Some of the problems are obvious: an entitled liberal aristocracy (especially in Hollywood, but also the Bay Area jet set)

This posting is lenghty, but having come of age in the Bay Area (the East Bay, the less trendy and often more seedy side of the Bay Area) I can attest first hand to the pervasiveness of the “entitled liberal aristocracy” having had to deal with it into my 30’s before fleeing the state my father referred to as the “land of fruits and nuts” in 1993.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many things I love about California, it’s one of the most beautiful states in the union with lots to offer in the way of fun and activities, but the rest you can have, especially its politics and entitlement attitude.

While I have not lived in California since moving to Arizona is 1993 I work for a chemical company as their corporate Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) manager with its corporate office in Oakland so I still visit the Bay Area often. I can tell you first hand in my position for the last 9 years I have experienced numerous examples of the engrained sense of entitlement when it comes to dealing with some employees in the state of California.

Case in point, when dealing with hazardous chemicals as we do it’s important to ensure you follow established safe work practices and are using the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) after all they don’t call them “hazardous” for lack of a better description, some chemicals are very hazardous and can be life threatening.

I have actually had employees complain to Human Resources that they were offended or had their “feelings” hurt because I had the audacity to do my job, because I reprimanded them after witnessing them not utilizing the appropriate PPE while handling hazardous chemicals, for insisting they use the PPE the company has trained them to use and provided to them. The truly amazing thing is these same employees would be the first to call an attorney and sue the company out of business if they were injured on the job, yet they complain to HR when I call them on not utilizing the appropriate PPE to protect their own health and safety?

The company I work for has several locations in the western United States, however it’s only in our two California locations that I run into this level of entitlement. I always stress to our employees that safety is a two-way street, the employer has the responsibility to provide a safe work environment free from known hazards to its employees, therefore the company does all it can to manage (minimize or eliminate) known hazards through the development of a sound EHS program, but equally and no less important is the employees responsibilities for EHS, and that is for the employee to work safely within the environment provided, e.g., they are responsible for following established safe work practices and utilizing the appropriate PPE.

Yet it is obvious in my experiences (particularly with employees based at our California locations) that these employees want all the rights (entitlements) but refuse to live up to the responsibilities that go with these rights, and most of us (with the exception of many on the left) know with rights come responsibilities, but not in California, they want their cake and eat it too!

There was one employee in particular at our Oakland facility that was a true piece of work; this person optimized the California “entitlement attitude.” In fact IMHO he was the poster-boy for such an attitude.

I’ll try to sum up and hit the highlights of this particular employee:

1) He lied on his employment application, when applying for a truck driving position (a position that requires a Commercial Drivers License and a Hazardous materials endorsement for transporting hazardous materials) he said he was never convicted of a DUI, yet when his driving record was pulled he previously had a suspended license for DUI and had just recently had his driving privilege reinstated. Had he just been honest on the application it would have indicated his honesty, this should have been a big red flag to HR, but it was ignored.

He was hired despite having lied on his application (I must note here I was not employed with the company when this person was hired, had I been he would never would of been hired in the first place).

2) I started with the company in 1999 and during this time the person in question had the following incidents:

- Got into a physical altercation with a driver while delivering goods at a customer’s facility; the customer called to inform us he was no longer allowed on the premises.

- Approximately 3 months after the above altercation he had another one at a different customer’s facility and again was banned from their facility.

- He was delivering chemicals to another customer and grew impatient having to wait for a loading dock to become available and unloaded his containers of hazardous chemicals in their parking next to a drain. Once again the driver was banned from their facility as well.

- He had been given verbal warnings, write ups, and suspensions by me several times and was not given a penny of the annual safety bonus we award to our safe employees, to which he pulled out the race card and in no uncertain terms implied I was racist because he did not receive a safety bonus and had been given three days suspension without pay.

I should also note here that area managers and supervisors maintain a log to note when employees do positive as well as negative things in regard to EHS, I am based in our Arizona facility and my notes on this individual filled at least 10 pages in my book despite the fact I was present at the Oakland facility only once every three months. I must also note that I had requested this individual be terminated numerous times but was rebuffed by the facility VP/GM.

The final nail in this guys coffin was when I received a notification from California DMV (we are required by the State of California to monitor CDL driving records) that this employee had been cited for another DUI and could only drive for work purposes until his DUI case had gone through the court system. He was questioned about this when I informed corporate and came up with a bunch of BS, ensuring HR it was all a misunderstanding and that the case would go his way.

He was asked to keep us appraised of the situation and any additional changes in his driving status, which of course he never did, in fact it wasn’t until I received another notification from the DMV that his case had gone through the court system and his drivers license had been suspended (including for work related driving) that we realized he had been driving on a suspended license for two weeks because he never informed us (as we had requested) that he was convicted of the DUI.

He was finally fired, but here’s where the insult to injury really comes in, this person (again the epitome of the entitlement attitude) actually had the stones to go to the California Employment Board to request a hearing as he claimed he was unfairly fired. Of course we had ample documentation detailing his many issues from the time he was hired until his ultimate firing, so much so that even the ultra-liberal California Board of Employment could see his firing was anything but unfair.

It is no wonder California is losing so many businesses and along with it its tax base to pay for all of its entitlement programs. Businesses continue to leave the state in droves due to the costs of all the entitlements the liberal California government bestows on its growing nanny-state citizens. Yet despite the fact the state is collapsing under the enormous weight of all its entitlement programs the liberal California government continues on its course to ultimate economic collapse because (IMHO) their egos will not allow them to admit their liberal socialist dogma doesn’t work and will ultimately fail.

Unfortunately many Californian’s are moving to Arizona and I can already see the political tide changing, if it keeps going this way I may again have to flee to another state!

Liberty or Death on February 24, 2008 at 3:24 PM