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Garden Variety Zero Tolerance

John Chevilott, who has spent 23 years working for Wayne County, Mich., Department of Public Services on a maintenance crew, found a loaded revolver tossed into high grass. “Surprisingly, it didn’t kill the guy on the mower,” he said, when the gun was run over. The county has no policy of what to do when an employee finds a gun, so “we put [it] in the van, [and] waited [for] police to drive by.” But cops are hard to come by in Detroit, so after his shift Chevilott took the gun to his home police department in Garden City. The gun turned out to be stolen. “They said I did the right thing getting it off the street,” he said. His supervisor didn’t care about the cops’ opinion: he fired Chevilott for “possessing a weapon on county property.” He was just two years short of retirement. (RC/WJBK Detroit) ...As long as there’s a zero tolerance mentality at work, who needs a policy?
Author’s Note: I looked for updates to find out whether Chevilott got his job back, but didn’t find anything. I thus have to assume the answer is no....
Original Publication Date: 20 May 2012
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 18.

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