Incidents Resulting in Possible Job Termination?

[garry1p]

Over the years I have been sued six or seven times mostly for wrongful discharge, only time I lost was kind of strange.

One of our service techs was selling used equipment into one of our current accounts,
When the tech installed new equipment he would buy some of the de-installed equipment from that customer and resell it to another customer who was wanting to add on but not buy new.

When the salesman complained to the techs manager he called me for directions. I told him to fire the tech, it is in the employee handbook he can't do that and he signed the handbook plain and simple.

The employee sued for wrongful discharge, a few months later HR calls to tell me, cancel your trip to SC the scheduled deposition has been canceled and we will settle out of court.
Since we were a large international company our corporate lawyers always hired local lawyers to represent us anytime we were sued.
According to the SC lawyer a signature is not proof the employee actually read the entire handbook, plus if it is a terminating offense it would have to be highlighted in the manual and it was not highlighted, the precedent in SC had been set in a previous trial and based on that finding we would loose if going to trial.

 

[Sigarms]

We've got a personal growth, goal setting, self-review program at my employer. Everyone hates it. It gets 1 star on the reviews only because you can't give 0 stars. The employees hate it. The managers hate it. HR hates it. But we were told not complain about it until Joe X retires, because it was his idea and the company bought it.

My wife writes software/code.

She does pretty well for herself. She's been at her company for going on 30 years now.

Because the company only had so many people who wrote their own programs, a couple of years ago the company ownership thought it wise to outsource their software to a 3rd company so they wouldn't have to rely on their own people to handle their computer software (the owner who hired my wife had since died and now a son running it).

The idea was to cut overhead cost as well as not having to fill positions when people like my wife retired (not a huge company, only 4 programers).

Company spent 2 million up front on canned software, the software never does what the software company said it would do, a one year conversion like the software people said it would take took like 2.5 years.

Wife a couple years ago wasn't certain if she would have a job with this conversion. She has now become more invaluable because she is the translator between upper management and the software company because their software keeps screwing up.

Here is the thing, like your situation, NO ONE in her entire company likes this software and more than a couple of people have asked "can we just go back to the way we use to do it".

This is what a smart businessman will say though... "You grow through change and people ALWAYS hate change". My response would be "no crap sherlock, there are always better ways to do things, but just because you picked it doesn't necessarily make it a better way"

All my adult career I've never been afraid to say I made a mistake. Also never claim to be the smartest guy in the room and understand sometimes you need feedback from everyone in the room to solve something. Thing is, I've seen it first hand where a leader makes a decision, and over a year later it's shown to be a bad decision, but no one will ever admit it.

 

[bdhsfz6]

These days, anyone with a smartphone is a potential "media" person.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

As a highschool teacher there is a long list of things to beware of. But in the end as long as you aren't doing something stupid like chatting up a student online (or worse), putting your hands on a student, get caught with drugs or a DUI your job is pretty safe. While we are under the microscope daily, our jobs are protected to some extent by the law/our contracts. It is why I am a part of a teachers organization that retains lawyers on our behalf and gives us insurance in case some issue does arise. Of course I am very careful to never post anything online that could make me look bad or talk about students, etc. In 18 years as a teacher I have never had any issues. It is all about common sense and being careful about what you say and do. Don't be a dumb a$$ and you will be fine.

 

[gsganzer]

I had an issue a few months back that still bothers me. In fact, it bothers me enough that I won't do work for that customer again.

I was contracted by my customer (California company) to help commission some equipment at a refinery in Louisiana. My customer was having a lot of issues with their equipment and they had some personality conflicts amongst themselves. Bad enough that one of them walked off the site and stayed at the hotel 3 days to cool off before he returned. I just kept to myself and made sure my part of the project was ready, for whenever they worked out the bugs of their problems. Anyway, I commissioned my stuff to the fullest extent I could before I departed the site while they continued working out the other bugs with the other equipment.

About a week later, I got a call from their manager that they had reports of me using offensive language and comments at the job site. He told me it wasn't a big deal, they love the work I do for them, but to make sure I conduct myself more professionally in the future. The next day, he sends me an email recapping our conversation and including their head of HR. As the owner of my company, I replied with apologies that someone must have misinterpreted something I said or did, blah, blah, blah and I take these matters seriously.

I called my friends that I was interfacing with at the refinery to see if I had inadvertently offended anyone or said something crude. They had nothing but praises for me and were asking when I can return, so I really don't understand what the issue was.

Bottom line, I've done 3 jobs for that customer over the years and they've all put a ton of money in my pocket, but they were trainwrecks. The first one their own person was run off the site by the refinery. The second one, their guy was one of the most cantankerous folks I've ever met and Phillips 66 was begging me to take over the job. Now this 3rd one, with this issue.

First customer I've ever fired.

 

[Oaktree]

Company spent 2 million up front on canned software, the software never does what the software company said it would do, a one year conversion like the software people said it would take took like 2.5 years.

Isn't that a rule when it comes to software?
This is nothing new. A company I worked for 45 +/- years ago took on a big project, and hired a bunch of contract programmers to write the software. I'm sure they were competent programmers, but they didn't know anything about the industry we built equipment for, nor much about the application, industry terminology, etc. Eventually, they got things to work as they should, but there was a steep learning curve.

About a week later, I got a call from their manager that they had reports of me using offensive language and comments at the job site. He told me it wasn't a big deal, they love the work I do for them, but to make sure I conduct myself more professionally in the future. The next day, he sends me an email recapping our conversation and including their head of HR. As the owner of my company, I replied with apologies that someone must have misinterpreted something I said or did, blah, blah, blah and I take these matters seriously.

I called my friends that I was interfacing with at the refinery to see if I had inadvertently offended anyone or said something crude. They had nothing but praises for me and were asking when I can return, so I really don't understand what the issue was.

For much of the 70s-mid 80s I was a field service tech. Had gone on a service call, fixed the problem. Got a callback a week or two later, went out again, 2nd problem totally unrelated to the first.
Couple weeks later my boss called me into his office and said the customer had told him I'd said that if the first tech had known what he was doing, there wouldn't have been any need for a callback. I asked him why I would have said that since I was the "first tech", boss's reply was, yeah we looked at the report & found that out. Think they were just trying to get out of paying for a 2nd service call.