Furious at ds work dismissal

I think the OP is turning nasty on here to avoid conflict with her son. Clearly something isn't adding up here and she isn't giving any answers to sensible questions.

The frequency of trains and timings would be useful to know for example. If the trains are hourly for example and one got in at 7.57 and the next at 8.57 and he started work at 9, then he would be late every day and I wonder if that is the sort of situation he was in when he said about is it ok if he is late. What he needed to do if this was the case was ask about a later start time (and therefore later finish/work through lunch) to facilitate the hours if this was possible. Several people have pointed out that when they have experience similar then the workplace has agreed it wouldn't be reasonable for them to necessarily be sat around waiting and that they could adapt the hours to accommodate this.

Sounds like maybe the son has trouble clearly communicating - with his mum and his employers.

Oh, that classic response. 🙄
👏

i am sorry this happened,
there may be more to this or not
but hopefully he can brush this experience under the carpet

I also wondered if his employer hadn't actually agreed to holiday leave dates . . He can't just inform them he is taking holiday , he needs the dates of absence to have been agreed. Holiday entitlement accrues at a rate of about 1.5 days per month, so maybe he took too much or they hadn't agreed to it. Some new employers to allow genuine pre booked holidays to be taken in advance of accruing entitlement but this needs to be confirmed in writing beforehand..

It sounds like he is in an initial probation period as per his contract so the employer has chosen to terminate the contract for his failure to arrive consistently at his contractual start time. He should get a week's notice pay as per his contract. Yes, they could have given him a first and final warning, but they didn't have to. He has learned a valuable lesson about factoring in commuting times.. Hopefully he will be able to find another job soon .

Other posters are right that he has no employment rights but was he advised of the meeting in advance and given the right to be accompanied? any meeting which may result in termination of his employment he has the right to be accompanied to: www.acas.org.uk/probation-periods/reviews

grow up

If they were ok with him being a few minutes late, which would be acceptable in some jobs, they can't really use his being late against him. Did they actually tell him it was OK (until it wasn't), or did he just assume they didn't mind because they didn't mention it before?

I'm not sure your son is telling the truth. My DDs employer knows she gets the bus every day but they still expect her to be on time and yes that often means she is hanging around waiting.
At least when he gets his next job he'll know he needs to be on time I can see why you and your DS are annoyed but I don't think his employer has done anything wrong.

Yes. I thought that was obvious. Apparently not.

There is a big difference between someone being physically unable to get to work by X time because there are no buses (in which case presumably individual employees would negotiate their 7.11 start time and employer either agrees or not) and someone unilaterally deciding to not get the right train because they were going to be too early so instead decided to just be late.

i very much suspect the op’s son was not told by his employer that it was fine to be late and was just winging it. Which is borne out by his subsequent dismissal. He will learn a hard lesson but at least he’ll learn it. Op you should be honest with him so he understands what went wrong - if you agree it’s unfair then he’ll learn absolutely nothing and continue to be an unreliable employee.

I think it’s more likely to mean taking responsibility for being fired for being late every day

If personal responsibility means working for free, like some on here are boasting about, count me out. I'm way too old and jaded for that shit. If you're paying me to work 38 hours, I'm working 38 hours; if you give me 45 hours of work, 7 hours will be left unfinished. If you don't like it, you can pay me for 45 hours.

I'm happy to be flexible; if you need me to stay late because a server is being re-imaged or updated and needs to be done OOH, that's fine; I'll be starting late that day or finishing early on Friday.

Personal responsibility really needs to become a thing again.

But some companies are just crap and don't appreciate what you do for them, so there is really no point. DH had a job where he'd get the bus in, and usually arrive 10-15 minutes early. Sometimes he'd stay after hours to get things finished.

They had a policy that if you were late, you had to let them know and apologise. One time DH's bus was held up and he got in late (about 2 min). He didn't bother apologising for the 2 min, and probably no-one would have even noticed, but someone who had been on the same bus dobbed him in and he was made to email the whole company apologising. This was a man in his 50s doing a professional job. It was the last time he worked more than his contracted hours.

Or at least day 2!

Ok 1st finace doesn't work like that.
2nd there's a huge difference between the only form of public transport that goes to a worksite being a bus and the earliest that service can get there is 10 mins after start time so everyone using public transport is given the same leway and 1 lazy probationer who cant be bothered getting the earlier train that would get him to work on time.
In your situation its entirely out of your control in his its entirely his fault he was late everyday.

We also don't know that he was told that he could come in late everyday instead of being told that if hes late due to train delays occasionally thats ok

I suspect what they think they agreed and what he told you they agreed are not the same. I wouldn't let one employee be late because it's not fair to those who are on time. I really think your DS probably misread the indicators here. Lesson learned I hope.

Everyone isn’t ’ignoring’ it, it clearly wasn’t ok because he got fired for it. So he’s likely misunderstood or lied to OP. And given her reactions I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s lied to her to avoid getting the crap for it himself

Yes and no.
Retail tends to be paid by the hour and you have to clock in and out, some even make you clock in and out for breaks aswell and the clockin machine often requires a finger print to stop others clocking you in and out. You are only paid for the time you're working, so if you clock in late you dont get paid for that time

I've worked at my.place for 7 years but still wouldn't be allowed to be late every day!

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that the DS was told it was OK? I've had loads of jobs where turning up a few minutes late to fit with public transport was fine. Even as a carer, one of the residential complexes was towards the outside of town (still in town); the first bus didn't arrive until 07:09. Start time was 7 am.

No one who didn't drive was expected to be there before 7:11. All of my office jobs were flexible; the one I work now, you can take an hour for lunch, or less, and finish early or more and finish late as long as you work the amount of hours you're contracted to work no one gives a shit what time you arrive or leave.

He was only informed of getting an earlier train from today, so how can they dismiss
You can’t be serious? You really don’t think he could have been expected to work this out for himself??

If you get sacked within the 1st 6 months they put you straight back on any sanctions or back to work programmes that you were on before which is supposed to be a deterant but it doesn't work as 1 from what I can see

Did they ACTUALLY SAY "we are ok with you planning to be a few minutes late everyday" or was it more "you won't get into trouble if sometimes you are a few minutes late".

My employer is "ok" with me being a few minutes late.

• I try to get the 7.50
• sometimes I miss it and get the 8.03
• sometimes the 8.03 misses or is 10 mins late

That is NOT the same as my employer actually being HAPPY with me INTENTIONALLY not trying to get a bus until 8.15, which probably means I don't get in till 9.20, 20 mins after my start time.

Unless your son ACTALLY said "I will always aim for the train at X time, which will get me to work at Y time - this number of minutes late, is that ok?" AND they said "yes", it sounds like that are being understanding of public transport going wrong and your son has decided to be very lazy and rude, not bothering to try to get to work on time, and probably needs a change in attitude.