Is It Fair Game To Build A Secret Hangout Spot At Work? Three MTA Workers In Trouble After Their Grand Central Man Cave Is Uncovered.
Innovation at it's finest. Based on that picture alone, you can clearly tell this was just a place where guys could be dudes during work hours. Peanut butter, beer, diet ocean spray. Truly a place for a man's man.
One could argue that you shouldn't build a mancave at your place of work; that you should actually be working. That ideology is simply countered with basic logic. No one wants to fucking work. If you can get away with slacking off crushing a couple of IPAs on your futon buried beneath Grand Central, then go for it.
Being in the bowels of Grand Central Terminal makes this more of a cave than any other man cave imaginable. Yes, that includes your basement littered with "reserved for [insert team name] fans only" signs along with other memorabilia that your wife got you for Christmas.
Three MTA tradesmen allegedly boozed, napped and watched TV inside a secret “man cave” built below the tracks at Grand Central Terminal, according to the MTA’s internal watchdog.
Investigators discovered the lounge — complete with futon, flat-screen, microwave and refrigerator — behind a plasterboard wall in an unused locksmith shop below Track 114, in the station’s lower level, according to a report by MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny set to be released Thursday.
sidenote - as someone who commuted to Grand Central every day, I can't think of a place I'd wanna hang out less.
First things first, this place sounds pretty fucking sweet. It's got everything you could ever need. The biggest mistake was covering it up. That's just a blatant admission of guilt on these guys' behalf. had they just left it uncovered, it would've seemed like it was the property of the last Joe Schmo who used the office. Personally, I don't see the big deal here. An unused room transformed into a place where these guys could just take a load off. It's not the end of the world.
"They're supposed to be doing their JOBS"
Fucking chill out bro, be a little more jealous.
These "investigators" were definitely just narcs other employees who weren't invited and ratted out of pure spite. If I can't have it no one can! A tad bit petty but totally understandable. Envy is a very dangerous thing I suppose.
The biggest question is how did all this stuff get down their anyways? You mean to tell me no one noticed these guys bringing an entire fucking living room into Grand Central? Well, then that's on them. If you're gonna be so uptight about the rules then maybe you should stop the worker carrying a goddamn 50-inch flatscreen.
The investigators initially paid a surprised visit to the locksmith shop on Aug. 8, 2019, after concluding that Metro-North officials had failed to investigate two previous complaints about workers using the space to “hang out and get drunk and party.”
The three Metro-North employees — a wireman, carpenter foreman and electrical foreman, who were not named due to ongoing disciplinary proceedings — denied ever having been in the room.
But Pokorny’s office says they’d left their fingerprints behind, and the evidence that they used the underground hangout was “overwhelming.”
They really had to dust this place for prints? What sort of CSI bullshit is that? All that over a couple of beers and a couch. Unbelievable. I do understand the aspect of not wanting employees to get shitfaced on the clock but cut the guys some slack. No need to bring in Sherlock Holmes over a couple of IPAs.
Officials “were not aware that the storage room existed and did not know which employees had keys to the storage room,” the IG said.
In a statement, railroad president Cathy Rinaldi called the secret man cave “outrageously inappropriate” and “not consistent with Metro-North’s values.”
All three men — who still deny the allegations — have been suspended without pay, and face potential termination, Rinaldi said.
"Not consistent Metro-North values" get the fuck out of here. It's not like they were carving up bodies in this place. They were coming down for a couple brews and some TV. Sue them. No need to make these guys seem like monsters. This is all just a cover-up to make MTA not seem like absolute dummies here.
The fact that they didn't even know the room existed just shows how incompetent they are. Perhaps some of the blame lies on the employees but I'm not one to judge. I honestly respect the move. Collecting a check whilst slacking off. Meanwhile, I'm over here working and NOT collecting a check like a complete sucker. So is life.
As long as you don't get caught, I think having a secret mancave at work is fair game. No harm, no foul. Just a place to go and take a load off. Hopefully, these guys just get a slap on the wrist. After all, there were no rules stating that they couldn't use abandoned rooms to drink and watch TV.