethically. However, in that work environment from your coworkers point of view there are grunts and there are management. Their first rule is to MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS - don’t help management yolk/abuse the fellow grunts. Being a snitch makes you loathsome to the common grunt.
{I spent much time younger being a grunt. Heck, even now I consider myself gruntish though a decent paid grunt}
I’m sorry , but what affect could it possibly have on the veteran driver that he barely clipped a pole with a bus. Why wouldn’t the guy have reported on himself, or if he didn’t notice it (since it was so minor) what possible ramifications could there be from sucha minor incident?
I can answer this from the POV of a bus driver’s daughter. My Dad recently was in the same situation as the driver in the OP. He swerved to miss a car that had suddenly swerved in front of him forcing him to clip a pole with the side mirror. His line of thinking was I either hit the car with the bus or the pole with the mirror - a no brainer. My dad immediately called this in himself.
He spent the next work day sitting around the office waiting for his mandatory drug test to come back. Now he has to spend a day attending a defensive driving course and will be suspended for some length of time (probably a few days, but he’s not sure). Seems the powers that be don’t care much about the why’s of the accident just that there was one. Policy mandates drug testing, a defensive driving class, and a suspension regardless of the reason.
So while the ramifications aren’t huge, they are a PITA, especially the (unpaid) suspension.