May be in trouble at work

yer_averagejoe

yer_averagejoe

yer_averagejoe

Soldato
Joined
23 May 2005
Posts
2,964
Location
Auckland, New Zealand
I work part time for a pretty huge clothing retailer. I was working yesterday, my usual 4 hour shift, finishing at 8pm, the same as everyone else, an hour after the shop closed (time to tidy up and all that). Now at about 7:30pm the "secondary manager" or whatever - left in charge of the store for the evening - told everyone we couldnt go home until the shop is tidy. to which i reply "or until 8 oclock of course. I'm not staying after 8."

Come 8 O'clock and everyone is still working but me and 2 other guys go and sign out and sit in the staffroom (doors are locked so we couldnt get out). This manageress comes in and starts having a go at us! I told her that we finished at 8 and she's not allowed to make us keep working like that. So she said I'd have to take it up with the senior manager (the head honcho)

They've got nothing on me right? It even says in the staff handbook that we're not supposed to work after our shift ends.
 
Everyone else was very angry about it but just didn't have the guts to do anything about it. I told her I wasn't a prt of the team. To be a "team player" you have to be proud of the "team"

what it comes down to is them making us do work we didn't consent to do. If they want me to work on a day I'm not scheduled for, they phone me up and ask if I want to do it or not. If I do I give consent and work the shift, if I don't I say no. They can't force me to work out of contract hours so how is this any different?
 
Longbow said:
If it says till 20:00 in your contract, then that's all you do.

Glad to see you're not a push over like the rest of your team.
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Thankyou. I realise in a real industry that being part of a team is important. I'm probably going to be a game developer so I'll have to put ina lot of work to projects and probably not even get paid to do some of it. Its an important job. I don't see how a little extra tidying time could be seen as such a huge deal. It was only 15 minutes in the end.. And I'm sure I would have worked that if it had been defined.
 
Cyber-Mav said:
be careful, they could replace you with a immigrant who would work for less wage and not complain about longer hours.
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As far as I'm aware they pay everyone the same :p. While we're on the subject, we have this indian guy in right now who can work like 4 times fasterthan anyone else:eek: its inhuman!
 
marl said:
How much longer would you have had to have stayed to have tidied up?
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15 minutes as it turns out. Its stupid I know - if I knew it would have been 15 minutes i would probably have worked it. But she didn't define the time, it could have been anywhere upto an hour (reasonably)
 
gambitt said:
lol what a load of ****

what if you had plans that you'd made that evening? what if your bus/train leaves at quarter past the hour?

I'd understand if it was your career but it's a part time job for minimum wage (or close to it).

And finally, if everyone has to stay 15 minutes after their shifts that is due to poor management. Your manager should organise their staff more efficiently and make sure that everyone leaves work when their shift ends.
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As it turns out a couple of people did miss their busses and had to wait an hour :eek: for the next one.

And yeah, poor management: the work would have been done during the the day had we more staff. We did have more staff, 9 christmas temps who were let off a couple of weeks ago (some had only been working for a week!). EVERYONE in the store is outraged by this.
 
I fully understand the will to work extra and put in that little extra. And I have - On a saturday night one time the store was a little below standards and the manager (a different one) asked if anyone could work for an extra hour. Only myself and another member of staffed offered to help and stay behind with our manager. I don't even know if we got paid for it, i don't even care - I did it out of good will.

There are 2 differences between that situation and the one at present:

1) She asked us if anyone could stay; she didn't tell us (try to force us, exploiting stupidity) to stay

2) She defined the amount of time we'd be working. A lot of people here are saying something along the lines of "Whats the problem, it was only 15 minutes!". I didn't know that. Its the principal in question that is the problem.

Edit: in both situations the store was under staffed.
 
Stephen B said:
didn't you say you couldn't leave the premises because you were locked in ?
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I was talking about the time another manager handled the situation in the right way. sorry if my post was unclear.

I can see this starting to go round in circles so in conclusion:

I'm totally going to get fired aren't I? :( I know I probably can't get fired for this but they'll most likely pin something else on me, that the way it works isn't it?
 
Thanks for being supportive. sunama - I have worked there for just over a year now.

I just realised my OP might have made it sound like I "mouthed off" to my manager when I actually kept my calm and ground.

I know the disipline talk is imminent and I think I'll go into it with the points I have raised, blame it mostly on bad management and ask for the argument not to be elevated.
 
