Attendance Tracking Discrepancies

It's come to our attention that Covenant does not have the best means of tracking attendance. One TSO in particular has an ongoing issues with being accused of not hand scanning in for a specific day. According to him, he did indeed handscan in for that day. Yet according to the ever reliable equipment, it says he did not. Or did it?

This TSO took it upon himself to go to the EAC to get a printout of his handscans for a select range of dates. And on that particular day it had him scanning in right at the time his shift starts. When he brought this to the attention of Terminal Manager Russell Mackey, Mr. Mackey informed him that the system will indeed say you handscanned in at the time your shift starts if you did not handscan in. I know what you're thinking.

This of course raises a number of issues. One, it's highly dubious as to whether or not the handscan machines are linked directly with our schedules. Two, if that is really the case, then theoretically we could all NOT handscan in and the system would say we've all handscanned in on time. And three, the most important point is that if this REALLY is the case, then how in the hell do they know if we handscanned in???

Really Mr. Mackey? You really think we're going to fall for this? Of course, Covenant does have other means of checking this stuff, it's called the cameras. Their response to that is, "We can't do that for everybody!" We all know that their tracking system makes errors and mistakes. This particular situation is very fishy. My theory is that they realized they made a mistake and instead of just admitting it they are trying to find some weasel way to make it stick with a level 4 performance that lasts 9 months.

One of the good suggestions from the Union Meeting last week was the idea of a progressive form of discipline for not handscanning in. That's great if the person did indeed forget to handscan in. But what about when there is an apparent discrepancy? Hopefully this TSO will be successful in fighting this. Remember guys, we only have 10 business days to file a grievance.

Another issue has arisen with a TSO with levels for tardies. This TSO was told by ATM Rick Tolentino at the end of May that he only had one occurrence for a tardy on record at that time. Since then, he has accumulated another two tardies. Thinking that Mr. Nguyen was going to issue him a level 1, Nguyen instead said it was a level 4. The TSO refused to sign saying that it should only be a level 1 since Tolentino told him he only had one occurrence at the end of May.

Hopefully this will get resolved in the TSO's favor. It should go without saying folks, that it's not wise to play around with the attendance system. It's understandable that we all have lives. But if you've been with Covenant for more than a year, you know they don't play around when it comes to that stuff. So only play the system if you have to. When you're contemplating calling in just because you don't feel like coming in to work, ask yourself this question: Is it more important for me not to go to work for whatever arbitrary reason, or to lose my job and my source of income? Yes, if you or someone close in your family is sick or you need to attend some family get together or whatever, sure that's your priority. But if you don't play the system often like some do, when those situations come up, you won't have to worry about getting into pickles like the situation above.

Ok, enough of the soap box preaching. Have a great day guys! Stay safe and 100% SOP ALL THE TIME!