Furious at ds work dismissal

[OneGreyBiscuit]

This is more has my 19 year old ds employers been unreasonable. He's just been sacked for being unreliable. For context - he accepted a new job about a month ago. He informed them of where he lives which is about a forty minute train journey away. He is a few minutes late everyday because of the trains and they said they were ok with it. He's just come off holiday (which he informed them of) and went back today. He was sent an email before today telling him to get an earlier train so he's on time. Fair enough, so he did and would've continued doing. At 9 he was called into a meeting to tell him his contracts been terminated for unreliability. He was only informed of getting an earlier train from today, so how can they dismiss him like this? If he continued to get the later train and continued being late then I'd understand but they've not even given him a chance. I'm absolutely furious. And to add insult to injury he still had to pay for his waste of time and money train fare this morning.

Bit late to the thread but I feel for your son.. my cousin is 20 and really struggling to find a job right now (so is my 45 year old husband but he's at least in a job already).

I'm a litigation executive for a law firm although I don't work in employment law. Unfortunately your son doesn't have many rights and is unlikely to have a successful unfair dismissal claim either way. He'd have had to be working there for 2 years to have decent rights as an employee.

Had he been there 2 years, he could have claimed unfair dismissal on the grounds that he had been late (only a few minutes) daily since he started, informing them of the reasoning and it had only just been highlighted as an issue. He should have had forewarning that the meeting was a disciplinary one and could result in termination of his employment and he would have been entitled to a colleague or union rep to attend with him.

It's just really unfortunate but make sure if there's anything similar etc in future, to get it in writing that his employer don't have an issue with it. If I've learned one thing... document everything like flexible working agreements, working a weekend instead of weekdays to save annual leave etc (just some examples from my last job) even if the employer is great as they might not always be.

Good luck with his job hunt x

There’s always been an earlier train but he made the choice to cut it fine and was late

Yes they could of first gone down the discipline route
but tbh it shows a shit attitude and lack of commitment so I’d get rid at the first opportunity in a probation period rather than risk having a problem member off staff

if you can’t show a bit of commitment in your probation period doesn’t look good going forward and as you pointed out the job market is terrible so you should make every effort
interviewing, recruiting and training cost money I think there’s probably more than timekeeping why they got rid

he’ll of had years of getting to school on time so why should work be different

getting there on time is a basic

Yes but they took him on. They can't agree to hire you and then be annoyed that you've taken annual leave for a holiday they already knew about.

That’s absolutely right. But I must be getting old…I can’t believe that people need to be told by their employer to get to work on time, and when they’re persistently late it’s somehow the employer that’s unreasonable 😂

I expect it’s partly the manager being terribly British and not saying what they really meant. New person was late, and blamed it on the train. Manager said, oh that’s alright. Expecting employee to get the earlier one going forwards. New person hears ‘oh that’s alright’ and takes it as acceptance that he can be a few minutes late every day. I blame the parents ;)

they are usually annoyed because the person approving the holiday during interview isn’t covering the persons workload. We would have new starters turn up to their fist shift in a pub and say they told interviewer they can’t work weekends as they had football season tickets or they can’t work the whole of December as they visit family. Usually other requirements would emerge over the probation period so we could manage them out before the other staff complained about doing double weekend shifts.

If your son was able to get to school and his previous job on time, he's obviously aware of the importance of time keeping.
This dismissal is completely his own fault, and you doubling down and calling perfectly reasonable posters nasty because they don't agree with you, is probably part of the reason he's so entitled.

God, imagine your mum being this involved in your professional life when you’re a fully grown man.

His issue OP and it sounds like he was squarely in the wrong. Also his issue to fix.

You’re acting like a 19 year old yourself now!

Indeed. We have a saying where I’m from, essentially that the DS ‘didn’t lick it off the ground’ and that’s very evident in this thread!

As youth unemployment ticks up they will be begging to work over Christmas.

It’s going to be quite a shock when the employers don’t want them then!

Already nearly there I think, part of the problem is that previous generations were conditioned to the fact that if you didn"t get decent grades you would work in a factory or be on the dole, there is a whole generation now with their heads full of Insta shite, the mental health fallout when they realise that they are not really different from previous generations will be massive, happening already actually, and they don"t even have a decent music scene to lose themselves in!

Yea so be annoyed with the person who decided to hire them. Not the person being hired. Common sense??

That is assuming they told the person at the time, it’s just as likely to be the case that they said nothing at interview and then claim to have mentioned it when they start the job.

Not sure what responses the OP wanted from this thread?