Sorry, I've been bad and not blogging.  :(  I've had a pretty hectic past few weeks, as well as stressful.  Coolrimm - I got your emails - thank you! 

Anywho - here's one work blog I was able to crank out.  It's part 2 of my interview

Recently, in Oneonta, New York, a registered sex offender obtained a job with Sure Connect, a company who is a contractor for Time Warner. He allegedly assaulted a woman in her home on June 20, 2008. Subsequently, Time Warner has terminated its contract with Sure Connect and is now requiring notarized certification from its contractors that background checks have been performed.

Stan McGinnis, founder and CEO of Secure Signals International, a company who specializes in "theft of service, internal theft, loss prevention and account fraud solutions with bottom line impact" and who screens potential employees for many contractors of cable companies, sat down with us to offer his insight into background checks and the cable television industry. What follows is the second part of our interview:

"Their [Time Warner] contract employees are obligated to do the same background checks that Time Warner does on their employees, which is supposed to be criminal, driving and a credit report. I'm working on a Time Warner system right now where the contractors have not done any background checks on any of their employees. I fired a contracting group out of a Time Warner system because the contract owner was in prison for drugs and his guys weren't doing their work. I know that system is not following the corporate guidelines of checking criminal history, credit history and driving records. They are supposed to submit an affidavit that they are doing these things. There is a fine line that Time Warner & Comcast are careful not to cross and that is that they can't manage the contractors' employees. Therefore, they don't make the contractors employees by managing too much of their business.

For Time Warner to say that it was not their employee and does not have any effect on them is bogus because any employee of a contractor that gets caught doing something like that...it is always going to reflect poorly on the fact that Time Warner hired this contracting group that hired a bad employee. In Sacramento, California, Comcast missed six felony convictions on a felony rapist by using Kroll because their database wasn't up to date. The employee went out and raped the first customer at home, which happened to be a mentally retarded girl. That case was just settled six months ago and that happened four years ago. Two years ago, in Chicago, Illinois, Comcast had a contractor kill a customer. The police interviewed the installer and let him go. They took some DNA from his shirt, but they didn't process it because they didn't have him as a person of interest. A week later, he killed another customer and then they arrested him.

I've had discussions with Comcast and Time Warner's corporate legal departments. The background checks they perform meet the minimum standard for the minimum cost, which allows for these opportunities to occur in the marketplace. When you look at the case in Sacramento, it went on for four years. The City of Sacramento tried to cancel Comcast franchises and there were city hall meetings. The public relations of that one incident make you ask the rhetorical question, "Wouldn't it be better to get it done right the first time, than to suffer the embarrassment?" It is incredulous to me that we step over dollars to pick up dimes because it is efficient. They want their reports back in 24 hours and we can't do that because the information we need is not readily on a database that is just going to pop up and be correct all the time. We want to be correct on our assessment so it takes time to get a good, accurate report; otherwise, why do the background check at all? Other than that you have some way of mitigating your damages when you get sued in court. This isn't correct, either.

In the Sacramento case where the background check was done by a Kroll database, the Judge said, "You could have used a better service and gotten the right information. You could have known, you should have known, you didn't and so you’re liable." I believe Kroll picked up all the expenses on that on behalf of Comcast. What if a contractor didn't have the means to do that? Aside from that, the damage is already done."

So, not only did I have to work overtime today, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a box 'o wine (classy, I know).  I get it home, go to put it in the fridge and notice the date...

"Best if consumed by May 8, 2007"

wtf???

I hauled it back to the store, exchanged it and the clerk said to me, "Sorry, ma'am.  I'd give you something for your troubles, but this here is alcohol, so I can't."

I just kind of looked at her and said, "Fine.  But please make sure you dipose of that wine. I think over a year is a bit unacceptable."

Then on the way out I bought a 'Vote for Barack' button from a guy who looked alot like Denzel.  *drool*  Please don't tell my husband.  About the button, not the drooling.  He'd probably file for divorce if he knew what was in my purse.

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jen - Free and Healing for Five Months, Sixteen Days, 5 Hours and 19 Minutes, while extending my life expectancy 6 Days and 23 Hours, by avoiding the use of 2007 nicotine delivery devices that would have cost me $454.62.