What's new
What's new

Ot: terminated out of the blue

plastikdreams

Diamond
Joined
May 31, 2011
Location
upstate nj
So first ill let me start by saying this isn't a rah rah I need sympathy thread. It's just a hard pill to swallow.

Last Friday I was called into hr (by the brand new hr lady) I thought I was getting my employee of the month jacket. Instead it was an investigation...into me! So I was told to answer as truthfully as i could remember. First question: you were reported one time to come in, punch in, then go back out and park your car (mind you this took all of 2 minutes). I answered yes I did. I was told I was stealing time by doing so because I was not at my workstation and ready to work when I punched it. (Well that's never the case it's a good 4 or 5 minute walk from the clock to my bench)

Second question: you missed a punch on December 4 do you know what time you came in. I said no, because I had no clue. One week later on December 11 my boss came down and asked my to fill out the sheet with a time. I didnt know then either and said im gonna put 630. No issues...now again I'm told I am stealing time and I'm untrustworthy yada yada. And I'm escorted from the building.

As I said I was employee of the month in November, 2 days before the meeting I got an award for all the hard work I had done for them in production when they were short handed...and the myriad of shift changes to help them as well...I've never been in any major trouble.

Wednesday I got a call, you broke a rule you are terminated.

I had to get the police involved to get into the place to get my tools...


How weird is that though lol.
 
To further, I wasn't a recluse. I was the guy department heads came to when they needed something made for modified. I was a cpr trainer, I was with the safety team, I was on the medical emergency response team, and I was on the recognition team. I was well known throughout the plant by all.
 
So first ill let me start by saying this isn't a rah rah I need sympathy thread. It's just a hard pill to swallow.

Last Friday I was called into hr. I thought I was getting my employee of the month jacket. Instead it was an investigation...into me! So I was told to answer as truthfully as i could remember. First question: you were reported one time to come in, punch in, then go back out and park your car (mind you this took all of 2 minutes). I answered yes I did. I was told I was stealing time by doing so because I was not at my workstation and ready to work when I punched it. (Well that's never the case it's a good 4 or 5 minute walk from the clock to my bench)

Second question: you missed a punch on December 4 do you know what time you came in. I said no, because I had no clue. One week later on December 11 my boss came down and asked my to fill out the sheet with a time. I didnt know then either and said im gonna put 630. No issues...now again I'm told I am stealing time and I'm untrustworthy yada yada. And I'm escorted from the building.

As I said I was employee of the month in November, 2 days before the meeting I got an award for all the hard work I had done for them in production when they were short handed...and the myriad of shift changes to help them as well...I've never been in any major trouble.

Wednesday I got a call, you broke a rule you are terminated.

I had to get the police involved to get into the place to get my tools...


How weird is that though lol.

.
if you got electronic entry badge that records time we call it a gate run, turn style gate where each person forced to use entry pass to get in. they print out when people came in and when they left. anybody caught not where they are suppose to be got some explaining to do. old company you could only smoke outside the gate. those the computer showed outside the gate during work hours were in trouble. they might do gate run once a year and go back the whole year.
.
when there was group layoff they also changed computer so we all could not get into building and we waited til boss to show up. we then went to meeting where they announced 100 people getting layed off. meeting was to explain do what your told to do and get 12 weeks pay looking for next job. dont do as told and you leave immediately with no severance pay
 
You got shafted, probably HR wanted a head count reduction.

Nasty way of doing it.

I hear that Eriez magnetics has a "Late 3 times your fired" rule.

30 year veterans out the door.....
 
That's not weird at all in my experience.

That's the reason they fired you, but it was something else they didn't like that caused them to find that reason, that wouldn't necessarily qualify as cause.

They probably did you a favor.
 
well you musta pissed someone off

was your immediate boss in the meeting?
his boss?
I don't understand the punching in an parking thing, stupid, something you get written up for, not fired.
 
It sounds as if you pissed off someone in management or they are short of work and need to start finding ways to fire people so they don't need to pay unemployment. You should go in and apply for unemployment insurance and start the ball rolling. They will have to document that for the State. Do you have a copy of the company Employment Booklet? What does it say about Termination? I was told in MN you have to warn the employee 1 time before you can terminate them. You may want to talk to someone at the unemployment dept. at the state and see what they say. Not that it will help, but have any buddies at the old work you can ask as to what they are telling people? Have they terminated any one else using this same tactic? It sucks when it's so close to Christmas...sorry and good luck to you. Rich
 
if they are looking for names of who to lay off cause they want to reduce number of workers then a electronic gate run showing when you came into gate and when you left is hard to argue with.
.
if they go back a whole year they often get dozens of names
 
I don't understand the punching in an parking thing, stupid, something you get written up for, not fired.

I disagree on this point, seen it done many times by people that are habitually
late.
They come flying in, tires squealling, jump out to "Make the punch"
and then go park.

It does look very bad, even if "only 2 minutes".

Some have resorted to having a buddy punch them in, but as of late,
with card readers and such (and buddies that smarten up and don't want
to get fired along with the late person) much less of this being done.
 
