Suspended from work

Garp · 2 May 2006 at 08:22

EVH said:
I was fired from Tesco under gross misconduct.

The reason? I didn't telephone them to say I couldn't make a shift after a major car accident. I called 3 of the guys on my dept because I couldn't get in touch with a duty manager, and they (management) said that even though they had the message it was put down as an "UA" unauthorised absence because I didn't speak to him/her directly.

I was a team leader and made it clear that even though I knew I needed to ring in, I was NEVER informed of this stupid rule. I even told them that it is "frankly pathetic" and that was it.. they babbled on about signing a contract agreeing with the rules to ring in, and therefore absence margins...

Once again, as I've stated in this thread.. its typical of Stores HR departments to get up their own arses and be high and mighty. The Head Office HR department at Tescos actually has HR staff to deal with these that can and do overthrow decisions taken at stores level. All it ever takes is a single phone call.

bradbcam · 2 May 2006 at 09:08

Speaking from experience, never believe what the person from HR says. They are not neutral (although they are professionally) in all cases like this they'll side with the manager.
I've been "got" twice by HR just trying to make their lives easier.

Edinho · 2 May 2006 at 09:55

Worked for Morrisons for 6 years as a student. In that time i learned two things. I never ever want to work in retail again, and retail managment is a joke. These guys have absolutely no management skills whatsoever, and just basically manage people through bullyboy fear tactics.

Psymonkee · 2 May 2006 at 10:09

Right OK - got the paperwork infront of me just now. the reason for the warning is:

Failure to carry out reasonable instructions from a manager and using violent and threatening behaviour

I need to go over the statements provided by the manager (of which I was not given a copy) but afaik his words were pretty much copied from the staff handbook word for word! Also guess who didn't have a staff handbook?

The other thing that really seems obvious is in the letter of suspension:

'Any relevant documents arising from out investigation will be provided to you in advance of this hearing'

I'll give you one guess as to what they didn't do....

Scrutinize · 2 May 2006 at 10:45

Company law is a real pain. However they do have to follow procedure.

1) Document everything and keep dated and signed notes, countersigned by a third party to witness dates etc.
2) Take it up with someone senior in HR
3) Best bet is to find a new job, the hassle to clean this mess up is not worth it.

ben_j_davis · 2 May 2006 at 10:51

Ah i remember when i got suspened, had a to have a meeting on a Monday as well. Lets just say i was a little surprised when i was suspended. BTW HR is never on your side eventhough they might say they are. Luckily i just got a way with a final warning, which i thought was a bit on the harsh side seeing that a month later someone was physically assaulted (two members of the company involved) and got off.

Mattius · 2 May 2006 at 11:02

join the union now mate its not too late and they will smash them to pieces.

http://www.usdaw.org.uk/

you need major backup to go through things like this and the union are the way forward. at 98pence a week there is no reason not to be part of it.

stoofa · 2 May 2006 at 11:04

dmpoole said:
My baby sister is the HR manager at a Morrisons and I've just shown her this thread.
I told her to bare in mind that when people write in threads about subjects like this they are usually 99.9% honest because they have no reason not to be.

Sorry, but I just had to have a giggle here.
99.9% of the time people are truthful when posting on the net?
What rubbish.
People are posting their side of the story, usually with embellishment.
Nobody wants to sound like they maybe at fault when they make such a post.

By all means let people make judgement on what has been posted by the OP.
However to assume in the slightest that what the OP has said is 99.9% truth is extremely naive for a veteran internet user.

Tute · 2 May 2006 at 11:54

Am in the process of taking some time off from Uni, so I decided to get a job in Tescos. It's an express near where I live (one of the smaller stores).

Whilst i'm a bit of a nightmare to work with, mainly due to the fact that I don't care and i'm not going to bust myself open for £5 an hour, I find some of the management decisions very strange.

We've had four different store managers over the time i've worked there (did part time before I went to uni so thats ~3 yrs) and only one of them seemed to care about his staff. He worked hard making sure the shop had a healthy team environment and it showed, we'd clear sales targets, meet stock takes easily etc.

I'd not say the same about the rest. There seems to be this "gulf" between the management and the floor staff now, and neither party likes each other. The tills keep coming up short, and whilst it probably is some CA being careless, the management's refusal to accept that they "may" be counting the cash wrong at the end of the night is a little frustrating.

Since i've been there i've had one verbal and one written warning, which, whilst I accept were probably warranted, I could safely say would NOT have happened if i'd have had a little more respect for my duty managers.

