Another beef recall?

The largest beef recall in U.S. history! 143 million pounds of beef recalled!

Aren’t we getting tired of suspecting our food supply? Aren’t we getting tired of the irresponsible manner in which some employee or employees abuse the rules or completely ignore rules resulting in unsafe food for the rest of us?

Once again an employee (whether on his/her own or under the direction of a supervisor) bypassed regulations, and once again there is a severe penalty. This time to the company who employed the individual(s) responsible.

Work ethic, or lack thereof, is once again the root cause.

When are we going to learn? There is a reason for rules and regulations. It doesn’t matter if you understand them or if you think they are a waste of time.

People who put these rules in place are not doing so as a means of making your job more difficult. These rules are put into place to protect everyone, including you.

At the outset, this particular recall looks to be for punitive reasons. The USDA spokesman admitted there have been no cases of illness related to the recalled meat. So why the recall if not because the company simply did not follow regulations? Because not following regulations leaves the door open to the possibility that people could get sick or die from possibly tainted meat. This is why inspectors have to witness your job performance. Very simple, yes?

The undersecretary of agriculture said there was a ‘remote probability’ that the meat could cause illness in humans. Why did he make this determination? Because, since a decision was made by an employee or employees of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Company in Chino, California to bypass safety regulations then quality control was lost. This loss of quality control means people could get sick. He has a responsibility to the general public and cannot afford to just over-look this blatant disregard for safety policy. He is doing his job.

This is all very basic stuff people. Rules and regulations were bypassed because someone did not want to take the time or trouble to do their job properly.

The employee or employees who participated in this clear violation of safety policy could possibly bring down this meat packing business (the very people who signed their paychecks) and put a lot of people out of jobs! This is serious!

Was it worth it to Westland/Hallmark to have people on their payroll who have so little regard for the safety of the general public and themselves and were more concerned with saving a little time and trouble for themselves? I think not.

Poor job performance, lack of responsibility, and a general lack of work ethics costs this nations employers millions and possibility billions of dollars every year. And these loses are passed on to the buying public. Which includes the very people responsible for poor job performance and lack of work ethics. We are costing ourselves money for bad job performance and ignoring the very rules we are paying someone to enforce. It just doesn’t make sense to me to continue this madness.

Why is it that some people think they don’t have to follow these rules? It seems as soon as they are left on their own and are trusted to continue to do the quality work they performed while being closely monitored, they go for the shortcut and think it is okay as long as they don’t get caught? This attitude is killing our economy. OUR economy. It is everyone’s responsibility to make it work!

Doesn’t anyone see the big picture? Doesn’t anyone care that in this particular case hundreds of people could have been sicken due to these individuals carelessness and lack of work ethic? Apparently not, because it just keeps happening. Do companies need to spend more money for inspectors to make sure their employees do their job properly?

Does our government need to spend more of our tax dollars for inspectors to make sure that companies follow safety rules?

Do we have to teach ethics and morals in our schools to educate our children to the importance of looking out for one another?

Have we become so unethical that we have to be policed every minute we are on the job just to make sure we do what we signed up for, what we agreed to do in exchange for a paycheck?

Our responsibility goes beyond just bringing home our pay. Each one of us is responsible for the whole nation. If you don’t believe me then take a second look at what happened with this meat packing company and the many before them that went out of business, putting people out of work, and the people who were sickened because someone did not follow guidelines put in place by people who we pay to regulate the quality of our work.

Every working person knows the rules and expectations of their employer and yet we continue to hear about the results of some employee who takes it upon themselves to take short-cuts. Sometimes at a devastating cost to others.

The notion of ethics is being lost on us. We need to reverse this trend quickly.

Why can’t we police ourselves to ensure a good, safe product or service is produced? Why can’t we take it upon ourselves to perform to our best ability on the job without being watched over every minute? It would save us all so much money by not having to pay for the inspectors, the supervisors, the police.

This whole problem with lack of work ethic can be applied to the general lack of morals our society displays. We have ever increasing police forces in every large city and small town across America because of scum-bags and low-lifes who prey on others. If we all had higher moral standards we wouldn’t have such a large police force, we wouldn’t have a backlog in the court system, we wouldn’t have overcrowded jails, we wouldn’t have so many lawyers, we wouldn’t be paying such high tax rates to cover all of this.

This world would be a much more pleasant place to live if we all had higher morals and a greater work ethic. It is not out of our reach.