Mad. Just Mad!

PonyGirl65

Active Member
I have just been informed that ANOTHER Full Time Staff has walked off the job. Apparently via a text message to our boss.

GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I'm just so angry. This is about the 35th person to just walk away with absolutely no notice in the past year. I'm so sick of it. How do these people sleep at night!!

Background: I am an Office Manager for a small non-profit. We run 5 group homes for developmentally disabled adults.

THIS SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Tanya M

Living with an attitude of gratitude
Staff member
That's awful. They must not believe in the standard two weeks notice. That is so immature and inconsiderate.

35 people in the past year is a pretty high number. I wonder why so many.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
We run 5 group homes for developmentally disabled adults.
I'm guessing these are "front-line" staff, the ones at the bottom of the pack, the ones who get all the "dirty" work. It's a job that almost nobody enjoys. Pay is poor. Hours are crazy.

That doesn't justify no notice, though. THAT is ... I can't even find an appropriate word for it. You just don't do that, short of an unsafe work environment.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Low pay. Horrible job description. My daughter is in school and worked after school and weekends for a nursing home for a long time. She liked it, but it included some dirty work. She was always pulling double shifts because workers called in.now she is back at school and working with developmentally delayed children part time and she loves it.

I think that upping the pay would help. My daughter is mature and has a strong stomach. Toilet work, diapers for older kids and adults don't phase her. She is going into law enforcement.

I think most people take a job like this as a last resort. It's sad. These people need them.

Often the workers feel unappreciated. My daughter has talked to me about it. And, of course, she felt used when they kept asking her to pull double shifts. "It's not my responsibility to cover every time somebody calls in." But she went. But she felt like she had to pull all the weight.

Having said this, I think it's awful for an employee not to give notice. Vulnerable people are at risk here. Plus what happened to responsibility?
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
When I was management, I gave 4 weeks notice as 2 weeks wasn't enough to replace me, and at least let me do a bit of "basic" (very) training with the new hire. It also gave me plenty of time to work with our IT trainer to set up a training program for my replacement.

At my last company, I was informed that my department, including me, were being let go i in 3 months as they'd outsourced the work to a company in India. I was "asked" to spend that 3 mos in India training the people who would be replacing me and my team.

I refused and gave 4 weeks notice in writing (email). About an hour later, the overall IT VP and security showed up at my office to supervise me cleaning out my desk and I was made to stand, with the VP, while security wiped all signs of my having ever existed from the 4 computers and 2 terminals in my office. Security also tried to find any porn and other signs of "misuse of company assets", but couldn't come up with anything to justify not paying me unemployment.
 

PonyGirl65

Active Member
Yes. It's "dirty" work. It's hard. It's not for everybody. It takes a special kind of human being to provide care to our residents. The pay isn't horrible, however. And it's not a nursing home setting. It's a home. There are not more than 4 residents to care for at any one setting.

Zero notice is intolerable. Our managers are putting in 60 hour weeks to cover the slack. Yes. MANAGERS. Their pay scale is about $2/hour higher than the Direct Service Staff, so it's costing us around an extra $800 dollars per payperiod. And our funding sucks for air. If we keep going at this rate, we'll be out of business in a year. :-(
 

Nature

Active Member
I think it's terrible that someone would lack the integrity to give the proper notice to their employer. Especially when it concerns vulnerable people - this isn't products they are dealing with but souls who depended on that person. I feel your anger and I'm sorry it happened to you and the four individuals who call it their home.

GoingNorth - You have integrity I too would have refused and I can't believe how you were treated for being a decent person and obviously loyal to your co-workers. Shame on that company.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
My team was MY team. I had hired on a motley crew of older IT workers with scads of experience. Over 50s who have a horrible job finding work in that field, and fresh out of school trainees.

With the help of my oldsters, I built that team from the ground up and within budget, and if I do say so, after a couple of years, my newbies were no longer newbies, but skilled tier 2 LAN/WAN support people whom I am confident were able to go onto bigger and better things.

The oldsters? A couple just gave in and took early retirement. One started his own business setting up LANs in small businesses.

