Im in a bit of bother at work

B

burt

Guest
Hello.

I recently brought into work, a memory stick with some films on it. Not dodgy ones either. Well, we were caught in a raid with a laptop and one of the guys has owned up to owning the laptop. It was on at the time and the films i brought in were being transferred. We were not there at the time and were called into the workshop to explain this etc.
Now i get a call from the owner of the laptop saying he got a call saying one of the films was R-rated. He asked what it meant. Well, that was news to me, to say the least, but thats neither here nor there. I looked up what an r-rated film was and here's what i found:
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An R-rated motion picture, in the view of the Rating Board, contains some adult material. An R-rated motion picture may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements, so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously. Children under 17 are not allowed to attend R-rated motion pictures unaccompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Parents are strongly urged to find out more about R-rated motion pictures in determining their suitability for their children. Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated motion pictures.
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Where do i stand on this?

Burt
 
As you seem to be located in the USA and this is an Irish site it is unlikely you will find the information you need here.
 
"An R-rated motion picture, in the view of the Rating Board" the above quote from your original post relates to film classification systems outside Ireland. See here for Irish Film Classifications - [broken link removed]
 
Well, we were caught in a raid with a laptop and one of the guys has owned up to owning the laptop.
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I don't understand what this means.

Who did the raiding?

Who is the "We" who were caught in the raid?

Had he robbed the laptop?

R rated does not imply potential criminal charges relating to child porn, for example.

There could be a breach of copyright, but that is unlikely to be of major concern.

If you were wasting time at work, that could be a disciplinary issue, but unlikely to be a sacking offence.
 
OP and some others were copying films which is illegal and they were caught doing so by a supervisor I guess. One of the films is R rated but this does not mean it is pornographic. I know in some places pornogaphy etc is treated very seriously. Other than that, the workers were not working when they were supposed to? Burt what bother are you in, is it for copying moives, not working or viewing R rated movies?
 

I believe copying films is only illegal if you are doing so for sale or distribution, you are entitled to make a copy of a dvd that you own for personal purposes (for example it may have cost a lot of money and you want to make a copy so you only watch the copy and dont damage the original).

Im not clear what the issue is, was the copying illegal, did the laptop belong to the company, is there a ban on memory sticks being used, were you not working when you were supposed to be, what does a raid mean?

Not enough info to really pass a proper comment.
 
Brendan said:
Who did the raiding?

Who is the "We" who were caught in the raid?

Had he robbed the laptop?

If you were wasting time at work, that could be a disciplinary issue, but unlikely to be a sacking offence.
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The plant manager did the raid at around 23:00 on a night shift. Looking for peole doing things like what we were doing.

"We" were myself and a few other co-workers

The laptop belonged to one of the co-workers. It wasn't being used at the time, just sitting on the table, switched on.

The memory stick belonged to me.
I think there is something about there being nothing non-work related allowed on the factory floor and i may look that up. In any case, being caught with a memory stick would only result in being told to remove it from the factory floor.

We were stupid to have done this and for that we are due a warning. That's to be expected.
As for wasting time at work, yes, it could be easily argued that we were. The reason i say "argued" is that we are technicians and operate on an on-call system. We are on site, in a workshop but don't actively go around the factory floor. When there's a problem we get a call or a knock on the door and off we go to fix whatever problem it is.
So there are times on nights when we don't do a lot. Thats not to say we are slackers. We do a damn good job when we are called. We aren't let do any more because the line managers won't let us interrupt production to tinker with machines. Hence the laptop. It passes the time when things are quiet.
But now this r-rated thing threatens to be something bigger, ie: sacking.
Could management twist this into something more than it is, purely to reduce numbers cheaply and easily?
 
Did you sign a contract, and is there anything that conflicts with the incident in it?
 
The R rated thing is a bit of a red herring IMO. Its not even a classification in Ireland and the classification you quoted outside of Ireland doesnt have anything criminally damaging in it.

What you were doing was copying films (illegally I assume?).

You werent using any company equipment so I cant really see the issue besides you bringing non work related items into work and using them on the premises - but as you were using them for illegal copying there may be fall out from this.
 
The plant manager did the raid at around 23:00 on a night shift.
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It's hardly a "raid"?

It was an inspection which would be part of his job.

Their main concern would be with time wasting, but it doesn't seem to have been affecting your work.

They asked for an explanation. you gave it to them.

I would doubt that they will follow it up.

Brendan
 
You assume correctly i'm afraid. Thanks for information everybody. I'll let you know how it pans out.
 
Sounds to me like you had a laptop there so you could watch a movie on your break.

Apart from having personal property where you shouldn't , I don't see any issues.
 
R-rated is an American ratings system and would basically equate to 18 here it is not 'dodgy' at all in fact many American R-rated films would be
classified as 15 or less here
for example Michael Collins got an R rating there but is actually PG on dvd here
see here
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117039/
 
dereko1969 said:
...
for example Michael Collins got an R rating there but is actually PG on dvd here ...
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According to IMDB that is incorrect - Michael Collins has two ratings in Ireland - 12 for video and PG for cinema. The reason for this is that cinema and video releases of films may be different 'cuts' and have different content.

By the same token, the version released and rated for cinema in the US may be different to the cinema version in Ireland, thus you cannot directly compare the ratings as the content may very.
 
jhegarty said:
Sounds to me like you had a laptop there so you could watch a movie on your break.

Apart from having personal property where you shouldn't , I don't see any issues.
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Good spin on it!

If it was a case that the memory stick was being used to simply view a movie with a colleague on break then there is no issue.
 
Burt from a person who has delt with many various issues throughout my life i am guessing that what you did was against company rules, but not illegal? However if you have broken company rules chances are there will be a penalty to pay, and that penalty could be a verbal warning, written warning or worst case the sack. It depends on how your company would view this type of an issue and more importantly what it says in your employee handbook. If it is not covered in your employee handbook then they are not able to sack you. If they do....well there is ways of dealing with that! so best advice is check your employee handbook and Citizens Info is usually very helpful. Good Luck!!
 

yes i transposed the Irish ratings but my point remains valid, it's not like there was another version of Michael Collins doing the rounds with Dev drilling a hole into his head!
 
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