‘You can’t claim overtime when you're not doing your job': VP fires new boss when he forbids employee from using competitors' phone during power outage, leading to 9 hours overtime

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  • 01
    Font - Posted by u/MichigaCur 2 days ago You can't use a competitors phone! LOC
  • 02
    Font - Well folks, for those of you who don't know i work on cell phone towers. I used to work an extremely remote rural area for a now defunct small cell phone company. the conversations are to the best of my recollection. The area I worked was the type of area where you could drive for hours and not see anything
  • 03
    Font - but field, forests, and animals. Most of the sites I had were what is referred to as "island sites" meaning they don't hand off to another cell tower. And most of these sites were about 30 minutes apart on a good day... er well I worked nights, but you get the drift. So it came around that a competitor had located quite a few
  • 04
    Font - sites near our sites. I being of the mindset of efficiency purchased a phone from them, and with approval from my boss kept it ready especially during upgrades. But he was the type when anyone above him says "boo". He'd jump and ask if he jumped high enough or should he jump again.
  • 05
    Font - So a couple of months later bosses boss leaves and we get new bosses boss who's spent 250% of his life in the confines of New York city. Within his first week, he's working the switch and sees me call in from our competitors number. Of course he takes offense to this and it quickly comes down that nobody may use a
  • 06
    Font - competitors phone. I bring up my concerns, but you know... They don't need to do this in new York city, so we're not going to do this. Mind you my job is to shut down our sites and upgrade or repair them. Yes I'm the guy you love to hate when you can't make a phone call.
  • 07
    Font - And so it happens a short time later, I'm at one of my most remote sites, a 45 minute drive to the next site on a good day. About 4 hours from home. I do my diligence, call the switch tell them what I need them to change and shut down the site. An hour later sites not up. I go through everything on my end, yep everything's good...
  • 08
    Font - Aweest! Now there's a couple of pay phones but... they were the competitors phone. So I start driving. It takes me about 1.5 hours to get to the next site because of a freak blizzard. s t that sites down too. Roll on to the next site, usually about 30 minutes but it's snowing hard and the roads are cr p. 2.5 hours on the
  • 09
    Font - road after leaving the original site, I finally get service, pull over and in 5 minutes we figured out the switch crossed a number and took down the wrong site. Switch promises to fix it and I drive 3 hours back to the original site. 30 minutes later its still not up. This time it takes an hour to get to the closest site, call the switch
  • 10
    Font - again, they get it up and after about 30 minutes i verify it's up. Hurray! But I still have to drive back, clean up and make some testing calls. 18 some odd hours after I left my driveway, I pull back in and submit my time, complete with the OT. It's my Friday, I turn off my phone and hit the bed.
  • 11
    Monday morning, I turn on my phone for our weekly call in meeting and I you not it buzzes with new texts and voicemals for 20 straight minutes all from boss and bosses boss. I jump on the call and first thing I hear is bosses boss.
  • 12
    Font - BB "Why the fi ck did you have a nearly 9 hour outage for a 30 minute upgrade!" before I get a word in "and how dare you claim 9 hours of OT when you were clearly fu your job." g around not doing
  • 13
    Font - ME "well there were a series of issues outside of the site and a freak snowstorm slowed my response" I hit send on emails I had already prepared before clocking out for the weekend with full rundown of events of the night, as a reply to the emails coming down from him dismissing
  • 14
    Font - my needs for a competitors phone. And included his boss (vice president of the company) BB "I don't want to fu ng hear excuses from you, why didn't you just use a fug pay phone and call for help" literally everyone on the call groaned.
  • 15
    Font - ME, "in case you don't remember I just replied to a series of emails where you forbade me under threat of termination, from using a competitors phone." at this point I hear VP join our call. "and since payphones are owned by a competitor, I spent 6 hours driving around in a blizzard
  • 16
    Font - searching for service, instead of spending 45 minutes to an hour and making a call on a competitors phone." BB "I never fi ig threatened to terminate anyone! Don't be stubid you could have used a pay phone."
  • 17
    Font - VP cuts in "it appears BB that you do not remember what you said, and Mr Cur has clearly documented his actions on the night in question. BB please call me immediately, thank you everyone else for your time this morning, please have a good day, this meeting is over"
  • 18
    Font - BB was removed shortly afterwards having a fairly Rocky rest of his short employment. I now work for the company which purchased our competitor. I've moved to my home state though still work a rural market, it's not quite as bad.
  • 19
    Font - TL/DR I worked for a small cell phone company in a very rural area. I used a competitors phone while working on sites. A new boss did not like this and forbade me from using a competitors phone under threat of termination. During a freak blizzard I ended up with an extended outage driving around
  • 20
    Font - looking for service collecting many hours of overtime, contributing termination. to bosses own Edit: because it's been asked a few times how bosses boss knew I wasn't using one of our phones to call in with. In the US your ten
  • 21
    Font - digit phone number is set up by the area code (first 3 numbers) exchange (second 3 numbers) then number (last four). The exchange was pretty much owned by the phone company providing the service before porting became a thing. So in our case we had two or three exchange numbers at the
  • 22
    Font - time. Like 406 and 685 (random numbers).. so when I called in on a 962 (again random number) he knew I was not using one of our phones. Also, there's ways in the switch to tell how the call is coming though, if it's on our equipment or not, if someone wanted to look.
  • 23
    Font - Survive1014 2 days ago Moral of the story: CYA and document, document, document your work and instructions given. 1.5k Reply Share
  • 24
    Font - krefik 2 days ago And hardcopy! Emails are volatile and can be disappeared, paper is eternal. 304 Reply
  • 25
    Font - Ich mag Kartoffeln 2 days ago We have no phone reception at our family farm. This is known and appreciated by many of the technicians/contractors/etc. who need to visit us from time to time.
  • 26
    Font - Once we even had a technician visit us to do a non-urgent, 10 minute job. Of course, it was actually so he could get a few hours peace to catch up on paperwork, clean and organise his service truck, etc. 4371 Reply Share
  • 27
    Font - On cheese-laser 2 days ago That's just class from that technician!!! He knows his way around times at customer's house just fine! 78 Reply Share
  • 28
    Font - OBR +2 2 days ago It's amazing how many managers can manage to stick their head up their a s. Good on the VP to call him out Fast_Fee517 411 Reply Share

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