Budget Cuts Lead to Footwear Auditing
Aug 10th, 2008 by Nick
Fuel prices are crippling the USAP. Budget cuts are rampant, affecting every aspect of The Program, even on the smallest levels.
For example, take the new workboot reimbursement policy. Due to budget cuts, workboot reimbursement will be limited to select departments, and will only be reimbursed every other year.
That the company is cutting back on reimbursements for workboots is of little concern. However, there is one line in the new reimbursement policy that warrants attention:
It is important to mention that workers/positions who are provided boots will be required to wear the boots. It is the supervisors responsibility to ensure this happens. EHS is planning on randomly auditing PPE usage (including foot protection) throughout the season.
That’s right: footwear audits.
Though I burned over $2500 of diesel at work last week, and though my boots were amortized at a rate of $2 for that same week, it is important to recognize that every penny counts.
In this capacity, Big Dead Place presents a FAQ sheet for supervisors who will be responsible for monitoring their crew’s footwear.
One of my employees wore his company boots for two weeks, thereafter arriving to work in a different, more dubious, pair of boots. Upon interrogation, he replied that he had found the boots in skua and he liked them better. What should I do?
Per policy, the employee must wear the boots that the company paid for.
I told the employee that he must wear the company boots instead of the skua boots. The next day he wore the skua boots, then winked at me and said these were the company boots. I know that is not correct, but I can’t prove it. What should I do?
We will soon be implementing a workboot identification program (WIP) involving tracking chips implanted in the workboots under satellite surveillance. The program will cost $100,000 to implement, and will certainly reduce, if not eliminate, employee workboot fraud.
One of my employees has been wearing his bunny boots to work every day. Upon interrogation, he replied that the temperature is -45F and that these conditions warrant the wearing of bunny boots rather than leather workboots. What should I do?
Per policy, the employee should be instructed to change into the appropriate footwear, which are the boots the company reimbursed him for. If desired, the employee may wear bunny boots in his off time or on the weekends.
My employees come to work barefoot. They like to keep their workboots at home and drink champagne from them. How can I rectify the situation?
This sort of behavior is precisely what the company was afraid would happen regarding the new workboot reimbursement program, and the policy is written expressly to curb such deviance. Drinking champagne from workboots will not be tolerated.
A note on these mandatory workboots:
I think we could all see this coming when the boot truck arrived at Denver Station
We were required to wear these for the job, which was 50% spent outside. While, a great gesture from the company to offer these (the before we had to supply our own), little research or even a money-saving trial period went into this endeavour. We were given four choices to choose from, only one of which was womens’ with composite toe. I give the Wolverine an A+ for its insulation factor, but answer me this, why the fuck invent a fully insulated boot, with soles that freeze solid in the middle of a temperate McMurdo summer? Pathetic. I brought this to the attention of my boss, stating that this was a major slip-hazard, as I myself had fallen several times, and I watched the EH&S person slip thrice between his truck to the office, muttering unspeakables under his gator. We were still required to wear the boots until finally someone in my department incurred a recordable injury. The boot requirement was lifted. The end.