ELAINE HARRIS SPEARMAN: Live up to the standard or deal with the fallout

We are living in a time where laws, rules, regulations and such are in place to govern whatever we do or fail to do.

You must search to find out which standards apply or if anybody is using standards, and if so, what are they?

When people use the word standard, it has a lot of applications. You hear it most often used as people refer to someone who has no standards. A great many of the definitions of the word come from my Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary.

There are definitions that I am using to say the things that I am saying so that it is clearly understood that the definitions are not mine as I speak on my issues.

The first is a “level of quality achievement that is considered acceptable or desirable.” The second is “something that is very good and is used to make judgements about the quality of other things.” “Ideas about morally correct and acceptable behavior.”

These definitions form my backdrop for my opinion for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to fail to inform the president of his hospitalization, and an absence from his position that could have resulted in some serious consequences.

While health is a serious and personal matter, there are standards that should apply. Do the federal rules of employment outline when an employee in such a high position should notify his superior of a hospitalization?

I will say that I doubt it. Common sense and standards of behavior should cause you, or your family members, to notify your superiors that you are hospitalized and in the intensive care unit of the hospital.

I have great admiration for Defense Secretary Austin. I will not allow that admiration to excuse his horrible failing. What if the results had been catastrophic? The world is at war and the United States is in the middle of much of it.

Should the president of the United States have been sent scrambling to deal with not knowing? What about those at the Pentagon who knew? They should be held as accountable as Austin.

This kind of behavior has seemingly become the order of the day. When this kind of behavior becomes acceptable, everybody believes that it is their right to not show up at work or not to inform their superiors that they are leaving their jobs during working hours to do as they please.

Get angry. We are seeing people who believe that they do not have to let anyone know that they are not at the assigned place when they are paid to be there.

I will offer one last thing for people to think about who believe that they are freely expressing themselves when they leave work hours beyond lunch to take care of other things that are personal to them.

Workers’ compensation benefits are payable when your injury is related to your job during your work hours. What if you are injured in an accident while you are outside of the course of your employment? You may have to fight to be compensated for what we learned in law school was “frolic and banter.”

Austin, as defense secretary, is the highest example that I have witnessed of having an inappropriate standard of his behavior on his job that could have had a different outcome.

A lot of jobs allow employees a lot of freedom. A word to the wise would be to not consider yourself so important, that you can do anything that you want to.

No matter how hard you try, when you are terminated it will not be because anybody has anything against you.

It will be because you failed to have any standards of behavior, because you actually believed that you are very important. In the scheme of things, you are not.

Elaine Harris Spearman, Esq., a Gadsden native, is an attorney and is the retired legal advisor to the comptroller of the City of St. Louis. The views expressed are her own. 

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Elaine Harris Spearman on standards of behavior in the workplace