Military Mom Pays High Price For Speaking With Son (TENNESSEE)(VIDEO)

News 5 Nashville ^ | 2/17/11 | Amanda Hara

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Larry Officer is a Human Resource Manager at Crane Interiors. He sent NewsChannel 5 the following statement: "It is our policy that there is to be no cell phones used during working hours due to safety concerns within a production environment. Employees are allowed to use cell phones during breaks and lunches. We have a communicated policy for all employees to be reached in case of an emergency."

Sounds to me like this policy was put in place for a good reason. If she wants to be in a position to take a call from her son 24/7, perhaps she should have got a different job. She used her son's service as a moral bludgeon to ignore rules that might well have been their for other people's safety as well as her own...

[Farmer Dean]

Nothing like a public ass grinding to make a Company see the light.I bet their phones lite up like a Christmas tree after the tv exposure.

[wardaddy]

Crane should have made an exception for her...

Woodbury is serious social conservative but with too many whites on the government tittie rural area...pretty country too about where the Cumberland plateau starts up..very hilly

Short Mountain is the highest point in US between Ozarks and Cumberlands/Allegheny range..around 2200 feet ...just a big bump...planes used to hit it frequently way back

lotsa Mansons too...and a zillion Higgins too

Cannon county..I like it...

had a crooked sherrif a few years back mand folks died over it...one should walk carefully there if you push folks too hard

bout 18 miles due east of college and Yankee laden Murfreesboro but a world of difference

[katiedidit1]

Thanks for the contact info. Will send them a little “love” letter. Amazing how this woman can be fired while the union thugs in Wisconsin abuse their positions and are sacrosanct

[maine-iac7]

During WW II...except for an occasional letter...no one had contact with their loved ones for two or three years. I suspect that we learned to live with it. The current society can’t.

Society didn't have computers then either.

nor jet passenger planes. cell phones, etc...

Don't know if you fly or not, or if you use a cell phone but we know you use a computer - can't you learn to live without it?

What an ass-inine post.

[Crim]

Bull hockey.....the company already apologised,paid her for her time off, and is revising said policy.

Your point is moot.

[EternalVigilance]

My son is in Iraq. I agree with this Mom. NOTHING could prevent me from taking a call from him short of a life-endangering emergency underway when the phone rang.

Jobs can be replaced. Children cannot.

[EternalVigilance]

Having said that, the company is certainly within its rights. There’s no law against being stupid and callous.

If there were, we’d have no liberals! :-)

[hoosierham]

Oh for crying out loud!

The trouble with so many things in today's society is idiots who can't understand a little bending of the rules for a good reason.I suppose the "it's the rule" crowd is fine with the zero-tolerance policies that suspend a kid for a butter knife as though it were a bayonet.

[GailA]

We are dealing with availability, time zones, all kinds of crazy things for a Soldier just to make a call once a month.

The mom didn’t abuse the policy.

I’ve worked assembly lines, some one is always available to take your slot on a temporary basis so you can make an unscheduled exit for the restroom, etc.

Your comments make sense, and for the most part do work. But some times you get a lousy supervisor who makes no exceptions.

[Balding_Eagle]

I’m surprised at the number of meanspirited, selfish Freepers on this thread.

The company is a manufacturing company, and the policy of no cell phones during work hours is apparently a result of the comapny caring for the safety of their employees, and the well being of the company.

It’s dispiriting to see how many freepers are running roughshod over a private companies freedoms.

[oh8eleven]

The current society can’t.
I agree, which is the real point here. Too many people today do whatever they want regardless of the rules, the laws, even common sense.
Using a cell phone while driving is the same as DUI and is responsible for 20% of all accidents. Yet, how many people still do it?
When her son went overseas, this woman should have forewarned her employers that she was going to take any calls from her son and they should have agreed to waive the rules.

[maine-iac7]

She knew the rules nobody put a gun to her head to work there.

But she knew guns were pointed at her son's head every day - and firing.

During my grandson's first tour in the 'ghan, his platoon fought off over 1,000 firefights...many were lost.

He grew up in my home. When he got that once a month shot at calling - damn well sure I'd take the call NO MATTER WHERE OR WHEN...

I'm guessing you haven't had a son or close relative serving there lately?

Any company that would not have the brains to make an exception to their non-war time rules, is brain dead.

[tallyhoe]

See good things can happen. thank god for computers internet video and cell phones. During my Vietnam days the only way to contact home was by US Mail or Ham Radio.........

[freekitty]

True.

[ataDude]

I want to say “You suck...” but I won’t.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"It is our policy that there is to be no cell phones used during working hours due to safety concerns within a production environment. Employees are allowed to use cell phones during breaks and lunches. We have a communicated policy for all employees to be reached in case of an emergency."

Case closed.

[ReverendJames]

Probably because of all the bad publicity. If it weren’t for the internet nobody would have known.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

I don't know the specifics of why the policy was put in place other than safety, I don't know how legitimate the safety concerns are, but if it involves heavy machinery or some other reason that involves other people's safety, then she had no right to ignore those rules. If it was just because they didn't want employees taking unschedualed breaks, then yes, I am on her side.
But from what the article said, it was about safety concerns in a production enviroment. It doesn't sound like the sort of working enviroment where you can just be completely blase about the rules...

[oh8eleven]

During my grandson's first tour in the 'ghan, his platoon fought off over 1,000 firefights.
Assuming he was there for a year, that's over three firefights a day, every day.
I don't think any military unit in history has ever sustained that intensity of combat.