Most of the factories I’ve worked in had a policy of “if we see your phone outside of the locker room you’ll get canned, period.”
In one of my jobs, the company acquired a smaller company; the factory they’d bought in Spain didn’t have a Safety Manager in spite of one being required by law. The new Safety Manager was from the “old” Spanish factory and one of the first things he tried to implement was the No Phones rule. He kept being told “bah, that’s for places with flammable liquids! We don’t have any flammable liquids here!”
And then one day, the policy made sense.
The bought factories made spray-on paints, which are solid and made by mixing finely-ground powders. This includes, for some effects, powdered aluminum; the guy working the aluminum-powder mixer in the Italian factory was incinerated when his cellphone rang as he was pouring aluminum powder in. Closed casket, the family wasn’t allowed to see him.
At least I have a job…my wife is looking and I don’t want to compete with her. As soon as she gets situated, then I will seriously look.
They treat employees as a necessary evil.
On the positive side, health insurance premium is paid for by the company and…alright, I’m stuck.
I started on the wrong foot with these people. Big issues using company phone/computer for personal bizness. I don’t have direct phone line, nor a cell phone so on my 1st day there, I e-mail wife letting her know I’m alive. Next day she e-mails me that her job is going away, I e-mail her back trying to talk her off the ledge. Flash forward a couple months. we get a small bonus every 4 months. For the review, the self scoring questions asks about use of company stuff. I figure that, if these psycho’s are actually watching me, I’d rather fess up than be caught in a lie. So I explained what and why. Needless to say I missed out on about 75% of my bonus and, from there forward, they were keeping a special eye on me.