Not Available whilst on Call - Sack able Offence?

Martynt74 · 6 Apr 2018 at 11:52

Someone i know works in IT support, on Sunday he was due to be on call but after a late one on the Saturday night he slept through a couple of calls to his works phone from a client.

He's not been there long (5 months). From what i know there haven't been any other issues prior to this and in January had a 3 month review which went really well. His probation period was 6 months and i think given he's within that it probably suggests the company would take a different view of the situation than if they were a long standing employee.

Just wondering what peoples opinions on this are. The guy in question is only 20 so only young. I know this isn't an excuse at all but i feel that dismissal feels slightly harsh in the circumstances (assuming there's nothing else i know of).

Martynt74 · 6 Apr 2018 at 22:22

Sorry if it wasn't clear. It was due to being out on the razz. No excuses for that at all. It was a stupid thing to do and i'm not defending it in the slightest. My original opinion was that dismissal was a little harsh IF it was a first time issue and the previous 5 months had been problem free. Especially for someone fairly young, who might turn into a productive member of the team for many years to come.

My advice at the moment has been to try and beg and ask for a second chance, even to suggest extending the original probationary period for another 3 months to prove his worth/reliability.

For some more info, the company involved is a fairly small (i think) Third Party IT Support type company, maybe around 5-10 employees. The person in question is my stepson so i accept i can't be fully impartial, although i do my best to take everything into account and believe i question things i don't know (such as whether there have been other incidents he's not told us about)

Martynt74 · 6 Apr 2018 at 22:33

Yeah i agree with you there. The fact it came to today for the dismissal after work Tuesday-Thursday suggests they've been looking at his reaction and haven't been convinced by it.

Martynt74 · 20 Apr 2018 at 21:41

I did give a clarification earlier (and thought i'd explained in the op), but he was dismissed on the day i posted the thread.

On the plus side he's found another job and is due to start a week on Monday. No mention of references at the moment so we'll see what happens with that, he's only been asked for a CRB check. The new job works out around £2k extra salary and is more local to home. Only downside is it almost 100% removes his wish to move to Manchester as the commute would be grim. We've told him that he just needs to stick with it for around 12 months and then he'll have a decent chance of looking for something new in the area he wants but he's been lucky to find something after being sacked and another short term role would really hurt him if he doesn't sort himself out in this one.