to be fuming at an ex member of staff

[turbo1]

I run a newly started up commercial cleaning company. I lost one of my contracts due to my poor handling of this cleaner who was an absolute nightmare. She was rude, knocked off early and made up lies about the other cleaner. I finished the contract there a couple of weeks back and she now works at the premises under the new cleaning company who have won the deal. It is standard procedure under the Transfer of Undertakings Paid Employment 2006 regulations that when management changes her job is protected.
When my staff get paid, which is fortnightly, I email them their pay slips. the only person who I could not do this to was Rosa as she cannot use a computer. Instead I have always gone out of my way, driven down to the premises and handed them over to her. I texted her yesterday to say I would bob in next week with her pay slips as I had accidentally left some cleaning equipment on site. She called up and started screaming at me "you are no longer the fucking manager so you not coming to the place, you will fucking post this to my home address". I told her company policy is that we only post pay slips on receipt of a stamped addressed envelope. She then put her husband on the phone who started to threaten me. At this point I told them I was cutting the call and any further abusive or threatening calls would be dealt with by the police.
I am really pissed off now. I started this business a few months back and as of yet cannot afford to pay myself minimum wage. My husband and I are living of fresh air and are spending today ebaying anything in our house that has any value-which is not much. I lost money-admittedly to my inexperience in managing someone so disruptive-and she keeps her paid job. I wish I had fired her when I was her boss, but I did not have reasonable grounds to take her down the disciplinary route-all I gave her was one official warning. I wanted to sack her but she does have rights and I did not want to be done for unfair dismissal.
I did not sleep last night and am bloody livid. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds like a nightmare, but is the name you mentioned her name or have you changed it?

Hope that isn't her real name tbh

Oh and she would be entitled to a paper version of her wage slip, and she doesn't have to provide a stamp to get it.

If she did what you said she did, and had resonalble belief then you did have grounds to take her down the disciplinary route

I can understand you being pissed off with her delightful manner but I'm confused about one thing - why dont you post her payslip? Surely a few pence spent on stamp and envelope is a hell of a lot cheaper than driving to her if you're struggling financially? I think you just need to be glad you're not her boss anymore and move on, annoying as she must have been to deal with.

I can understand you are pissed off, but realistically it would probably cost more in fuel to drive to her work than the price of a stamp. I assume this will be her last pay slip from you?

Post it to her, it's the price of a stamp, it's not a lot, get it over and done with. Has her new boss asked for a reference? don't rant, but put facts.

At least you are safe in the knowledge that she's now fucking up the competition - if she is part of the reason you lost that contract, the firm have changed surpliers hoping for a better level of service are going to be disappointed, hopefully she'll screw up for them again and you'll end up looking like you're not that bad. Hopefully she'll damage that company's reputation and you might pick up other contracts off the back of it...

Also, if you own cleaning equipment at the location, then you shouldn't be contacting her, you should contact the company you had the contract with to collect them. If she doesn't like it, tough.

You seriously only post payslips on receipt of a stamped addressed envelope?

I would rather post it to her than have to see her face to face again.

Just post the payslip. Surely a stamp costs less than the petrol to drive to hand it to her.

I have to go to her workplace as I have accidentally left some equipment there I need to pick up.
It is standard company policy in all the cleaning firms I have worked for to supply pay slips on receipt of an SAE.
I have permission of the MD of the site to return to collect these items.
Rosa is not the true name.
After her outburst there is no way in hell I am giving her the pay slip in the post without the SAE. I am also not dropping it off on Monday when I go to get my equipment. I am sure many of you view this as a little bit harsh, but I do not give a shit about this woman after being threatened by her husband-she can piss off. If she had been polite about things I would have probably posted the pay slip but not after that bloody outburst.
I will go to collect my equipment from site when she is not due in work. I wish to add I have had over £30 of equipment nicked from the site and although I have no proof I would not be surprised if she was the thief.
I wish to add all my other cleaners are salt of the earth, pleasant and real grafters. I have previously managed over 100 staff at a different firm and although I have had to deal with one or two prats I have never come across this degree of behaviour before.

I know it was a shitty thing for her and her husband to do, but you cannot withold her pay slip

Just post the damn payslip and be shot of her. Dragging this out will just increase your stress.

Zach I think you have a point there. Just too fuming to do it right now. Once I am calm I will probably do this. I know you are the voice of reason-just too pissed off right now.
Black-I have a good understanding of employment law and legally I am not withholding the pay slip, I am requesting a SAE which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. All the other firms I have worked for do this.

As long as you are getting upset and losing sleep, she and her husband are winning. Post the slip second class, calm down and get over it.

@sally
Again you are the voice of reason and what you are saying is correct.

I will probably post it tomorrow. I am a very hotheaded person and really need to come down from this before I can do it. I know I am being an awkward bugger but I have always been that and that is just my nature.

