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Vive La France
To this, very little can be added. From the (London) Telegraph:
Tens of thousands of Paris commuters faced delays after rail workers went on strike in support of two colleagues punished because they were caught drinking rum cocktails while on duty at a major signal box. A two-minute video circulating on the internet allegedly shows the pair, along with several other rail workers, boozing and joking as they munched on crepes at the post in the west of Paris in February last year.
But as someone who writes dialogue for a living, I have to be honest — this next part I’m going to steal:
One of them says he has just mistakenly sent a train towards a platform that was already occupied by another train.
“So it went into a platform where there was already a train?” one of his colleagues asked.
“Yes. Luckily the bloke spotted it,” the first worker replies in the shaky video that shows the workers chatting and joking instead of paying attention to the control panels.
“The rum is starting to go to your head, huh?” the first man responded.
His co-worked replied: “Yeah, it’s a bit strange.”
Perfectly French logic:
The CGT union denounced the sanctions taken against the partying workers, dubbing it “management repression” and arguing that the workers had only drunk the rum after it had been used in the frying pan to cook the crepes and therefore it no longer contained alcohol.
It admitted that a rail worker had made a cocktail with unadulterated rum but that the drink was so spicy no-one could finish their glass.
Which leads me to wonder this: were those tens of thousands of commuters who were inconvenienced by the strike upset at the delays, or relieved that the delays were caused by a work stoppage and not a fiery train collision caused by worker drunkenness? In other words, which is more “inconvenient”: a French railway worker on strike, or one who’s on the job?
Published in General
I don’t believe it. One cannot “munch” on a crepe.
If only there was a way to mechanize that job… then these fellas could drink freely.
This could only be better if the workers involved were Muslims.
Maybe you can if they’ve been overcooked in rum.
French Worker: “Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.”
Management: “Shut up!”
French Worker “Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I’m being repressed!” – Adaptation of MP QFTHG
And what were the horrific sanctions hurled at the sloshed workers? Were they sacked, or charged a fine, or mandated to attend a rehab program?
” . . . In the latest drinking on the job case, six workers have already been punished with suspensions of one or two days . . .”
Uh, doesn’t that just impose on them the typical European 4-day work week?
I dunno… 2 days without rum seems pretty harsh.
So the French are finally running out of good strike excuses?
When you put it that way, it seems like a Sign of the Apocalypse!
A colleague I worked with 15 years ago said in a previous job they’d had the ability to completely automate the Paris Metro, but weren’t allowed to because “people feel better when they can see other people on the job”. Looks like they might want to reconsider that bit of brilliance.
The crepes, I assume. Not the workers.
In France, they’d continue to collect their paychecks.
But of course, Paul. The rum does not buy itself.
What’s the deal with the French now stealing our Drunken Lout rep?
First they stole the Statue of Liberty, and we had to go to war with the Kaiser to get it back to Pearl Harbor. Now they’re stealing our drunken idiotic public worker rep.
I say we tell them that because of this outrage, we now refuse to purchase Louisiana. That’ll show ’em.
So, cooked rum doesn’t have any alcohol in it? I’ll remember that the next time someone offers me hot mulled cider with rum, or hot buttered rum.
I sent Rob’s post to a friend who lives in Troyes, France, as kind of a josh. Here is her reply: