22 November 2009

The caring employer

What sort of Company would tow their own employees car from a totally empty car park at the weekend because "they needed the space"?

Norway's recently rebranded, largest oil company of course...

The car in question was parked in car park while the employee was away for the weekend. The employee left the car there on Friday evening and returned Sunday night to find it gone. The fine for getting it back is 1800 nok - 200 quid, plus another 400 nok for a taxi into town to retrieve the car. That's about £250, which is a lot of money.

The Security Nazi was quick to point out that "it's the rules, I am just doing my job" (Nuremberg established that was a not an adequate defence for being an arsehole). He was also keen to point out that there were signs saying cars could not be left there over night. Problem is that most of the signs were in Norwegian, while the working language of the company is English, so there is no reason why their large international workforce should actually understand them.

But language is not the real point here. We have a multi-billion dollar international company that cares so little about it's employees that it fines them £200 for parking in an empty car park over the weekend. How utterly pathetic is that?

And then they wonder why people are leaving in droves...

No comments: