My name is Eric, I’m 38 years old, and I live in Toledo, Ohio. I’ve worked at the same manufacturing plant for almost nine years. It’s not a glamorous job, but it paid the bills and gave me a sense of stability. I used to believe that if you did your work well and followed the rules, you’d be treated fairly. I don’t believe that anymore.
About six months ago, I noticed something off with one of the older machines on the floor. The emergency stop button would sometimes fail to respond. It didn’t happen every time, which made it even more dangerous. I watched one coworker nearly get his sleeve caught when the machine kept running a few seconds longer than it should have. No one was hurt, but it shook me.
I reported the issue to my supervisor, assuming it would be handled quietly. He brushed it off and said maintenance was already behind schedule. A week passed. Then another. The machine stayed in use. I filed a written report, thinking documentation would help.
That’s when things changed.
Management called me into a meeting and asked why I was “creating concern.” They said there hadn’t been any official accidents and that I was being overly negative. One manager even suggested that I was trying to avoid working that station. The focus wasn’t on the machine—it was on me.
After that meeting, my schedule started shifting. I was moved to less desirable hours. Coworkers stopped talking to me like they used to. Someone told me, quietly, that I’d been labeled “difficult.” I’d gone from a reliable employee to a liability because I spoke up.
A month later, the machine finally broke down completely. Maintenance confirmed the emergency stop had been failing intermittently, exactly like I said. The machine was shut down for repairs. No one apologized. No one acknowledged the reports I’d filed. Instead, my supervisor told me, “See? It’s fixed now. Let’s move forward.”
But something in me had already changed. I realized that safety wasn’t the priority—silence was. The system didn’t protect people who spoke up; it protected itself. I still do my job, but I document everything now. I keep copies. I don’t assume good intentions anymore.
They may see me as the problem. I see myself as someone who refused to wait for an accident to prove I was right.
