This mother has gone viral vlogging her experience during the ongoing Gary, Indiana Blackout, people angered by the GoFundMe support she's attracted decided to report it and doxxed her.

[u/Girl-Understood]

[u/manny_the_mage]

kinda shitty though that a whole community is being held accountable for the actions of an individual

but considering the demographics of Gary, this type of treatment tracks

[u/InFlagrantDisregard → u/manny_the_mage]

It's just one shooting but not just one individual. There are linemen being verbally abused, threatened, having their trucks surrounded, people demanding they go help other streets or blocks first, etc etc.

 

I don't blame them for saying, "Screw this, not without security" and now all your recovery work is beholden to police security presence.

[u/Illustrious-Use-2261 → u/InFlagrantDisregard]

If they want to act like animals… the world can show them what it’s like to live like animals.

If I was one of those workers I wouldn’t step foot anywhere near that area.

[u/manny_the_mage → u/InFlagrantDisregard]

I work with technicians who maintain ISP infrastructure who have been shot at, had their tires slashed, had slurs and profanities thrown at them… in suburbs

But I couldn’t imagine the ISP company is okay with letting techs simply refuse to work on an area

Safety is first and more important, but it is ultimately their job to service all areas where our infrastructure is located

And thats just for internet, something less essential than electricity

[u/ChoiceHistorian8477 → u/manny_the_mage]

Then the community should get together and make the workers safe enough to work there. If that were my community, and we’re all suffering we are going to not allow it. If you don’t want the police policing, figure it out.

[u/manny_the_mage → u/ChoiceHistorian8477]

Communities across America are slowly turning into nothing but strangers that live by each other

You'd be surprised how people now adays feel very little connection to the people that live across the street from them

But yeah, collectively punishing a community by refusing to dispatch electrical crews because of the actions of one or two people is pretty frustrating

[u/ineverreddit → u/manny_the_mage]

The dispatch crews are not robots, they are people that don't want to go get shot at and are more than in their right to refuse to want to work there; are you suggesting forcing them?

[u/manny_the_mage → u/ineverreddit]

I work with technicians who maintain ISP infrastructure who have been shot at, had their tires slashed, has slurs and profanities thrown at them… in suburbs

But I couldn’t imagine the ISP company is okay with letting techs simply refuse to work on an area

Safety is first and more important, but it is ultimately their job to service all areas where our infrastructure is located

[u/Adventurous-Brain-36 → u/manny_the_mage]

This is some dystopian bs. Civilized places (and people) allow workers to refuse unsafe work, as they should. These aren’t soldiers, they’re fucking electrical crews.

[u/manny_the_mage → u/Adventurous-Brain-36]

As someone who works dispatching technicians, we’ve had a guy had a gun pulled on him at night because he had to work on rear easement (backyard infrastructure) in a suburban neighborhood

Despite that, they still had to go back there in the morning after to complete the job

It’s not dystopian, it’s just that they aren’t allowed to completely abandon an entire neighborhood for weeks just because one homeowner pulled a gun on someone

Everyone else in that neighborhood was still paying for internet service and they had an obligation to the rest of the paying customers in that neighborhood

And that was JUST internet, not something as essential as electricity

I know it seems bad, but the company still had a job to do for the remaining paying customers in that neighborhood, so the job got done

[u/ineverreddit → u/manny_the_mage]

I honestly don't really care that you worked for a company that treated you all like machine extensions of their corporate office; people are allowed to refuse unsafe work in north america by and large (I'm sure there's probably a couple states that don't give a fuck but it's Canada wide) and some companies care more about their employees than they do bottom line... which is how most people would like companies to run.

I mean yeah sure, whatever ISP you dispatched for sounds like a soulless machine marching on at all inconvenience. Did your company even bother to get involved with law enforcement over anything like that? Or is that also too much off the bottom line? Just send them back out there the next morning... lmaoooooo

[u/manny_the_mage → u/ineverreddit]

I mean, what would you do as a customer if your internet was off for an entire week because when they tried to work on it, some random person a few blocks away pulled a gun on a technician?

What might you do? Probably switch providers, and that is what exactly companies are wanting to avoid

Electric companies are different in that in some areas they hold a monopoly meaning that people can’t just switch providers, because usually there are no other providers in the area

It’s harsh, and I don’t necessarily like it, but people who work on essential infrastructure do not get the privilege of simply refusing to restore services to an area because they are scared

These are often teams of a few dozen technicians and if one guy is too shaken up to work on an area, they send a different guy to get the job done

It is unfair to punish a community by leaving them without power because of one person, and if your home was without power for a week because of the actions of one person, you too would probably feel that was unfair too

We have at times coordinated with law enforcement for safety concerns, but unless there is active shooting or an active threat to life, there is really not much for them to do aside from driving by once or twice an hour

But also the local essential infrastructure of an entire community shouldn’t be held hostage because of a single violent weirdo with an itchy trigger finger in the area

If that was the case then areas where mass shootings have occurred could go without essential infrastructure maintenance which is not good for the bottom line OR the community