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.
 
I don't think it's a case of what the handbook does or doesn't say, but it's showing that you're not being a team-player. If you're not helping, it's going to take the others longer and I'm pretty sure that they'd like to be going home too.
 
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?
 
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.
 
You're fine if your contract says your hours are until 8. They can't force you to work unpaid overtime, and for a PT retail job, I certainly wouldn't bother. How dare they ask you to work when they're not paying you for it? Tell them to take a running jump.
 
I think common sense comes into play here. You don't finish until the jobs done. When working part time at a supermarket, we had to face off the entire store before the shift finished, making sure everything was ready for the next morning. Quite often we'd clock out (and get paid until) 15 minutes late.

It's annoying but its part of the job. Don't like it? Quit.
 
An extra 10 or so minutes help wouldn't have killed you, seriously. I'm not forced to work after my shift ends but if it is after hours I'll do an extra bit 10-15 minutes just to help them out and let other people get home quicker (also i get paid for the extra time). Bit selfish not to help since you couldn't get out of the building anyway.
 
When 17 they tried doing the same to me

I used the fire exit, duty manager went mental that night shouting out of the door at me + mate

Nothing was ever said of it again!
 
I dont know the ins and outs of your place but where I work you stay until everything is clean, you do however get paid the extra 15 - 30 mins.

Its seems pretty petty for you to just walk out at 8 leaving everyone else to finish the work.

But again, I dont know the ins and outs of your place.
 
If everyone was annoyed then is simply sounds like bad management. Regardless, you should've just chipped in and taken it up at another time. What you did will only ruin your working relationship and never under-estimate how easy it can be for employers to let you go as where there's a will, there's a way.

Instead of holding on to the "I wanted to go home" stance, perhaps you should explain that the situation was due to bad management and hence why you're unhappy.
 
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.
 
I never work a minute over what I have to in the shop. Too many times in the past have I worked somewhere over my shift to get a job done and not been praised, thanked or even paid, the job is not important enough to work more than I have to. its not my career. If it was my career and i wanted to do well then i would work over and show that I am valuable.

Shops don't care about you and often want you to work over for free even just 15 - 20 minutes every few days soon adds up. Don't let them bully you or make you feel bad for wanting to go home on time. Infact if they had locked you in you may have had a case for kidnap :) (this may not be true)
 
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)
 
I would have given it at least another 15 minutes. If you weren't done by 8:15 then I would have taken your action. I used to work in a factory, and so many times a room would mess their stock up, meaning my room needed to go and sort it out for them, sometimes this meant staying 2 minutes after my work time, sometimes it meant 15, but by helping out the room that messed up, they get to go home at a decent-ish time, and in the morning there wasn't one big mess to sort out, and how much of my time did it take, 15 minutes? That's nothing.

Your not going to get too far in life if you don't give that little bit extra.

EDIT

Just read your post above, my story doesn't have so much of a point now to you, but oh well :p
 
I only ever stay late if something I should have done isn't done yet. seems like you weren't done with your jobs, so you should've stayed.
 
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