A few years back, I had a job at Game, the high street chain. Our manager was a "DDM" which basically means they're even more of a ***** than normal. After 6 months of bullying, nastyness, and constant putdown I walked out on them. I felt awful as the rest of the staff were really nice people but had I stayed there, I could have seen myself resorting to self-harming.

If there's ever motivation to work hard at Uni, this is it. Don't get stuck in a dead-end job like this.

Garp · 2 May 2006 at 12:37

Tute said:
If there's ever motivation to work hard at Uni, this is it. Don't get stuck in a dead-end job like this.

That implies that you need a degree to not get stuck in a dead-end job? Gee whizz.. thanks. Guess thats me stuff for life... no wait.. hang on... I haven't got a dead-end job, just like lots of other non-graduates... silly me.

*FLASH* · 2 May 2006 at 13:32

Unfortunately in the business world big companies get targets to meet. one of these targets is attrition. Attrition is the leaving/firing of one employee and replaced by a new employee.

If attrition targets are not met, as bizaarely as it sounds, measures such as trying to sack people for feeble things tend to happen.

Lots of sound advice in this thread but make sure you read a lot of the positives and take it in with you.

Also if this happened in a public car park you could quite easily get someone you know (but they dont know you know

) to act as witness to state the guy was picking in you in an attempt to stich him up

Tute · 2 May 2006 at 15:38

Garp said:
That implies that you need a degree to not get stuck in a dead-end job? Gee whizz.. thanks. Guess thats me stuff for life... no wait.. hang on... I haven't got a dead-end job, just like lots of other non-graduates... silly me.

That's not what I meant, and i'm sorry it came across like that.

Was kinda more of a stab at myself as I haven't been working as hard at university as I should be.

Psymonkee · 2 May 2006 at 16:16

:/

I honsetly don't know what to do - as someone said last page HR are being all sweet and nice right now saying they'll support me all the way and grinning like idiots. Not falling for that tbh

Now of course at work I am extremely paranoid and nervous and I feel as though they are watching my every move looking for an excuse to fire me. As you might expect my mood is highly variable and I feel like I'm under a lot of stress - I seriously can't take it anymore :/

sphen · 2 May 2006 at 17:20

Mattius said:
join the union now mate its not too late and they will smash them to pieces.

http://www.usdaw.org.uk/

you need major backup to go through things like this and the union are the way forward. at 98pence a week there is no reason not to be part of it.

I'd have to agree with this. I have seen this first-hand and I stress that it really does make a difference.

Garp · 2 May 2006 at 17:31

*FLASH* said:
Unfortunately in the business world big companies get targets to meet. one of these targets is attrition. Attrition is the leaving/firing of one employee and replaced by a new employee.

I'm sorry, but thats rubbish. It costs a company more money in administration alone to sack and employ a new person than to keep someone in active employment, and we're not just talking peanuts. No company seriously wants to see a turnover of its staff if its aiming to have a healthy bank balance at the end of the year.

sunama · 2 May 2006 at 17:37

Garp said:
I'm sorry, but thats rubbish. It costs a company more money in administration alone to sack and employ a new person than to keep someone in active employment, and we're not just talking peanuts. No company seriously wants to see a turnover of its staff if its aiming to have a healthy bank balance at the end of the year.

Agreed. The best scenario for a store would be to have excellent employees and a 100% retention rate. This would allow less resources to be expended employing and training new staff. Also the entire store would run more smoothly as all the staff in the store would have a lot of knowledge about the way the store functions. Also because people are not getting sacked, there will be less uncovered shifts and so less pressure on the remaining employees to take up the slack.

If u sack a person, u need to
advertise for the vacancy
spend time sifting through applications/interviewing/selecting
train the new employee
bring him/her upto the same knowledge levels as the staff member who was sacked.

PiKe · 2 May 2006 at 22:58

Looking out for their own tbh.

Shocking.

Psymonkee · 16 Aug 2006 at 01:02

Holy 3 month and 14 day bump

FINALLY got the appeal hearing for this tomorrow - been long enough coming.

I'll let you know what happens.

Zefan · 16 Aug 2006 at 01:03

Psymonkee said:
Holy 3 month and 14 day bump

FINALLY got the appeal hearing for this tomorrow - been long enough coming.

I'll let you know what happens.

Bloody hell that is piece bit of history!

Hope it goes well!

Psymonkee · 16 Aug 2006 at 02:06

Oh yeah - I have an USDAW rep this time.

I also spent a fair bit of time preparing for it/writing down questions for the rep. Must go to bed now though or I'll be yawning all day tomorrow at the appeal