Post the pay slip, learn from the experience and move on!

What exactly CAN I learn from this? I was in a very tough position on the contract-I was unable to discipline her as the MD of the company thought the sun shone out of her arse and I would have lost the contract on the spot if I had given her her marching orders.
She made a claim the other cleaner told her to "fuck off". Although I did not witness this I felt on the balance of probabilities this was a lie. Nonetheless the MD of the firm then threatened to throw the other guy out the window.
I am sort of relieved I do not have to manage her. I did fail as a manager on this situation but I have never encountered a cleaner like her before.

Stop being awkward, you need to be professional, give her no reason to slag you off. Her version of events will be that you witheld her payslip. That is what will be spread round and you know it makes you look like a shit firm, even if you have reasonable explainations. stick it in the post today - just do it. Dragging it out to tomorrow isn't going to help anyone. You need to draw a line and reduce your stress levels.

Remember, what you want is for the competition to have rubbish staff compared to you, this is now what's happening, that she's got that job is a good thing.

Turbo - so you let her get away with it and you still lost your contact? You should have fired her. Don't make that mistake again, it's not going to save your contracts to allow people who are rubbish at their job to stay in place because they get on with the staff at the company they are cleaning at. It could have been that her replacement could have settled in long before the contract was up for review.

Also, that some contracts aren't worth the hassle.... although granted, until your business has grown more you probably cna't afford to be picky about who you work for.

@dontmind
wise words will post the slip today to the cow

@dontmind

I did not have enough grounds to give her the sack. Employment law gives the worker tons of rights and unless there is gross misconduct you have to take things down an official disciplinary procedure. If I had told her to sling her hook and believe me I wanted to, I would have left myself wide open to an employment tribunal.
If I had kept to contract and had more time she would have run the risk of losing her job if I got more evidence.

What a cow. I'd have taken her down the disciplinary route. When I joined my present firm, I quickly discovered there were two members of staff who were swinging the lead, and one of them was creating a poisonous atmosphere.

I got on their cases, made it very clear what I expected, pulled up the one who was late every day every time she was late, refused to be bullied by the other one (who was demanding a promotion and threw a temper tantrum because I said I needed evidence of her work before I recommended her - my own boss agreed with me and said he disagreed with promotion until she'd pulled her socks up).

Thankfully both of them resigned - I was soooo happy when I got back from holiday to discover the poisonous one had handed in her notice while I was away (and my boss was away). Typical petty behaviour but never mind, important thing was she pissed off. Atmosphere in the office lightened overnight - and the remaining members of staff were much happier.

Appreciate this doesn't work in all circs but it is possible to manage shit people out of there - and to be fair, if either of them had changed their performance and their attitude, I'd have been happy to work with them.

A bit childish but could you post the payslip but forget the stamp to cause her inconvenience and a small cost for being so rude.

@mellocat

THAT IS GENIUS! mwah mwah mwah (evil laugh)

I do empathise, Turbo, I run a care agency and like you, most of the staff I employ are great.

However, I am amazed at the way some people treat me as the owner. I am always polite to people, and utterly reasonable but over the years, I have had people swearing at me, accusing me of lying, putting the phone down on me and again, I am always terrified that I am going to be taken to tribunal for some silly reason. It is nerve wracking. They are supposed to work 4 weeks notice if they resign, I don't think anyone has ever done that, they just go off when it suits them, sometimes in the middle of a shift. They often resign by text, without even having the courtesy to speak to me. One did this a few months ago and had the nerve to ring up recently and asked for her job back. She didn't get it!

I have learned a few lessons but the problem always is that is difficult to recruit in social care because there are so many jobs available and they know this. We also have duty of care to our vulnerable clients and whilst most of the time their care is ok, some staff are confident to be difficult because they know that if they just go off, it will leave you in a potentially dangerous situation.

On a couple of occasions, where I have raised management issues with them, eg lateness, letting us down at the last minute etc, I have had a call from our regulators (who have the power to close our business immediately) a few days later, saying that an anonymous complaint has been made and they need to investigate.

It can be extremely depressing running your own business!

Turbo (and emmanems) I really empathize with your situation. Starting up a business is such hard and isolating work and when you encounter such nastiness it can be soul destroying. I've also been living on fresh air and unable to claim a wage for months because an evil bastard person just decided not to pay for the service they had recieved. It's like they're happy taking money from a "business" and don't realize it's actually coming out of someone's pocket. And when I think about the fact that my kids are going without things they need because of one nasty person, my blood boils.

In your case, I probably would post the payslip, if only to avoid shoving it somewhere moderately uncomfortable.

That is awful Emma :(

just a point to don'tmind's point on references - you can not put a negative comment in the reference - the worst reference you can give is Rosa was employed from xdate to xdate - essentially there is nothing good to write.