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Yeah, no, I’ve been there.
I started a new job. It was kind of a dream job. Great for my career, 40% pay increase, opportunities to grow my skillset in ways my old job couldn’t offer.
Everything was going great until one day a coworker who was supposed to be in like a mentor position for me asked me to do something. I was on my phone at the time, texting with my wife about my three week old son who was sick with RSV. I heard her request and told her I’d get to it right away.
A few days later my boss called me into a meeting and said that he’d been hearing reports that I was on my phone all the time instead of working, and that the quality of my work was bad. I asked what he meant about my work, if he could give me specific examples, and he threatened to fire me for not taking this seriously. Because trying to understand how I can improve isn’t taking it seriously somehow?
So I buckled down. I put my phone down every second that I was at my desk. I asked everyone –everyone– I’d worked with up to that point about the quality of my work, where I could improve, if I’d done anything wrong. Just as I’d already been told, my work was great. I was learning quickly and performing well.
Then I got called into another meeting. Apparently I was still on my phone too much. I must be addicted to it. I was on it while walking down the hall, and he’d even heard that I was leaving my desk to go to my car and play on my phone. And of course I was on it in the breakroom as well. I explained that I thought checking my phone while walking down the hallway was ok because it wouldn’t interrupt my work, and I went to my car because it was a confidential telemedicine call with my doctor.
So I buckled down even more. I rarely used my phone anymore, took shorter lunch breaks, and kept doing my work. I moved to a different part of the parking lot when I had my telemedicine calls.
I had two more meetings with my boss. The first one, he told me that my work had greatly improved (it hadn’t), and now I was doing great. The next day I asked him into a meeting and told him I quit.
I took a small pay cut and got a new job working from home. It’s not as good for my career. It may screw me over in a few years. But my work/life balance is excellent. I get to see my kids and my cats, and there are no spiteful coworkers looking over my shoulder.
Fuck off brenda
What in the actual fuck did I just read?
I would publicly in office shame the shit out of this maggot and then quit right there.
It must… be fake, for the internet rage points, surely ?
“Accidentally” CC your reply to the mailing list with everybody in it.
deleted by creator
no other offers besides scientology?
what
Can’t be real… this is ragebait, right?
cc the dept of labor in your reply
Hi Brenda,
While you were watching me and writing me memos, you could have been making sales.
Don’t ever put pettiness over money, keep yourself focused on your work instead of your coworkers.
Warmest Regards,
Harambe
One of the best bosses I ever had was a Korean man who was very religious and yet very kind. He made a similar comment to me once. I was on my lunch break and he came to me to talk about work stuff, I was watching the clock and when my lunch break was up I went to punch in. When I sat back down he commented about how it looked like I was only there for the money.
It was a good job but I don’t feel comfortable speaking other than the truth even for niceties so I leveled with him.
“This is a good job, and I am here for the money. I do respect you and I respect your time but I have bills to pay and I have already been warned about going over 40hrs on the time clock to complete rush cases on Fridays. If we are going to be a team and we’re going to work together then you need to understand that I share a two bedroom apartment with three people and none of us can afford a car. You came to me on my lunch break to talk about CNC equipment and I was about to run out of time on my lunch break so I clocked back in. This is a work conversation so I don’t feel out of line and doing that. Is this not a work conversation?”
He was a little shocked but respected it. It opened up a line of dialogue and a relationship that I felt was quite meaningful. In the following years he and I had a lot of awesome conversations. I miss that dude. I stayed with the company until just after they fired him and then the company went to shit.
The proper response isn’t to quit, It to send a response that says that the law requires a break, and you intend to follow the law, even if my supervisor demands that I break the law. I will not follow an illegal directive.
I’m the future, I will take all legal breaks, for their full amount of time.
Further, I will be saving this email as evidence, in case of any future lawsuits by any employees. Any future discussion of this subject will be shared with the state department of labor.
And I would copy HR.
They’d just find a bullshit reason to let you go, then break more laws sharing disallowed details about your employment.
Sadly, in the US at least, the regulatory capture is complete. Any company acting like this (blatantly breaking labor laws and ignoring worker rights) knows they’ll pay less than the cost of keeping the water cooler full in the off chance the labor board sends them more than a mildly worded letter.
No, you can still win lawsuits against companies that do that. They rely on the reluctance of people to sue and on people like you who try to talk people out of defending their rights to get away with it.
I’m not so sure. With that letter, and your response, its going to be hard for them to claim that your firing wasn’t retaliatory.
Yeah, skip the email. Go directly to telling the department of labor.
If it is a private company with a ‘work family’ mentality they’ll ignore it entirely on the gamble those kinds of entities never hire, or pay, anyone enough to afford a wrongful termination lawsuit.
And if so, they’ll be willing to lie under oath. They’re already willing to break the law. They’ll have the remaining employees, in the rare odds they’re deposed, do the same. If they’re already working through lunch, they’ll sign a document for their boss that says you stole something.
Except you’ve got an email where the boss specifically advises you to break the law. They can lie all they want, but that email clearly outlines their illegal policy and expectations.
They can lie, but a judge might declare that to be perjury in light of that email.
Their goal would be to muddy the waters so that their decision is reframed as something other than wrongful termination.
The e-mail, when paired with evidence that smears the terminated party, (forged or not) creates a dynamic where severance appears necessary.
The company can claim they fired the person because they didn’t want to pursue criminal charges for theft or smear their name and hope they find Christ or something. And that works with judges. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and misconduct: they’ll just be analyzing if the termination was wrongful.
This is one of the many reasons why unions are important, by the way.
This is true. Company could easily wait a while then hit OP with a vaguely worded pip. Bam, magically they get let go for “performance” issues that seemingly have nothing to do with how they take their lunches.
This is one of the many reasons why unions are important, by the way.
Oh, yeah, unionize EVERYTHING. The ONLY reason we have all the employee protections and benefits we have are because of unions. Literally every single thing an employee gets beyond “work harder, or you’re fired from your dangerous low-paying job” is because of unions.
“My apologies, this wasnt brought forward in the interview stage. If it continues to be a problem I will.be reachable on this email address.”
Print it and hang it in the break room. No comment necessary. See if your coworkers join you next break.
Send this shit to an attorney.
Hi Brenda,
No.
Eric
The Brenda person seems like someone that’d get featured in LinkedinLunatics.
