As a manager, ensuring workers carry out their duties is very important but ensuring the safety of your workers is likewise very important. One must find the balance between both. It is believed that in most workplaces, safety is first and important. This is not the case of an Amazon Manager who decided to watch out for work before the safety of the worker but rather insisted that work must come first than safety.
On Friday night and early Saturday morning 17th and 18th of December 2021; through a powerful storm, tornadoes and severe weather conditions wrecked lots of homes and buildings through 4 states. Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
Amazon Delivery Driver
In Illinois, an Amazon delivery driver encountered a storm ahead and her boss kept threatening her she will lose her job if she return without completing her delivery.
According to reports from the republic world, the driver was able to provide a screenshot of her chat with her boss during this Tornado and the Boss’s insistence that she must continue with her delivery.
“This would end with you not having a job.” that was the response the Boss gave when the driver requested if she could return to base for safety because the dispatch that tornado alerts were on in her area. “If you decide to come back, that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won’t be viewed as for your safety”, the boss said.
Storm struck at Edwardsville
Barely one hour later, the storm struck at Edwardsville, it badly affected Amazon’s Warehouse killing about 6 people. Her location during the storm was barely 30 miles from the warehouse where people died.
Even when the driver kept informing her boss about house unsafe she is out there, the boss still insisted “The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages, it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job come tomorrow morning. The sirens are just a warning.”
The boss insisted that she should keep delivering “Just keep delivering for now. We have to wait for word from Amazon. If we need to bring people back, the decision will ultimately be up to them. I will let you know if the situation changes at all. I’m talking with them now about it”.
The driver after seeing the wreck caused by the massive storm all around her was stuck in the van and couldn’t go anywhere again. It was after a few minutes that the boss finally told the driver to find cover and hide.
This is a pure case of insensitivity, a case where a worker’s life and safety are not a priority. There is a dire need for companies to supervise the activities of bosses places over junior workers and not just continue demanding about producing some quota of work daily.
