Well, the appeal didn't go well.
The company have now fired two more people for ridiculous reasons, one being:
She was on a saturday only contract and was helping them out through the week while in summer hols, went back to college so could only do saturdays, like in her contract. And they decided not to keep her on after her probation period for not being commited to the company.
Another one got fired because she was having a laugh with a customer (that she didn't know socially) and the manager thought she was stodd about chatting with mates.
SERIOUSLY ridiculous company and if I'd known this I would never have worked there.

On the plus side. I am now a Techy in Basingstoke on 50% more pay than that cruddy little retail job with awesome progression prospects.

don't worry, I'm never writing ANYTHING about it on facebook and wont even post on here where I work now

Any clues as to the name of the last company you worked for?



PS - It would be a good idea to punctuate your sentences with 'allegedly'.

If you're a 'techie' cornflake you'll know your every tap on the keyboard can be backtracked through your IP and other such computah-wizardry....

There's no escape once you've committed your thoughts to screen and pressed the <send> button....... WE know who you are.... < taps nose knowingly, winks and returns to reading The Times >

Only if you have a keylogger

Sorry, just had to put that in there.

<taps nose and goes back to reading The Hungry Caterpillar">

Even then it doesn't prove who actually used the computer.

Perhaps not...

But some people just leave an open goal and invite bosses to sack them.....
facebook sacking

I mean people vent on social media sites and think it's wrong to fire over facebook. I don't have a facebook or anything but I have a blog and occasionally I'll vent about something but not in quite a way that would really be thought of as "fireable". Mostly it's just ranting about someone or something, it doesn't come across like I hate the job, probably because I like working where I'm at..

There may be occasions where it can be necessary but if the person is performing at work they should be allowed to do/say what they want as long as they don't include the company name...then again, my old company would give me bad references and I've yet to get my own back. Partly because at the company I'm at now, I have to deal with them from time to time as we back off some of our support for customers to them..and that would be really awkward.

Then again in the above example, the girl posting the comment probably was just dossing most of the day.

I didn't think companies were allowed to give bad references. Only non-committal ones such as "He turned up for work most days."

I understand that you only need to tell the truth, but a reference that doesn't have comments like ' the best thing since sliced bread', is 'code' for unimpressive.

What's the point of references if they are not allowed to be bad?
Makes them worthless doesn't it?

No, they're not! But they gave me a bad reference anyway, which stopped me getting one position at company X, and they gave the company I am working (company Y) at now a bad reference as well - but they employed me anyway because the company director liked me and considering what they actually pay me, it wouldn't have been a huge loss had I turned out to be a piece of cheese. Which I haven't I'm kinda glad I got a bad reference at the first position as I like where I'm at right now...

I actually had to phone up my old company to confront them. I phoned my ex boss (technical director) and he didn't even return my call, so I had to call the director. His number isn't published but luckily I remembered it

They told company Y I was a "waste of space" (apparently) and told company X that I was fired for not doing my job properly, poor peformance, etc. This was told me from the person who interviewed me. When in actual fact, my performance stats were there in clear gold (and which I am proud of). It was on a support desk and I had the best statistics, lowest open-ticket time (the amount of time between issue reported and issue fixed) and I escalated (so took the issue to the vendor) cases only 17% of the time with continuing month-on-month improvements. This included both products I was specialising in and products I was not even trained in!

The real reason for my dismissal was because my supervisor (who was younger than me) had a strong dislike to me and he was the overall bosses "right hand man". Whatever he said went, often without further investigation. I was told I would have a "performance review" following a final (completely unjustified) warning in "2 weeks time". It was nearly 5 weeks later before that happened and then they told me to pack my stuff and go. Just like that. These things happen though, sometimes people just clash and can't work together and unfortunately I ended up getting shafted that time. Had I of been there for a year I could have taken it to a tribunal and I would have won and been filthy rich (har har har!!)

It was only after I'd checked through my contract when I was at home that I realised what they had done in terms of failure to give my notice, and I had to actually chase them up to pay me in lieu of notice. I was looking for work elsewhere for a month before this anyway as I felt victimised by the more senior engineers, treated unfairly (as in, when it was quiet and we had done all our work, they were allowed to browse ebay, various websites etc, and yet I was not), picked on in a malicious way...

They made me push the process along at quite a rate of knots though... but in the long run it's all worked out so I can't really complain.



It's slander. Legally the worst you can say is "I can confirm <person> worked here between <date> and <date> as a <position> however I cannot provide any further references or details" and then prospective new employers can read into that what they want. I think this is a good idea to have that sort of law because in the professional environment sometimes people clash and leave on bad circumstances, since a reference is subjective, depending on the person who wrote it, it's never going to be purely factual and unbiased. 95% of clashes leading to a dismissal will be between a regular employee and their line manager or someone else in a senior position who will have clout with management to make the dismissal happen. So generally it will be the employee who, rightly or wrongly, could be on the receiving end of a bad reference.

Not if it's true.

However, companies certainly don't want the hassle of going to a court to prove it.

A bit like A Levels and Degrees these day then..... Everyone gets a 'Pass'. Can't have people feeling bad and worthless...

I agree in a perfect world with honesty then bad references should be given if there is proof to back up the statements. Often though as I said many partings-of-company are on bad terms, often without actual proof of wrongdoing so won't be impartial.

Just being "a bit of a tit" wouldn't do then?

Oh I'm a bit of a tit all the time. It's just how I roll.

Actually, companies ARE allowed to give "bad" references as long as they are factual.


In fact, if a company were not to divulge to the new propective company that had written for the reference that the employee had been fired for, let's say theft and the new company was then also a victim of the employees theft then the new company could sue the old company for not including important facts about the employees service. Hope that makes sense?

The easy way is not to give references at all, unless your stuck with a liability of an employee then give them a glowing reference!

I am not an Estate Agent or a Solicitor, but on a similar theme to references, a domestic vendor
has to disclose " bad blood" with a neighbour such as hedges, fences, noise, abuse... anything really.
I have not sold a house for almost 4 decades. So I don't know fine details.
ce

Post 126......
I am too old for this sort of thing but the quote from Spartacus
brings back fond memories of the anarchy of Private Eye. A 50 years memorial book published recentlyl
Copies are available from a bookstore near you.
The first deletion is almost Beardsly!