ajcjobs > BlogBreak > Archives > 2008 > July > 10
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Mistakes on the job: Who should be held responsible?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This week, the AJC reported that Rodney “Krook” Hawkins died from a severe allergic reaction while dining at a Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant in Lovejoy. Hawkins’ wife claims her husband, who has had a severe shellfish allergy since childhood, did not order a dish with crab, but the waitress wrote down the wrong order and served him an entree with crab in it. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation agrees but won’t be filing any criminal charges in the case. Ruby Tuesday conducted their own investigation and claim that Hawkins was served the dish that he ordered, which contained shellfish. We may never know who is telling the truth in this case, but it does raise some interesting points.
There’s always a chance for human error, and we’ve all made mistakes at work. Do you think some positions should be held to a higher standard of responsibility? For example, should a doctor who prescribes the wrong medication for a patient be held more liable than a restaurant server who brings the wrong dish to a patron, even if the result in each case is death?
For those of you that work in service fields, have you ever made a mistake that brought harm to the customer? Did you fess up or did you try to shirk responsibility? When customers know they have a potentially life-threatening condition, how much of the burden of protecting themselves should fall on their own shoulders and not on the place of business that’s serving them?
