Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Furious with what happened to DS17 on his last day of work

155 replies

Workcomplaintt · Yesterday 20:44

I have changed my name for this because posts on my normal account could give away the company involved.

DS (17) had his final day of a part time job today. He knew it was always a short term contract and he really enjoyed working there, it was his first proper job.

Upon picking him up today, he was absolutely covered head to toe in flour, eggs, milk and god knows what else. Apparently it’s tradition whenever someone leaves that they get tied up and humiliated by their colleagues. I could tell DS was shaken up, he said he didn’t know it was going to happen and he didn’t feel they’d listen if he asked them to stop.

He took off what clothes he could before getting in my car but it’s in a right state.

I am in two minds to turn up at the company tomorrow and give them a piece of my mind. I said as much to DS. He’s only 17 for goodness sake.

He has asked me not to say anything to them.

Would it be wrong of me to make an issue of this despite his wishes for me not to?

OP posts:
SirenScream · Yesterday 23:59

When I left my saturday job at 17 the other staff brought me a coffee pot and a set of mugs.

IStillHearTheWaves · Today 00:00

hyggetyggedotorg · Yesterday 20:55

If I were your DS that would have been my worst nightmare. However, it was his first job in the adult world even though he’s not quite an adult himself. He’s asked you to do nothing, so I think you should respect that.

Thankfully it shouldn’t happen at his next job!

This was a “thing” on the last day of secondary school in the early 90s. Slightly shocked it’s happening in a workplace TBH.

This happened in my school in the 90s too. Sometimes also on people's birthday their friends would do this to them too (usually the 'well 'ard' kids). I've never known it happen in a workplace!

MeganM3 · Today 00:05

What would happen if you report it? Who do you complain to, who do you tell?

concertinacornflake · Today 00:05

Workcomplaintt · Yesterday 21:54

Yeah, including the company owner who was filming it.

Show quote history

Has the video been posted? You should firstly save a copy for any future complaint and secondly report to platforms to get it taken down.

greensoup · Today 00:06

ExtraOnions · Yesterday 20:53

Used to happen at McDs when I worked there .. didn’t bother me then, doesn’t bother me now.

I’m not sure Mummy storming down tomorrow will do much.

It’s a bit of Milk & Flour, not sure the Police will be at all interested.

Just chalk it down, he’ll laugh about it in a few years.

Food stuffs aren't benign, lots of people have severe allergies to food

concertinacornflake · Today 00:08

SmashThePatriarchy · Yesterday 22:55

It’s not a police matter! MN classic.

Show quote history

It was assault of a minor. That is a legitimate non-emergency police matter if the victim wants to report it.

DuckbilledSplatterPuff · Today 00:24

Workcomplaintt · Yesterday 21:54

Yeah, including the company owner who was filming it.

Show quote history

He was tied up and The OWNER was flming it.. no doubt to put it on social media. That would settle it for me. Report them.

ThankYouNigel · Today 00:24

YANBU- I feel genuinely shocked and stunned reading this, that’s disgusting what they did to your son. Completely unprofessional and uncalled for. I’d suggest he reports it to the police. Really sorry for you both 💐

Winderwall · Today 00:25

I worked in a bakery dept of a very well known supermarket from 15-18, I was a Saturday girl and when it was a bakers birthday they would be stripped of their whites and have a rolling pin covered in flour and seeds rubbed between their legs and flour thrown at them. Fortunately is was late 80s/early 90s so social media wasn’t a thing. But it was a ‘thing’.

ChristinaPaigeDoesNotApprove · Today 01:06

What the bloody fuck would they do if the victim had an allergic reaction!?

Passwordsaremynemesis · Today 02:08

I am surprised this still goes on! When I left my waitress job in the late 80s I was dunked in the filthy pot sink. And when I left Bognor butlins in 1991 I was marched around the site and then thrown in the boating lake! It was all in good fun at the time, I thought it was a laugh! I do remember some people at Butlins got disciplined for it though. I wouldn’t do anything if that’s what your son wants, I certainly wouldn’t waste police time over it unless he has been injured.

FairKoala · Today 02:24

Svolvaer · Yesterday 20:54

I would be raging too but there’s no point in complaining - they won’t be interested (probably dismiss it as just a bit of fun that happens to all leavers) but more importantly it could interfere with the possibility of him getting a decent reference if he ever needs it.

Apart from the basic health and safety laws broken. What was done was also criminal

They tied a child up and threw stuff at him and humiliated him

I would at the very least get a solicitor to write to the management a letter about what they did and what laws were broken (house insurance usually covers employment law especially as your DS is considered a minor)

likelysuspect · Today 02:42

Ive only read a couple of pages OP

Its hugely immature and very '6th form', its the sort of thing middle class/upper class uni types get up to in my view (is he going to uni? expect it to happen)

Dont follow this up unless he changes his mind.

Iocanepowder · Today 02:56

I would encourage DS to text a colleague and casually ask if they could send him the footage they took, then decide next steps from there.

