"Hi! I can't answer the phone now, but please leave a message!"
Teresa Danford’s son, Lance Cpl. Mark Rhyne, is deployed in Afghanistan, where he is only able to call home once or twice a month. He has been overseas for seven months. On Valentine’s Day, Teresa, an employee of Crane Interiors in Woodbury, Tennessee, received one of her son’s precious phone calls at her job, on her personal cell phone. She was promptly suspended for three days without pay, for Crane has a no cell phone call policy for employees. Her manager informed her that she would be fired if it ever happened again.
Danford acknowledged that she knew about the policy, but told reporters that nothing was going to prevent her from taking her son’s call. “You don’t want to miss a word, because truthfully that might be the last time you hear from them. There is nothing in this world that would stop a mother from answering a phone call from her son, and what if it was not my son? What if he’d been hurt and someone was trying to contact me?”
When the manager informed Danford that she would be suspended for breaking the cell phone rule, the mother said she explained the special circumstances. “I said ‘you are aware that my son is serving in Afghanistan and he can only call me when that satellite phone gets to his unit,’ and he looked me straight in the eyes and said ‘yes.’”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Crane is obviously staffed with former school administrators, who have had “no-tolerance” seared into their brains at the cost of all logic, compassion and common sense. Every rule has an exception or four, and this was obviously a time to make an exception to the no cell phone rule. When an employer’s rules are deemed vital to maintain at the sacrifice of the bonds of love between parent and child, even when the actual infraction has no negative consequences other than the fact the rule itself was bruised, it is fair to say that the employer has lost all sense of fairness, kindness and respect, not merely for his mistreated employees, but for the entire human race.
The management of Crane Interiors proved itself to be controlled by ethics dunces, but worse than that, mean ethics dunces, and ungrateful ethics dunces. Mark Rhyne is fighting in a foreign land, risking his young life to protect these officious fools, and they won’t let him talk to his mother on Valentine’s Day.
WTVF in Woodbury was told by Crane general manager Chris Anderson that the company finally apologized to Danford. Gee,that’s nice. An apology, however, doesn’t explain how such outrageous conduct could occur, why the company’s culture is so warped that anyone would think of suspending a mother for taking a battlefield call from her son, or give any assurance that Crane won’t do something equally callous and senseless to someone else.
An ethics dunce who apologizes is usually still an ethics dunce, just one who is sorry that everyone has found out.
Ethics Alarms 
I’m beginning to wonder where all the adults have gone. Clearly these folks need some good adult supervision.
Don’t you think any CHILD would be able to know the right thing to do here?
Yes, especially if his or her IQ is above room tempurature. A big assumption on my part, I suppose.
WHAT!!!! I’m a mother whose son has been to the “sand box” twice. Those calls are extremely important to the military person, as well as, the family. Damn important. “. . . . just one who is sorry that everyone has found out.” I think you got that one right.
I try to see both sides of every situation, but this one enrages me and it is difficult to understand Crane’s point of view.
In theory, if there was a catastrophic consequence for her taking this call (like, a huge corporate deal fell through or something), would that even warrant something like this? I suppose hypotheticals are irrelevant when you’re talking about “no tolerance.”
But the answer would still be no. Even if.
I just heard about this on my local radio station in Bristol, TN/VA. I never was so appalled about something as I am this. Our service men & women are putting their lives on the line for our freedom. This company can put their policy where the sun don’t shine…. I’m going to get this out to everyone possible to where these ‘idiots’ need to hear what we think!
I hope she is looking for a new job. She can probably get another job fairly easily while the publicity is ongoing. I strongly suspect that their business is going to dry up soon. Even if the company doesn’t go bankrupt, they will hold her responsible for the bad publicity (“If you had just kept quiet about what unreasonable, mean, irrational people we were, none of this would have happened!”) and fire her as soon as the heat dies down.
Absolutely right. You can’t reform workplaces like this—the jerkism runs too deep. She needs to get out.
One would think that an employer would be more supportive than reprimanding. These men and women are over there fighting to keep our country safe and free. It seems as if all the manger cares about is office protocols. I hope and PRAY that this manager realizes what a can of worms he/she has opened. Does this manager treat his/her child like this? What if he/she had a child fighting for our country in a war? Would he/she answer the phone call? You’re damn right they would!!!!!!!!
You’re missing the point……I think slavery was abolished some time ago. Where in America are people working that they can’t use a cell phone or have some slack time. I am employer and my employees get the job done, do it right, and have plenty of “human rights”. Let’s see …Cairo, Tunisia, Libya and Woodbury, TN next????
I agree with all of the comments here.
But to be “devil’s advocate” (only because I haven’t seen anyone try it) let me ask a question or two.
1) Does the policy forbid employees from having cell phones at work or from simply answering the cell phone?
2) Presumably, the phone used to call his mom was an unlisted sat-phone. Did the mother recognize the number and know it was her son?
My point would be this: If she had answered the phone, not knowing who would be on the other end, you would have no problem with her suspension if it had been her HVAC repair man trying to schedule an in home appointment.
But maybe the argument is that she should be allowed to answer all calls from “Unknown” numbers because her son serves in Afghanistan and any one of those calls could be from him.
