Priorities: Snow Days

[Most of this was written a few weeks ago, but since the weather has been deteriorating all day I felt it was a good day to throw this one out]

Today should be a snow day. It's not. I'm sitting at work writing this.

For fear of sounding like a whiner, I'm going to attack this issue. I assure you, I'm not whining, I am righteously outraged.

5:45am: "All County offices, and the Courts, are open." Grrr...

We only got 11 inches of snow in town. But it came down in less than 12 hours and its still coming down. Some parts of the county got 3 feet.

I would venture to say, with some authority, that the vast majority of people do not enjoy, look forward too, or appreciate having to drive in bad weather on snowy and icy roads. I know this because the vast majority of people I have ever known have complained about having to drive in bad weather on snowy and icy roads. Very few claim to enjoy it.

The truth of the matter is that I actually like getting out in bad weather. The worse the weather, the more I enjoy it. But I do not like to be compelled to put myself at risk. I like to be in control of when I go and where I go. Being expected to show up at work at a certain time puts too many constraints on my comfort levels.

And even considering myself "comfortable" driving in bad weather, there is still a heightened stress level. You can never control the other driver and therefore you are always subject to the poor judgement of someone else.

So when the powers that be, those that get to make the decisions affecting a large number of people, decide to force everyone else to come in to work when they truly should stay off the roads what message are they sending?

In the private sector the message is clear: profits before people. The need of the business to make a few more dollars outweighs and personal risk of any of the individual employees, even those making the decisions to call off work for the day or not.

But what of the public sector, where profit is no factor? Well, that is the interesting part. The public sector seems to be pressured by the private sector to follow its example. It is the effort of corporatists to mold everyone's thinking to see the world simply as "profits before people."

But other than the perception of reduced revenues, what are the real consequences to calling off a day of work for poor weather conditions? In most cases there are no real consequences.

In our modern society few people do real work which affects the day to day survival of the majority of other people. There are admittedly some crucial services which must be maintained, but most people are not employed in life-sustaining pursuits. If the rest of us were to just stay off the roads, then those that must be out and about would be able to do so in a much safer environment.

Wait, you are going to argue and say: but there ARE consequences! If I don't come in every time the roads are slick I will be penalized. My firm will lose money and it will reflect poorly on me.

Are those real consequences or abstract consequences? Here is the test:

Will your ABSENCE from the work place case bodily harm to any other human being either on the day of your absence or within a reasonable amount of time? If you answer "yes" then there are real consequences. If you answer "no" then there are only abstract consequences.

Profit is an abstraction. These days almost no one does work that directly provides water, food or shelter for their own household. We all work for pay, which we then exchange for goods and services provided by other people.

The question is not whether or not your job is a necessary component of the economy or society, but whether or not it has some acute bearing on the health, safety or welfare of people. If you man the power station then yes, you probably need to be at work in our current societal configuration. Most people are not prepared to lose their heat and/or electricity in the middle of winter. If you are a bank teller, then no one is going to die if you are late to work or stay home. And the power station worker can still do their job even if they can't do their banking on any given day.

And in the case of the power station worker, profits, while still a component, are not the primary concern. There is a greater good that is served by keeping the lights on.

Where is the greater good served by forcing the DMV clerk to come in? The coffee kiosk worker? The grocery store employee making minimum wage and traveling by public transportation?

I work in permit review. I can honestly say that any delay in issuing a fence permit due to inclement weather will cause no adverse effects. The fence permit will still be required once the snow goes away, and no one can build a fence in this weather anyway. There is no loss in revenue, no loss of time for the applicant and therefore no real consequences.

We should not tolerate unreasonable abstract consequences. Your employer should not be able to penalize you for being late on days where there is snow and/or ice on the roads. I have worked in places where that was the policy though, snow or not, if you were late it would count against you. I have also worked in places that penalized you for calling in, even if you were physically unable to make it to work.

Unfortunately, as lowly employees we do not have the right to question the authority of their employers. But the reality is that sometimes individuals make better judgment calls than the powers that be.

My wife's first teaching job was in a rural Eastern Kentucky county, an hour east from where we lived at the time over bad roads. In bad weather the roads were downright deadly. One particular morning we woke to find that every county in the eastern half of the state had called off school for the day due to snow except the county where she worked.

I implored her not to go. I told her they could not penalize her for begin unable to get out, but she insisted on going in against both our better judgments. That morning in that particular school district a school bus and two other teachers on their way in to school slid off the road and became stuck. My wife made it safely (barely) to school and back, but there was no good reason for her to have gone in. On top of the fact that it was highly dangerous, there were also very few students that made it that day.

So why did that one school district choose to have school on the worst day of the winter, when all the other schools in the region cancelled without a second thought? The person who normally made the call to cancel school was out of town. Otherwise school would have been cancelled.

And this belies our complete and total sellout to the notion that the show must go on no matter how dangerous, no matter how ridiculous, no matter how absurd. Because no one would make the call, everyone tried to get in to work against their better judgment and the lives of teachers and students were at risk. But no one would stand up against something that just didn't seem right.

We're so scared of losing our jobs we will put our health and property (typically our expensive cars) in jeopardy to appease the corporatist demons and appeasers.

Reality is somewhat different than we've been conditioned to believe. If I stay home on a wretchedly cold and miserable day I have hurt no one. The climate is not such where I live that I won't be back at work within a day, two at the most, and I would have plenty of time to catch up any work delayed.

My position typically sees busier times when the weather is more favorable, when there are far fewer natural reasons to miss. But the expectation never wanes. Always. Ever. Never miss. Never exercise the common sense you are blessed with, ignore those instincts and feed the demons.