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.

Your son did not take the initiative to catch the earlier train @OneGreyBiscuit.

Common sense would tell him to do so.

Why on earth did he have to be told to get an earlier train so he’d be on time?

Quite. Being on time was a prerequisite for any job I've ever had.

Either way, if the train that should get in at say 845 gets in at 9 most days you get an earlier one. I would never cut it so fine in the first place. I bet he wouldn't do it with a train to the airport etc

I see a lot of issues with lateness and new starters, often young, seeing no issues with arriving after their start time. We give them quite a few chances but repeated lateness isn’t great especially if there is an earlier train and he’s just chosen the later train. It’s a life lesson OP. Be on time.

I would imagine that is what he told you.

Earlier train if you can get in to work place sit have a coffee and then get ready to start your day.
Personally I enjoyed the peace before the others came in.

That's a bit harsh. I used to rely on public transport to get to work, and the option is sometimes to turn up 90 minutes early and have bot all to do (not to mention losing an extra 2 hours of your day) or catch the next train, which gets there exactly on time and risks you being a couple of minutes late with the inevitable delays.

Whenever I've gone for the first option, employers have always either offered me an earlier start time to match transport or told me to come in late and make the time up at the end of the shift/over lunch.

Ultimately, though @OneGreyBiscuit, although I agree they've been unfair, they haven't broken any laws.

That's out of context, and utterly unfair. What a cow
OP says, she's in work early everyday. Sounds like it's a learning curve for her son though.

Everybody who works knows what time they need to be in the office or wherever. They calculate the train times according to that information, so why on earth did he think arriving later than his start time was ok.

Without wishing to sound mean, I'm surprised you didn't raise him to realise this was never going to be acceptable. You cannot expect a job to accommodate your travel struggles that could be easily rectified with basic time management and forward planning. No employer, regardless of what they say or don't say, would be okay with an employee showing up late on a daily basis. It sets a bad example for long-standing employees and other new hires, too. Hopefully, despite not being taught at home, your son has learned a lesson here. I don't know what has happened to this world since Covid. No common sense and no work ethic.

Exactly. Being paid to do a job during work hours is crazy. It's like you can just show up when you want and make whatever rules you want and your employer (the person paying you) should just bend around them and be okay with it.....

Its not venomous to point out that being on time for work is the bare minimum requirement.
Nor is it nasty or anything else you want to throw at us for pointing out that you have failed him by not teaching him this basic life skill.
Its also not mean to say that you getting angry at his former employers is not helping your son learn his lesson and is infact making more likely that he'll get sacked from his next job aswell.
You need to accept that he screwed up and lost his job because of his choices, now you can tell him the truth and hopefully he will learn his lesson or you can continue to blame everyone but your son and yourself and watch him get fired from his next job and then the next and the 1 after that until he learns to get his atse into work on time everytime

So the OP is an entitled flouncer.

His contract tells him what time he has to be in. It's not their job to point out that he has to follow the contract. This early in employment, you take a cautious view of who you want to make a permanent commitment to, before they acquire employment rights. This is not the time to be late and assume that it's ok if no-one challenges you.

As an employer, I wouldn't be best pleased my new starter was arriving several minutes late every day. He'd have been pulled up on in within the first week.

You only have your son's word that his employer has been accepting of his lateness.They sent an email whilst your son was on holiday, telling him that he needed to catch an earlier train. This suggests that they weren't very accepting of your son arriving late every day. Today, after catching an earlier train, your son is taken aside and has his employment terminated. My guess is, your son hasn't perhaps been entirely honest with you. I suspect that your son has probably been pulled up by his employer on his lateness. It seems rather odd, that after being accepting that he's a few minutes late, they suddenly decide it's not good enough.

It's very unfortunate for your son, especially considering the job market for young people. All he can do is learn from his mistakes. He catches an earlier train, so he can arrive at work on time, every single day. An odd occasion being late, will be overlooked, especially if the time is made up at the end of the day. Being late every day is not acceptable. He's 19, and at that age, an employer wouldn't expect to have to tell an employee that they need to catch an earlier train. It's common sense.

OP this is where people are getting frustrated with your posts. You say 'if an employer is unhappy with the lateness they needed to tell him'.

Well they did. In his contract. And not they don't need to tell someone to be at work on time after they committed to working hours. This isn't the employers responsibility. I think you are missing this part.

Totally agree. And as the employer l would have refused the request for flexible working on the grounds that the start time was operationally necessary and there was nothing stopping him from meeting that commitment other than lack of motivation to get out of bed in time for the train which would get him to work on time 😁

I suspect your kid has not been totally honest with you.

Like everyone else, I don't understand why he didn't get the earlier train in the first place.
Perhaps when he said he was getting the train and might be late his employer assumed he meant it as a one off/just giving the heads up that if transport was bad that morning that he might not be on time.
What they probably didn't expect was for him to rock up late every morning. Someone probably looked up trains or someone coming from the same station might have been asked how they always make it on time/do they not see your son on the train and maybe that's how they then discovered the earlier train and felt your son was purposefully choosing to be late and not wanting to get an earlier train.

Did he offer to make up the time elsewhere? Shorter break? Work later?
Depending on the job it might also be necessary to be on time - if a shop opens at 9 for example it's no good someone turning up at 5 past. If you are taking phone calls if the opening times are from 9, again you need someone available to take calls.

OP's son lacks initiative to make the necessary arrangements to ensure he arrives on time.

I have hired Gen Z employees and made it very clear that they need to arrive on time. If their train is delayed, they need to provide evidence that it was delayed or cancelled.

I wonder if -

he was late once
boss said "it's OK"
son thought OK to come in late every day
boss just mean "I'm not making a fuss for a one off"

It's a tough lesson to learn

They might have misled him about the train , or he misunderstood or it could be that they just have decided they don’t need another employee after all and it’s a good excuse to ditch him .
One thing about a workplace is the same rules don’t apply to everyone equally and never take it face value that a couple of minutes late is ok . I wish him good luck getting a new job.

Yes ThreadGuardDog, another thread whereby we’re all damned if we don’t agree with the OP 🤪

Going against the grain here but I can’t see the issue with a few minutes late depending on the job, is he office based ? !! Everyone gets the trains issues delays particularly in london

I would suspect he's not telling the whole truth. Also whether others are coming in late isn't really relevant to him, when you're in the first month of a job, you make a good impression in the first couple of months, before you ask for things like coming in late.