Clearly, Crane Interiors is a Dunce after learning the truth of the situation. But just because she says she was talking with her son in Afghanistan doesn’t make it true. (Though it probably is.)
So here’s my quiz for you:
You are at work and your employer has a policy prohibiting the use of personal cell phones (but you carry one anyway). While working and with full knowledge of the policy, you receive a call from an “Unknown” source. Your son serves in Afghanistan but this call could be from anyone. Do you answer the phone?
I am presuming, from the mother’s remarks, that the cell phone indicated that it was a call from Afghanistan, or that she had other reasons to believe it was her son. Otherwise the story makes no sense. If she answered an unknown call in violation of the policy and it just happened to be her son, the action of the manager was just as stupid but less unjust. She just lucked out, under those facts.
Precisely. The story doesn’t say one way or the other. That leads me to believe that it was constructed to leave that fact out.
Additionally, she works on a production floor where the safety of employees is dependent upon employees remaining alert. “Sorry you were impaled Bob, but my son was calling from Afghanistan!”
If it were news of her son’s injury or demise? Well, in the event of his demise, there’s nothing she can do about it. In the event of his injury, they’ll leave a call-back number.
The last option I’ve mentally ruled out until someone tells me it has happened, is if he calls her from his deathbed to utter his final words. I’ve ruled this out as improbable because if he’s on the battlefield, he’ll be focused on relaying information or staying alive. If he’s in a hospital unit, I’m thinking no one is going to make their parents listen to them die. But again, if someone can tell me that this has happened, I’d like to hear about it.
*****
The mother’s remarks don’t strike me to suggest that she knew it was a call from her son or from Afghanistan. The only information she relayed to the news article was an after-the-fact “I took a call from my son who is serving in Afghanistan and that’s why I was suspended.”
you are aware that my son is serving in Afghanistan and he can only call me when that satellite phone gets to his unit
This just sounds like a justification to answer any and all calls that are from unknown sources. You want an exception to answer calls? Fine, but let’s define the limits of your exception.
Boy, I didn’t read it that way at all. Her comment about it perhaps being someone to say her son was in trouble leads me to believe that a cell phone indicates when the call is on a military satellite phone. Why would she risk her job to answer “UNKNOWN”, and get a special deal to get Direct TV? If that was her habit, wouldn’t she have been suspended long before this? The other possibility is that her son told her he could only call at a certain time on 2/14, and she said, “Fine, go ahead.” Either way, I think it’s unlikely that it unfolded the way you hypothesize. If it did, though, you are right.
To answer you question. I am a wife of 13 years to a Marine. I have 7 deployments of experience. You can tell the call is from a satellite phone because the calls come in as a weird number like a 6 digit or just the area code in your calling area is displayed. The calls never come in as “unkown” or “private.” So more than likely she answered it knowing it was her son.
Ah HA!!! Thanks so much, Sharon, and thank your husband for me, for us all, too. Take THAT, Tim! Why do you doubt me so?
Sharon, I thank you wildly for clearing that up. The article could have supported the mother immensely by making that clear. I don’t regret my hypothesizing, I think it added value to the post since everyone was seemingly one-sided and ready to form a lynch mob.
But now that we know the post can pass muster, let the lynching resume.
All kidding aside, that was a great point to make Tim. Thanks.
YES, I would answer the phone, my son is in afghanistan now and I have recieved only 1 call in 2 months!! My family is more important than any job or posessions !! Humans cannot be replaced. As for that Company and Manager SHAME on THEM !!
I am a PROUD mother of a soldier…..I DARE anyone come between that phone call from my son & me! I am thinking that as punishment for this “boss”, maybe they should be deployed for a year.
Does this “Boss” or the Company Executives realize that because of this soldiers sacrifice along with all the other military men and woman that serve and defend our rights to be “FREE Americans” what an insult and disgraceful policy they are enforcing. I realize that in the workplace that rules have to be enforced but I am the proud Dad of a Marine and when one of my “bosses” told me that I had not been given permission to attend my son’s graduation I asked hime where he wanted the keys and I was not referring to the desk or safe. By the way. I am manager of a convenience store and I did attend my son’s graduation and I am still employeed. Furthermore the time I missed from work to attend my son’s graduation was WITH PAY! It is time that as Americans we stand for what we believe.
My son is in Afghanistan and, I am here to tell you, when/if he calls me = my world, and EVERYTHING in it, comes to abrupt hault!!
My job also has a “no cell phone” policy which I comply with, as I keep the phone on silent and do not answer personal calls. But, when that weird series on scrambled numbers and dashes comes up … that “no cell phone” policy doesn’t stand a chance!
In just about every conflict prior to this century, soldiers and their families could only dream of having something like a cell phone to begin with. It does wonders for morale on both fronts to be able to call home, time permitting, and satisfy all concerned that you’re alive and in one piece. Even during the Vietnam War, I couldn’t imagine an employer taking this kind of attitude. Of course, most employers back then were veterans of WWII and Korea… not Woodstock.
I have been trying to contact Crane regarding some boat seating and cannot get a contact. Maybe Sea Ray stopped using them as a supplier.