Judgement errors will cost you your job

A group of firefighters face theft allegations over filling up a person's pool from the hydrant while on duty.

http://newsdaily.com/Quirks/UPI-1-20070621-16020200-bc-us-hydrant.xml

Now I most certainly understand the counties position on this, but can't anyone just presume this was just an error in judgement and stop trying to take them down for this? There's another article out there on the internet about how they could be facing charges as well as dereliction of duty charges.

Why are we criminalizing everything? What happened to a very stern warning and a note in the file about a serious lack of judgement? Is management so ineffectual these days that everything has to be criminalized and people prosecuted for an error in judgement?

If indeed there is proof of collusion that the firefighters did indeed have the intent to steal the water, then sure maybe they should be punished legally, but I can understand if it was all in a bit of fun and a copycat act from Extreme Home Makeover. Also, it would be easy for them to think of the water as not being a real cost, after all they come by and flush the hydrants all the time and watch that water go wasting away down the street.

I have a huge problem with employers and government taking such severe actions with employees over errors in judgement. They are talking about firing the men and sending them to jail. Will they ever work again in a decent paying job after that? How will they get by with a criminal record? Is this really in the best interest of the people on the whole?

Many employers no longer provide proper management or training duties. They wont hire you unless you're already trained, they expect you to do your work and make a sound judgement every time under every circumstance.

I've had friends and acquaintances who have been fired and denied unemployment for errors in judgement. This is the CEO model. CEO's get paid big bucks to make all the decisions and then get canned when they mess up (unless they have good friends). Of course they usually still have stock options and a huge separation package, while the average employee gets denied their unemployment.

I knew someone who's supervisor and manager had quit or transfered to other departments. She did the best she could. She had to balance the welfare of the company with the proper customer service for both the customers and the vendors. There was no one for her to ask questions of and no one to help. She erred on the side of customer service and the company complained to her she was costing them too much money. When she erred on the side of the companies bottom line, they told her she as losing them customers. Finally they had a big disagreement on what was the right way to handle a situation and she argued with them that their position would leave them open to liability and was against anything the company would have ever done before. So they fired her for insubordination because she wouldn't do as requested until she was sure they had heard her out. And they denied her unemployment benefits. In my state the employee pays for 80% of the unemployment insurance, so I find that just wrong.

Another friend made an error in judgement and the boss thought it was done on purpose and made sure the friend was fired for lying. He wasn't lying and unfortunately he forgot to cover his behind in the incident. He was used to working for reasonable people and never figured they would accuse him of lying. All the boss had to do was explain to him that he had made error in judgement to do what he did and ask him to take different action the next time, but the Boss had an axe to grind so my friend was fired.

Every employer wants you to walk in trained and expect you to always make perfect decisions. Then they fire you when you don't. Let's learn to manage our employees again and properly train them on what to do next time instead of destroying them when they mess up.

Let's give people the benefit of the doubt that maybe they just made an error in judgement before we take them down. We let pedophiles have another chance, let's let ordinary people have another chance when it comes to mistakes made in the line of employment.