Bad deal for sure. Im sure they have a different story that your not privy too. That will defffintly help the moral around the place. No warnings nothing? Noother examples of others doing worse? No " hey this is you X warning and you knew the outcome if it happened again.My I ask was it really any good there. As in are they kinda doing you a favor by pushing you to maybe a better place.
 
For the punch thing...if you punch 1 minute late you get a half point, 8 points yer gone. If I can punch at 629 and save the half then I did. I had only done it like 2 or 3 times.

There's money trouble there, with ot I was probably the highest paid on the shop floor.

By boss was there but stayed pretty much silent.

I loved it there and gave my all, they really broke my heart and did it a few days before Xmas. But I've already got stuff in the works :)y
 
You ruffled some feathers along the way or someone flat doesn't like you. Been there, done it.

From what I can gather, New Jersey is a employment at-will with no restrictions, they can discharge for no reason.

"At-will employment is generally described as follows: "any hiring is presumed to be 'at will'; that is, the employer is free to discharge individuals 'for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all,' and the employee is equally free to quit, strike, or otherwise cease work."[6] In an October 2000 decision largely reaffirming employers' rights under the at-will doctrine, the Supreme Court of California explained:

[A]n employer may terminate its employees at will, for any or no reason ... the employer may act peremptorily, arbitrarily, or inconsistently, without providing specific protections such as prior warning, fair procedures, objective evaluation, or preferential reassignment ... The mere existence of an employment relationship affords no expectation, protectable by law, that employment will continue, or will end only on certain conditions, unless the parties have actually adopted such terms.[7]

At-will employment disclaimers are a staple of employee handbooks in the United States. It is common for employers to define what at-will employment means, explain that an employee’s at-will status cannot be changed except in a writing signed by the company president (or chief executive), and require that an employee sign an acknowledgment of his or her at-will status.[8] However, the National Labor Relations Board has opposed as unlawful the practice of including in such disclaimers language declaring that the at-will nature of the employment cannot be changed without the written consent of senior management.[note 1][9]"

At-will employment - Wikipedia


Tom
 
That's not weird at all in my experience.

That's the reason they fired you, but it was something else they didn't like that caused them to find that reason, that wouldn't necessarily qualify as cause.

They probably did you a favor.

This,99% of the time at any of the places I worked at back when I worked for the man what you did would result in an informal verbal warning from your immediate supervisor, the 1% where it results in getting fired is for the reason above. Management was compiling reasons to fire you. You were not fired for stealing a couple minutes of company time.
 
Bad deal for sure. Im sure they have a different story that your not privy too. That will defffintly help the moral around the place. No warnings nothing? Noother examples of others doing worse? No " hey this is you X warning and you knew the outcome if it happened again.My I ask was it really any good there. As in are they kinda doing you a favor by pushing you to maybe a better place.

It was good but it was going down fast, 2 unionizing attempts in a year, most hourly employees hate it there. I was one of the few that still liked it. Bonus and raises were pretty much non-existent.
 
electronic badge gate run done when boss sees too many smoking outside the gate on company time or they think people are outside the gate after lunch
.
had a boss go to bar at 1pm and anybody caught in the bar was fired (lunch 12-1240pm)
 
It was good but it was going down fast, 2 unionizing attempts in a year, most hourly employees hate it there. I was one of the few that still liked it. Bonus and raises were pretty much non-existent.

.
some places will just say you were layed off and not fired. alot easier to get another job not having to explain getting fired. many places want to call your old boss. some places will refuse to say anything about former employees
 
My guess is that you were well paid or at least paid better than most other people and someone in management decided the accounting books needed to look better. They may be focused on the short term because they have poor long term planning or more likely in my opinion that they are selling the place and are cutting corners and swinging the ax to make the company look more profitable.

Also sometimes HR decides to make an example by firing a longtime employee to put the fear of god (owner/CEO/lead HR Bastard/Witch) in the shop floor.
 
It sounds as if you pissed off someone in management or they are short of work and need to start finding ways to fire people so they don't need to pay unemployment. You should go in and apply for unemployment insurance and start the ball rolling. They will have to document that for the State.

I agree.

Someone is trying to reduce staff and avoid a bump in employment security premiums.

Has anyone else been terminated with thin cause? These days with facebook and whatnot, it's a lot easier to keep tabs on coworkers.

Chin up. When one door closes, another opens.
 
Like I said, they were (supposedly) in the hole mid 7 digits this year. And they have a horrible habit of buying multiples of things before they get the first one working lol. I've seen the writing on the wall, I just wanted it to be under my terms not a forced hand.
 
IMHO ;- For whatever reasons they wanted X # of bodies out, so HR looked for the slightest excuse, and your name came out of the hat.

One of life's tough breaks, ...or as they say ''shit happens'' ..BTDT - several times! and it is a bitter pill to swallow, best thing a man can do is have a grouch, let it go, get on with his life, ....safe in knowledge that sooner or later kharma will turn and bite them on their ass :D

So hang in there buddy - keep telling yourself it's their loss.

P.S. After you've been shit on a few times, ...you'll start your own shop, ..........then you'll find out what being properly shit on is like :D
 








 
Back
Top