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Hi TL, i have a simple question for people out there. Have you ever been fired? If so, why were you fired, what was the job and do you think it was justified or uncalled for? And also what does people consider reasonable grounds for firing someone?(appart from obvious things such as: high/drunk at work, terrible at your job, always late)
And if there is anyone here who employs people(own company, your in a higher position that sometimes terminates people) how easy do you find it legally, to fire people? And what are your "lines" for firing people? And are there exceptons?
Reason im asking is because, well, today i got fired! And i shall summarize it real quick, if you cba to read it just dipp into the questions so we can get a discussion going.
I was a cashier at a sports store in a large chain. I had worked there for about 10 months, part time during college semesters and fulltime in the summers and christmas weekend, this was my fourth job i've had so far i think and my first time being fired(im 23). My reasons for being fired: I was late two days in a row in December(about 3 minutes each time), i had messed up on handling out some change properly about 4 times in December, my cashbox had -0.8 euro, -1 euro, +4 euros and +4 euros on said days.
After i was late two times in December i got a warning, after that i took a train leaving 15min earlier for work everytime i worked which made me arrive at the trainstation 3min away from work about 25min before i started so i am 99% positive i was never late again. I was called in today and was met with the claims of my change messups and claims i was always late. Both of these were news to me, as if you have a cash difference of over +/- 5 euros the CPU you enter your total into at the end of a shift notifies you, if its less then this you will not be notified and cannot as such recount your cashdrawer in case you counted it wrong. Hence i had no clue about these differences. When someone recieved a difference like this they got a semi serious "you had a diff grrr" from the day manager but that was pretty much it, since these things occured constantly.
I was never notified i was close to being terminated, and i was never told to shape up or anything like that apart fromt he warning about being late in December. Nor was i told these small differences in the cashdrawer(which i didnt even know about) were a decent problem. Everyone knew differences was bad, but nobody really made much of a fuss about the ones that were under the limit. When i got in today they had already hired someone new for my position which they said worked out better. My three months of "notification" or however it is called is worth nothing since im a part time worker and they will not give me any times during this period.
Now i can get another job, this does not worry me. However i do find the grounds upon which i was fired laughable and not very serious. So am i angry? Yes a little bit, but what im mostly wondering above all else is it really this easy to fire someone? Like do i have any rights in this?
Wow this turned out longer then i thought.
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Is that you, unkkz from stormscale? :D
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In canada your employer can fire you for whatever reason he wants. In return, we provide unemployment benefits for those who get fired until they can find another job (if they qualify for those benefits)
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Not sure about Europe but in Australia there are procedures if you feel that you've been unfairly dismissed. Considering you're part time though it's very odd that you were sacked on such short notice and it might have something to do with cost cutting more than worker performance, but I'm not sure what your work is like.
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United States24745 Posts
When I was a supermarket cashier they didn't care if your draw was short as long as it was less than 2 US dollars. If you were over they didn't care either lol
So you were late 3 minutes twice, then later had some very minor draw issues, and they got rid of you for that? It sounds like there was something else going on... but if there wasn't then be happy to be rid of them.
In my field there is a lot of skepticism towards the legislation to prevent arbitrary firing... it seems like there's no easy answer to the issue.
edit: I was almost fired from my golf cart job at my university golf course because the guy they were pairing me with was a moron and was getting us into trouble with his incompetence. They didn't rush to fire us and instead sent us each a very annoyed letter asking us to shape up. Well once they stopped pairing me with him I became one of the most reliable workers and one of the pros even commented on that.
It goes to show rushing to fire people is dumb. Then again I'm sure a lot of firing is done for 'illegal' reasons under the guise of a legal justification.
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On March 31 2011 11:26 kzn wrote:
Is that you, unkkz from stormscale? :D
lolol kzn, why yes it is me!
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On March 31 2011 11:28 Kar98 wrote:
Not sure about Europe but in Australia there are procedures if you feel that you've been unfairly dismissed. Considering you're part time though it's very odd that you were sacked on such short notice and it might have something to do with cost cutting more than worker performance, but I'm not sure what your work is like.
Well cost cutting is out atleast since they hired someone else for my position pretty much instantly.
