> ...when an employee fucks up, just fire him ? > Is that really not a solution here ?

Not for the victim.

I agree, though I think a warning for a first offense is more reasonable. It seems like every company would rather set policy based on the worst possible interpretation rather than leaving things a little looser and dealing with problems/oversteppers directly.

I don't know. It seems like either you're responsible for your behavior, or you are not. Having a first-offense warning just shows that the company isn't really serious about dealing with the problem.

Zero Tolerance Policies, generally also mean Zero Thinking Policies.

The punishment should fit the crime, and most situations are warrant only a warning or a minor punishment - and if behavior improves, all is well.

We seem to be backing off of the whole "personal responsibility" thing. If you start off with the policy that "we trust all of our employees to behave like mature adults" and they don't, they've demonstrated that you can't trust them, no?

If you have that policy and then start down the road of first-offense warnings, or trying to match the punishment to the crime, you end up in exactly the place where a lot of companies are now. (This isn't a new idea; it's how companies have always operated.) Without a specific set of policies, the company literally cannot do anything right: If you fire someone because his coworkers say they cannot work with him, everyone starts frothing at the mouth. If you pay someone else to leave because he's too important to fire, everyone digs out their pitchforks and torches. If you do nothing, it blows up in your face, spectacularly.

Firing everyone who has any sort of policy infraction fails to note their humanity, and fails to account for the money the company has invested in them.

What % of incidents were first offenses? Unless it's a really low number, firing after first offense won't reduce the total number of incidents enough.

I disagree. You're assuming that only direct punishment can affect behavior, when the _threat_ of punishment after first offense can also affect behavior.

As a ridiculous hyperbole: assume a life in prison minimum sentence is established for speeding, on the first offense, and that it's actually enforced. I guarantee you that very quickly we'd have everyone driving under the posted speed limit at all times.

You're assuming offenders anticipate the bad things they do drunk and thus can be deterred.

Counterpoint to your ridiculous hyperbole: Why isn't the murder rate near zero in states with the death penalty?

Isn't that backwards? If most offenses are first offenses, then firing after a first offense won't help much. But if most offense are repeat, firing after the first offense would have prevented the repeat, right?

What you're saying and what I said are consistent, not backwards.

"If most offenses are first offenses" satisfies the predicate "Unless [% of first offenses] is a really low number"

The consequent "firing after a first offense won't help much" is consistent with "firing after first offense won't reduce the total number of incidents enough."

So many easy solutions are to just ban the thing, and not investigate/legislate the actual reason for doing the thing.

But quick change is often more desirable than real change.