People keep coming back to the "team work" and "only 15 minutes" issues. These are none issues! Forget I said 15 minutes. That doesn't matter. lets just leave the extra time as "undefined" and we're looking at the principle here.

I've already stated I'm willing to work extra time out of good will if I want and when it comes to a full time job I'll work extra time even if I don't want to. I understand fully why extra time needs to be worked sometimes - I just don't deem my job important enough to come before anything else in my life right now. including a social life or university studies (as it turns out I actually went home to study that night)

Other people are saying "well if you'd all chipped in before 8 then it would have got done." No,. it wouldnt. We were working. the problem comes around to being understaffed. Perhaps even if the customers had the respect to hang whatever they've been looking at back up we wouldn't need extra staff! But thats not to be expected. The shop should be able to cope with any manner of customer.

I've argued this point with my manager before. He says we can't afford to pay the christmas temps. Its bull****. In the christmas period the shop (as a singular shop, not even the whole company) rakes in more than enough profit to pay a few extra staff (say - the 9 that were "let go" recently") And if it can't meet the targets with the right amount of staff then surley better managers should be brought in, prices should be increased or even the store should be closed down. But thats a problem that the head office have to worry about and SHOULDNT NEED a bottom rung monkey like myself telling them this!
 
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Stretch said:
Its sounds like you work for one of those companies that expect their staff to work for the company like they own it.
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or have pride :p

It amazes me that people actually expect you to have pride in the place you work and have want to make the company more money even if you don't own a part of it let alone being on minimum wage.




Also: christmas smilies are back - yay! :D
 
So apparently the senior manager - the "head honcho" is on the war path for me. I'm working tomorrow night (teusday night) and He's going to want to talk to me. I'm scared, frankly :(. Any advice?
 
sunama said:
Dude, he cannot touch you for what you did when you finished on time that day. The only problem I forsee is if you have other issues with your work performance. Thats the only angle that he can rightfully tackle you on. If he does tackle you on other issues then you could just say, "Sorry Guv', I will try and improve my performance".

If, however, he tackles you only on what happened the other day, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Be as calm as possible and just explain to him that you were ordered by the manager to stay. You were treated like a child, which you took offence to. Hence, you decided not to stay behind. Also tell him that in future if he wants you to do extra time, to give you as much notice in advance as possible, as you do have other things to do, eg. study for important tests/exams as you are aiming to get a top grade.

Like I said, you have nothing to worry about if they have nothing else on you. If he calls you in and gives you a warning based on what happened the other day, you should have a big grin on your face, because you will lodge your appeal later this week and in a few weeks you will request a written apology from this "head honcho", for not only giving you a warning wrongfully, but also for the fact that his manager kept you locked up in the shop when you wanted to leave (imprisonment). If I were in your position, I would love it, if they gave a warning for what happened that day. You could even book off with stress, get a doctors note - take a couple of weeks off. The possibilities are mind boggling...:D

Oh and it could be that he just wants to speak to you. You wont need a witness for this, but if he decides to give you a warning, take someone in with you. Make sure you do this.

Another thing, my feeling is that you are worrying about getting sacked - what you did that day is not gross misconduct which means that he cannot sack you for that incident alone.
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I know, I guess I have the same mindset as you, I am quite looking forward to this as actually. Its just that I'm not experienced and I've argued with him before, nothing quite as serious as this yet I've argued for other employees against him. I tend to get angry and start to shake (hopefully not visibly) and my words muddled. I end up not putting my points across and the whole thing comes off not quite bad but worse than I expect. He always manages to keep his cool and he know that, he uses it in a patronising way.
 
Hi all. So I had work today - 5 till 9. I went in scared with my mp3 player (built in mic) in my pocket and decided I'd better make the first move. Put out a loudspeaker message for him, he called back and I asked him if he wanted to see me now or later (this was 5 mins before shift). He said he'd contact me in about half an hour and put me on the worst job in the store. Unsuprising really. But I didn't mind, it made for a nice change. He didn't get back to me. I don't know if he was busy or not. I got my head down. And signed out at 9.

After the nerves settled while I was waiting for him to contact me, I was actually quite dissapointed that he didnt.

I'm working tomorrow night too (wednesday) and he probably will be. So if he still wants to talk, I'm sure he'll do it then. I'll let you know.

Sunama, thanks for defending me against Deep, you've raised all the arguments I would have given him. He's still talking about the "OMG it was only 15 minutes" thing though isn't he?
 
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