Is this a sackable offence?

[JCFJW]

Not me, asking on behalf of a teenage relative who is in a state after being told she may get suspended/sacked and she’s worried about it affecting her plans of working in hospitality abroad.

Potwash in a busy family restaurant. The training on chemical handling is a 5 minute online course. She has been there 5 months. Today she went to get detergent from the chemical cupboard. Key is kept in potwash area, chemical cupboard is downstairs next to the toilets so not locked in a staff only area. She forgot to lock the door after being in there and returned the key to its usual spot. It wasn’t noticed the whole night. Supervisor noticed it during closing and was fuming, and is going to arrange a disciplinary meeting. She told my relative “You could have killed a child if they had gone in and drank the chemicals.” The chemicals all have tight seals on.

This supervisor has bullied my relative and other potwash staff before before, making up problems. My relative was in the wrong but because of the supervisor’s previous behaviour I’m not sure how rational her reaction was and whether relative should expect punishment. Thoughts?

Quite aside from anything else would she be able to cope with a job in Spain?
She sounds like she has a health issue and isn’t particularly resilient anyway. What she did sounds pretty minor but it seems she’s catastropising, I appreciate that Teens do this sometimes but what will happen when/if she’s abroad and she gets a bollocking for something?
There is a shortage of work in Spain at the moment so I’m not sure how she’s going to get this mythical job there, especially since the Summer season has passed. Presumably she speaks good Spanish and has a right to legally work there too?

Literally everywhere is hiring right now! Just help her find another job, I can't walk 2 minutes in my high street without seeing 5 job posters.

You're not helping your niece by pretending her errors are the result of bullying. Her supervisor might be harsh but they wouldn't have been able to comment if your niece hadn't let the grease trap overflow; let grease spill on the floor every night; left work early; left the chemical cupboard unlocked. Working in a kitchen is a dangerous environment. Not everyone is suited to it and it would probably be better for your niece if she realised that earlier rather than later.
Perhaps she should consider another hospitality route to get to Spain eg waiting staff.
And the best thing you can do is tell her to stop crying, take responsibility for her mistake and consider moving out of kitchen work.

Niece needs to leave and not allow herself to be bullied further by a jumped up nobody.

It’s a pot washing job. Tell her to find another job in the short term. Everywhere is desperate for trained kitchen staff at the moment. Restaurants in Spain won’t really care about references, they’ll just want to know she has some experience and is willing to work shifts.

I'd get her to find another job, this supervisor sounds horrid.

*Op, stop making excuses, she screwed up. We all do! Her supervisor isn’t a a bully from your descriptions, they are a person who works with clueless new employees.

*

Stepping away from her abs saying "ew" when she talks about a chronic health condition? Not a bully? If my manager did that at work I'd be making a formal complaint.

Bold fail.

@littlefireseverywhere

I'd get her to find another job, this supervisor sounds horrid.

This

Also ... she's 18 fgs! She has minimal life experience and is prone to mistakes like this, it's how we learn in life. God knows I made many a similar mistake at that age.

God is it worth it? It sounds like an utterly miserable job.

Hospitality is a brutal business and notorious for bullying and breaches of workers' rights.

Your neice would be safer in a big chain where there are formal training programme and and HR teams.

But what she really needs is to know that this shitty pot washing job is not worth the angst. She's worth more than that.

Get her out of there. She's learned a lesson from it. Her manager sounds like a pillock. She mustn't worry about it. It's done. Move on. She can find another job.

Tell her to keep calm about it. If she loses the job or won't get a good reference it doesn't matter long term as she can leave it off her CV. Lots of teenagers get their first job at 18 so it's not like she's leaving an unusual career gap, it just puts her in the same situation as many others where they're applying to their first job on a gap year at 18.
Explain to her that in some ways it's a positive thing, she'll never make the same mistake again now that it's going to be so ingrained, and much better to make these kind of mistakes at just turned 18 than when she's older, teen years are for learning and learning is most effective through experience.

Also remind her that she can ask for a reference from teachers at college/6th form like anyone going into a first job at 18 would, it doesn't have to be from employment.

Sorry not RTFT but I'd be questioning why the restaurant doesn't have a self locking door to accommodate for human error

You, and your niece, need to take a step back and a deep breath.

Whether the supervisor is right or wrong is almost a moot point.

Your niece is "hysterical" about being told off by someone when she's in a very low-end job, which she could leave this morning and start a new one this afternoon - that needs to be key to her thinking here.

She should take full responsibility for her error and apologise. Then, hand her resignation in stating that the bullying work environment is not for her. State that mistakes happen under pressure, and she recommends that a simple change of self locking mechanism for the door would easily mitigate any future risk. Then walk. What a shit job.

OK first of all obviously the mistake is a pretty big one that could have had serious consequences - I'm guessing that while the less dangerous chemicals like dishwashing fluid and the chemicals to clean tables are in there, you would also have the very corrosive oven cleaning chemicals and beer line cleaners that you need PPE to use in there. It is serious and at 18 she should know to lock the door. The online training does only take about 5-10 minutes but it should also be recapped often. She needs to apologise for that mistake and not argue about where the cupboard is - the location of the cupboard is OK as long as it is locked.

However, hospitality is screaming out for staff right now and it would be very easy for her to find another job - alot of the managers and supervisors in the industry are a bit power hungry but not all of them. It is expensive to train new staff and so she's not likely to be sacked for this, it also doesn't look great for the company to have a huge staff turnover.

I think she should just resign and look for another , better job , this one is doing her confidence no good whatsoever . The Chemical cupboard is a bit of a fail , but I doubt she is the first to do it , most places that have a locked cupboard that can be accessed by the public have a keypad lock to prevent this sort of thing ever happening in the first place .

The cupboard door if in a public area should really have a key access to open but lock when closed, similar to a Yale night latch lock.
This way access would be prevented as long as the door was shut and the keys secure, eliminating the risk.
Surely she ca get a reference from a more sympathetic staff member for her job abroad.
She should treat this as good experience, job responsibilities, safety management, bullying in the workplace.

I think the reaction of DN is due to the constant bullying from this supervisor. Vile person.

People are really saying she’s not a bully? When she recoiled at my niece mentioning she had a chronic illness? Wtf.

She’s said she handing in her notice tomorrow anyway.

And she didn’t ‘leave early’, she went to A&E with agonising pain. I’m the one who picked her up because she was throwing up with the pain and her parents were working. That’s the reality of what flare ups can be like with our condition. I have it as well, it runs in the women in our family.

I’m glad she’s leaving so I don’t have to hear about this nasty piece of work supervisor anymore tbh.

Honestly these types of jobs are ten a penny.

She can acknowledge that she made a mistake and learn from it for herself. But these types aren’t worth the stress of having to work for, and nobody works washing pots as a great career opportunity.If it’s a shit place to work then resign and move on. Kitchen staff jobs have a massive turnover anyway mostly because people only do them as a stopgap to wherever it is they’re wanting to go.

Sounds like a horrid place to work to be honest. I think she should quit if she can.

However, it seems like this is on top of flooding the kitchen

Where on earth do you get flooding the kitchen from, @madisonbridges? It's a hell of a leap from one incident when a sink overflowed.

@1vandal2

The question what is the worst thing that could happen is in all health and safety training and the answer is someone could die. That is why it is serious.

Not accurate though, it should be what is reasonably foreseeable. If everything risk assessed ended up with death we would do nothing!