It seems like Thursday was Career Limiting Moves Day based on the news stories coming out of the US.

CLM #1

You may have heard about the Compass Airlines flight en route from Minneapolis, MN to Regina, SK that diverted to Fargo, ND because of a fire in a washroom on May 7th. About 35 minutes into the flight, a detector in the rear washroom went off. Two flight attendants and a passenger put the flames out with fire extinguishers and the emergency landing was otherwise uneventful.

Well, it turns out that 19-year old Eder Rojas, the flight attendant who checked on the washroom when the detector initially went off actually set the fire. You might wonder why he did it. Well, according to an AP story on the CNN website, he was “angry about his work route”.

He’s been fired by Northwest Airlines, parent company of Compass Airlines, currently being held without bail and could be facing up to 20 years in jail, the maximum penalty for setting fire aboard a civil aircraft. If he’s convicted and given the maximum penalty, he will have spent more of his life in jail than out. At least he doesn’t have to worry about getting a bad work assignment. Hope it was worth it.

CLM #2

9-1-1 operators are the calm, cool, collected and, most importantly, compassionate voice on the phone when someone needs help. Apparently Frank Roth, a Nashville 9-1-1 operator-in-training, skipped that particular class. He also seems to have skipped the lesson that mentioned that 9-1-1 calls are recorded, even after the caller has disconnected.

It seems that good ol’ Frankie took a call from a woman who was being threatened by her ex-boyfriend who had been holding her at knifepoint. Frankie told her the police would be there shortly (it took them 3 hours to arrive, but that’s a different story) and then hung up.

This is where the holes in Frank’s education that I alluded to earlier start to become apparent because he then said “I really don’t give a s— what happens to you.” (At least the caller needing help wasn’t on the line when he said that.)

He was fired a month later.

A spokesperson for the Nashville Emergency Communications Center, Amanda Sluss, had this to say:

“Certainly this particular caller didn’t receive the service she deserved,” Sluss said. “This is not indicative of how our employees treat citizens. It’s not something that should have been said. It’s not what we train our employees to do.”

I’m guessing Mr. Roth won’t be listing this job on his resume.