What saddened me is that while my assistant mgr was black (and did I get a lot of blowback about hiring him), I was not able to find a qualified female to add to my team. Team was really lily white, except for Charles, who used to refer to himself as "Token" when he wanted to piss me off. I didn't hire him because he was black. He happened to be formally trained on Microsoft and Novell networking, was certified on cisco, SUN, and 3Com, and had been working piddly ass ISP support.

It's not so much loyalty as it is taking care of people you promised to take care of, and just plain doing the right thing.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
As a view from the other side, because of my disabilities, I've been fired maybe 50 times. This was before disability laws. Now you just don't get hired in the first place. Companies want to train as little as possible and people like me need a much longer time to catch on, although I never called in sick, always tried hard and was willing to do any type of work asked of me, even cleaning toilets.

No boss ever said I didn't try hard or I had a bad attitude and for the most part I took jobs nobody else wanted, that paid minimum wage. These jobs ranged from care places to nursery schools to regular offices to factory work.

I never got one days notice or a warning that I should look for something else. They smiled falsely at me until the end, which was almost always a Friday afternoon so I had the entire weekend to cry and think about how stupid I am but I couldn't go to my therapist or look for another job.

I still work hard, but I have learned that, when it comes to companies, they will dismiss you like a squashed rat in the road and then try to get out of paying unemployment.

I have no loyalty to any company anymore. I see no reason to treat them differently than I was treated when I was fired so many times. They don't care about me. I stopped caring about them. As for the clients, I would care...but it is the responsibility of those at the top to figure out how to handle short staff. Most care places don't or can't pay much so there is something huge turnover rate. It's not a good economy.

If someone gets a better job for them and wants to start it right away, with the way workers are treated....I may not do the same but I get it. B TW for the few jobs where I wasn't fired but had to quit they got one weeks notice.big think that's more fair than how they fire people. It is uncomfortable to be there in many cases after you quit.

If I quit and, knowing I will be treated badly after quitting for those two weeks (I have done this too) I would not feel badly walking out with no notice. If it were the other way around, they wouldn't give me an hour's notice.

And I was always low guy on the pay scale.

To me, due to what I've seen, it is up to those who make a lot more than me to figure it out, just like it was up to me to figure it out when I was fired in deliberately deceitful ways.

Notice should go two ways. Lower end workers get no severance pay and instantly lose their benefits most of the time or have to pay more than low end workers have to keep benefits for a while.

Companies can and do fire hard workers with no care and notice, why should we do the "right" thing? They don't. GNs story doesn't surprise me at all. Imagine how her company would have treated a low wage earner. I know how.

Also, if you want people to do hard jobs, pay them more. I currently work at a non-profit and everyone but the managers, who often know less than longer term workers, get paid a bit over minimum wage. The turnover rate us insane. Most people leave when they find jobs that pay better. McDonald's pays better. It's a job for many that is a compromise job until a better one comes around.

Some give notice. Someone do not.

They fired one lovely manager who had been there many years without giving her any warning, notice or severance. I still talk to her. She left the place sobbing, poor lady. Just because my place of work is a help organization, they display no compassion when they fire somebody. And no notice. This needs to stop or the walking out without notice will continue.

I like how they hire in some European countries...both parties sign contracts and they both have accountability.

Ponytail. I'm sorry it is hard and because of who your clients are, if I worked there and wanted to quit, I would give notice. But it may have only been a week.

Workers have few to no rights here. Companies can fire most workers at will, then fight paying what we pay into and should all get in my opinion. Unemployment...I've had to fight for mine many times.

Things have to go both ways for many workers to care if they put an employer in a bind. Why is it ok for this to only be on the employee while the employer can do what he likes?

Just food for thought. Have a great day!!!
 
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KTMom91

Well-Known Member
True enough, SWOT. The one and only time I was fired, the DM told me I could go back to school like I wanted to. He told Unemployment that I'd been fired for gross misconduct. Really? I had no writeups, no nothing to suggest that. I got my unemployment.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Yep. And we PAY for unemployment.

When the employees are not treated like disposable waste, things should improve. As it.is, for those who understand being fired, it is without regard for the person or his/her circumstances. I actually had one boss tell all of us at a meeting,"I can fire any of you just because I don't like the color of your hair."

Looking back,at least she was being honest.
 
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