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Well I am obviously clueless of the laws of employment in sweden, here in the state of NY we are considered employment-at-will
meaning I can be fired or quit for any/no reason at all. except of course for race, religious beliefs, etc.
So if it is a similar situation where you are, then they could've just decided they didn't like you or whatever but didn't want to sound like total dicks so they took whatever mistakes you did make and exaggerated a little.
Just a guess but wouldn't surprise me
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On March 31 2011 11:27 eXigent. wrote:
In canada your employer can fire you for whatever reason he wants. In return, we provide unemployment benefits for those who get fired until they can find another job (if they qualify for those benefits)
If you think this is true you need to learn your damn labour rights. For example, they can't fire you because you're a woman, or because you're black, or because your boss hates tall people. If a Canadian court finds that your employer has violated these things, they'll award you damages.
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On March 31 2011 11:28 micronesia wrote:
So you were late 3 minutes twice, then later had some very minor draw issues, and they got rid of you for that? It sounds like there was something else going on... but if there wasn't then be happy to be rid of them.
Pretty much, the reason i was given atleast.
In my field there is a lot of skepticism towards the legislation to prevent arbitrary firing... it seems like there's no easy answer to the issue.
Lawyer?
What about like making notifications of poor performance mandatory or stuff like that, cant see an issue with that?
On March 31 2011 11:28 micronesia wrote:
It goes to show rushing to fire people is dumb. Then again I'm sure a lot of firing is done for 'illegal' reasons under the guise of a legal justification.
Yes i would agree with this, especially since i considered myself a good worker and would've tried to fix whatever was wrong. And i was completely oblivious, like lightning from a blue sky oblivious.
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On March 31 2011 11:33 lilodot wrote:
Well I am obviously clueless of the laws of employment in sweden, here in the state of NY we are considered employment-at-will
meaning I can be fired or quit for any/no reason at all. except of course for race, religious beliefs, etc.
So if it is a similar situation where you are, then they could've just decided they didn't like you or whatever but didn't want to sound like total dicks so they took whatever mistakes you did make and exaggerated a little.
Just a guess but wouldn't surprise me
Actually live in Norway which i didnt mention but its pretty much the same thing. I would assume since we are more lefties here i'd say NY law would be slightly harsh over here, but i honestly dont have a clue.
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My girlfriend's friend got fired from McDonalds for similar reasons, but it happened to be just before he would have gotten a promotion for having worked there so long. Don't know if this is your situation but companies, especially retail/fast food, work pretty hard to make sure that their employees have a hard time advancing because it keeps labor costs low.
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I work at walmart, and while I haven't been fired, there's typically a pretty good reason behind it. Although the reason is never what they say. For example there was this girl that had a lot of attitude and spoke her mind. She was a cool person to people who were cool, but most managers are douchebags. Eventually she was fired for "stealing company time". Being in the breakroom for longer than she should be, etc. The thing is, the majority of the employees here probably do that kind of shit all the time. Reason she got fired is because she pissed off a manager.
On the other hand, there's a guy at work that literally never does anything. Constantly taking 30-45 minute breaks, and on lunch he's gone half an hour extra. He will never be fired, because he hasn't pissed anyone off. To get fired here you pretty much have to make someone angry, or blatantly ignore a warning. Like phone guy. Who constantly talked on the phone all the time, despite being warned.
That being said that's just walmart. It's pretty hard to get fired unless you're doing something that common sense tells you not to. I'd imagine in other retail chains it's probably easy to get fired for other things, but I'd say the number 1 reason anyone gets fired is someone not liking you, and reporting you to management.
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United States24745 Posts
On March 31 2011 11:36 unkkz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2011 11:28 micronesia wrote:
So you were late 3 minutes twice, then later had some very minor draw issues, and they got rid of you for that? It sounds like there was something else going on... but if there wasn't then be happy to be rid of them. Pretty much, the reason i was given atleast. Show nested quote +
In my field there is a lot of skepticism towards the legislation to prevent arbitrary firing... it seems like there's no easy answer to the issue.
Lawyer? What about like making notifications of poor performance mandatory or stuff like that, cant see an issue with that?
