I’ve written about Zero Tolernace policies before… 

This morning as I was sitting in nightmarish traffic caused by an accident, I had a bit of an epiphany.

As the minutes ticked by I realized I was going to be late to work. I would be dinged a half point because I was late, even though it was through no fault of my own. (The folks in the fatality accident were having a much worse morning than I so I couldn’t bring myself to be upset about my issue.)

The thoughts that went through my head are these; I’m going to be late, I’m going to be punished for being late, the company’s rules will see to that. If I’m going to be dinged a half point for being late, and still have to sit through 8 hours of annoyance why shouldn’t I take a whole point hit, and take the day off?

After all, if I’m going to be beaten either way why not take some time for myself?

So I called out of work and the company was short handed by me, and whoever else may have come to the same conclusion.

In less enlightened times, I’d have called my boss and told them I was on my way but stuck in traffic and would be in as soon as possible. My boss would have said, “Sure no problem, I’ll see you when you get here.”  

That was back in the Stone Age when people could actually be people, and human stuff wasn’t frowned upon. Obviously if you were chronically late that was another matter, but occasionally being late was simply a fact of life.

With the advent of Zero Tolerance policies… that civility is gone. We’ve moved closer to the mechanized society of Orwells “1984”, Star Trek’s Borg, and well beyond the fear even the most ardent of Luddite followers ever ginned up.

The Luddites were a group of English textile workers and weavers in the 19th century who destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery in a “fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labour practices.[1] Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste as machines would replace their role in the industry.[2] It is a misconception that the Luddites protested against the machinery itself in an attempt to halt progress of technology. However, the term has come to mean one opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation or new technologies in general.[3] The Luddite movement began in Nottingham and culminated in a region-wide rebellion that lasted from 1811 to 1816. Mill owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was brutally suppressed with military force.

As I was sitting there in traffic It occurred to me that in machines and machining, you absolutely can’t have Zero Tolerance. If there is no tolerance for the pieces to move, then the machine won’t work. There has to be some tolerance, even if it’s a micron or less, otherwise you’ve just built a very complex and expensive brick.

Sitting there, trying to figure out how best to get back home so I could go back to bed, I wondered how it is that we’ve come to expect humans to act like an imaginary “Perfect” machine.

Humans are about as random and variably toleranced as it gets. Attempting to force people to meet impossible expectations is bound to fail, on it’s face. No further evaluation is needed. Yet all over the country we have corporations and institutions touting Zero Tolerance policies. 

Ironically, the authors of these policies often have “Tolerance and CoExist” bumper stickers plastered on their vehicles.

I think it’s another case of unintended consequences. I just got a text from a friend at work saying it’s insanely busy there. Perhaps I’m not the only person who ran the same equation and came up with the same answer.

Ahh Well, not my problem today. Off to have some fun!