NEW YORK - Cellphone video captured a FedEx driver in
midtown Manhattan casually heaving stacks of boxes into her truck, even
allowing a celebrity shot from a non-FedEx employee off the street and later
sharing a chuckle with that man.
But the humor in their Hail Marys turned a little darker --
or disappeared altogether -- for those who routinely ship with the carrier.
"Well, if I had a box in there, I would certainly be
angered," one man said.
"Who knows how many other workers are doing it,"
said another.
Speaking outside of boxes now, the catching of this
strong-armed truck-loader by a regular Joe with a cell phone may represent a
trend in itself.
"In this world of social media," Greystone
Recruiting Vice President Tim St. Clair said. "It takes one moment and
you're sort of not famous, but infamous."
St. Clair recognizes anyone on the job as an extension of
their employer's brand and said -- like it or not -- companies now have more
unpaid consultants enforcing that brand than ever before.
"Someone's watching you," St. Clair said.
"Someone's going to be focusing in on you and if you make a mistake or if
you do something stupid like throw boxes in the back of the van, you're going
to get in trouble. Someone's going to see it. And then it's going to go viral.
And then from a parent company point of view, there's going to be some serious
issues from a PR standpoint."
Texting bus drivers, bird-flipping delivery men and TV
tossers, beware.
The vigilante publication and worldwide reaction the FedEx
video forced that company to announce its disappointment and promise to
discipline an employee whose actions might otherwise have gone undetected.
But thanks to the Internet and the sneaky camera-phone-man
who shot the video and posted it to YouTube, FedEx knows, we know and employees
wearing different uniforms just might know: Goofing off when bosses aren't
around won't guarantee escaping punishment.
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