Public School Teacher. There is a tenure system which means tenured teachers (you get tenure after a few grueling years of no protection) are entitled to due process and cannot be fired unless the district sufficiently demonstrates the legitimacy of the decision to fire.
Notifications of poor performance are generally preferable to keeping poor performance a secret from the employee lol. On the other hand it doesn't solve all our problems either... not all 'poor performance' is easily quantified, or isn't easy to prove etc.
Show nested quote +On March 31 2011 11:28 micronesia wrote:
It goes to show rushing to fire people is dumb. Then again I'm sure a lot of firing is done for 'illegal' reasons under the guise of a legal justification. Yes i would agree with this, especially since i considered myself a good worker and would've tried to fix whatever was wrong. And i was completely oblivious, like lightning from a blue sky oblivious.
Yeah I'm thinking they wanted to get rid of you for some stupid reason that didn't even occur to you. You could have pissed someone off without realizing it or whatever... happens.
On March 31 2011 11:44 des wrote:
My girlfriend's friend got fired from McDonalds for similar reasons, but it happened to be just before he would have gotten a promotion for having worked there so long. Don't know if this is your situation but companies, especially retail/fast food, work pretty hard to make sure that their employees have a hard time advancing because it keeps labor costs low.
It's sad how often there are hidden motivators like this. The same thing in my field... there have to be laws to prevent layoffs from arbitrarily targeting the higher paid employees without justification... and those laws are currently being scrutinized also.
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We just had a law passed meaning you can fire anyone w/o reason in their first 60 days on the job. This is to 'protect the employers'.
And no I've never been fired, or fired anyone.
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after ~2.5 years with the company, I was laid off after the new year for tax reasons (I think)
company was falling under hard times due to recessions / housing market crash / financial markets in chaos. there were 4 people including me that handled customers. I was the most junior out of the 4 and they did it better than me so I was let go.
the only issue I had with the lay off was that it was sudden, but I have no hard feelings. layoffs were necessary and I think I was actually part of the 3rd to 4th series of layoffs.
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I've never been fired from a job but my current job could be my first one. I was hired last year as a student in pharmacy and I'm no longer in pharmacy. I'm still there because I'm waiting to go back to university in september and he needs people right now to fill hours but he was fair and let me know he will be giving students he has a chance to keep more hours in the summer. Not sure if he will just cut my hours or fire me but at least he was honest with me. Workers are protected in Quebec (3 months minimum then they need a valid reason to fire you) but I'm sure like any other boss he would find a reason to fire me if need be (I've gotten a warning for being bossy before... do your fucking job and I won't tell you to do it)
He has 2 pharmacies though and asked me if I wanted to do replacement work at the other one sometimes so I'm crossing my fingers to have at least 30h per week in the summer.
There are a few high school jobs I was pretty incompetent at though. I worked in a tool shop and knew nothing about tools. Didn't get fired but I broke my leg 1 month into the job and it was only for the summer so I never went back. I don't think they liked me very much, I was beyond useless.
I was also horrible when I worked at the beach but that was still better than the other people working there so I got praise for it from the mayor (town job). Was pretty funny. Same experience working in a call center; everyone was awful and I was OK so I was considered great there.
If you're wondering, I usually got a different jobs every summer because I was in a different town for university; that's why I had so many jobs...)
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Ever see the movie Up In The Air with George Clooney? That was my job last year. I left 'cos I got sick of it... But basically there are very stringent procedures to go through... Not sure about Norway, but chances are you'll have a Labour Department that you can phone up to ask for advice. If you wish to take things further there are generally 'no-win, no-fee' type lawyers/employment advisors who would be happy to take on your case.
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Currently i am working casual at a local McDonalds and rather than fire people, They will cut their shifts down to the bare minimum basically forcing them to quit and look for other jobs. This was happening to me but i went and talked to the shift manager and she said some bs about availabilities and i am getting more now. But basically i have not been fired...yet
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Were you the only one fired? Or was there a group of people. Because what happened at a store i worked at was they needed to cut hours, so they cut the people who were unavailable most of the week. (you said you worked part time) and hired people to work fulltime.
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EPT