GiddyRobin · Today 03:09

My son and I have coeliac disease, if this happened to one of us and we got flour in our mouth (which I'm sure we would if it was being lobbed and in the air!) then we would be extremely ill.

Then there are people who have allergies to things like eggs. For a long time when my son was little, even touching milk brought him out in hives. I knew a 60 year old woman who was the same, couldn't even get a drop on her.

So no, I don't think it's fun and games at all. And I bloody would go and say something about it - he maybe a big boy now, but he's still legally a child, and their behaviour could end up genuinely causing physical harm in the future.

I think it's disgraceful, and I don't care if that makes me a spoilsport.

SweetnsourNZ · Today 03:44

MNLurker1345 · Yesterday 21:17

We sent the new trainee chef of to the
requisition office to get some Tartan food colouring.

That's like the striped paint or long wait, that's been around for years.

TeaAndTattoos · Today 03:54

as much as I agree with you that what they did was wrong on so many levels YABU if you go in all guns blazing about it your DS has asked you not to respect his wishes and just leave it alone do you really want to embarrass him any more by marching up there and having at go at them for it he doesn’t work there anymore and he doesn’t need his mum to fight his battles for him just let it go and be glad he’s left and it was only temporary.

SuddenlyBecoming · Today 03:55

I can't think of anything more embarrassing than a parent storming into my work at 17.

Leave it alone, you may find your son was consulted and went along with it until he came across you.

GalaDinner · Today 03:55

As a Coeliac I completely agree with @GiddyRobin. Flour is really not funny.

user1492757084 · Today 03:55

I'd do what DS requests - say nothing.

Though when you went to collect DS, you should have demanded that the workplace give you a towel and bin liner before you would be letting their cooking ingredients travel in your car.

Did you take pictures?

ExpectMore · Today 04:16

ApparentlyIsMyCircusAndMyMonkeys · Yesterday 21:12

I’d be inclined not to say anything for fear of embarrassing him further. But I will also offer another perspective while I’m here:

When I was in my late teens I had a temp job in a call centre office which was supposed to just be for one day but they ended up keeping me on for the summer. On the final day, I was pranked - not with flour, eggs etc, but things like my office chair was tampered with so when I sat down I suddenly plummeted to the floor. My headset had blue tack put in the ear so it blocked the sound, my mouse had the ball removed so it wouldn’t work etc. These were all done while I was being distracted in another room and then when I returned to my desk and the phones were ringing and no one else around to answer them, I had the trio of pranks hit just as I took a call from an angry customer (who was of course another colleague posing as a customer…). The office erupted into laughter at my expense. Was I embarrassed, yes! But also I was quite touched that they had considered me part of the team enough to have bothered to prank me. And once I realised that I found it very funny too. It was their way of saying goodbye and thanks.

Now I appreciate that none of this is like being covered in flour/eggs etc, and that if that came as a total surprise it could feel, well even threatening, perhaps? But I just wonder whether this is a long standing tradition they have, and instead of trying to completely humiliate him, they actually were trying to include him in a last day ritual? One that arguably should probably have died off years ago. But still, perhaps they were trying to make it fun? You said he enjoyed working there, so presumably they enjoyed having him there too.

Or they could of course just be total bellends. Either way, I wouldn’t take it further. Might he not need a reference for any future work? Why risk being remembered for the one who sent his mum down to tell them all off. Hopefully once some time passes he’ll look back and laugh or at least not see it as a bad memory.

This.

and, if there is a problem to be dealt with, let him deal with it. Will be fantastic learning experience as he won’t always have mummy to save him.

ExpectMore · Today 04:22

KittyMcCatface · Yesterday 21:12

It’s assault. Your son is a child. Of course he doesn’t want a fuss, but so do many children bullied and physically attacked. Be a parent. Take action.

He’s 17. Old enough to have a job, old enough to drive a car, old enough to join the military, old enough to have consensual sex and bring children into this world, and he’d also be old enough to vote should many campaigners get their way.

but not old enough to stand up for himself in a workplace nor not old enough to have you respect his wishes?

come on, get a grip, he’s not a baby

Peakyblinder18 · Today 04:37

Idiots undermining and humiliating a junior colleague. However@Workcomplaintt don't make it worse for ds by taking it further.

ExpectMore · Today 04:41

@Workcomplaintt given is a tradition, he presumably knew it was coming and / or observed it happening to others.

it would be interesting to explore with him:

  1. why he did nothing beforehand to make clear he didn’t want it. Presumably he could have spoken with his manager or hr
  2. if he observed, and possibly participated, in it happening to others. If he did, and either didn’t raise it as an issue or even was part of it, it would lead to an interesting discussion…

perhaps these reasons are partly behind why he didn’t say anything about it and doesn’t want you to….: as he knew it was a possibility, didn’t do anything to actively manage the situation in the run up, and may even have been complicit in the same happening to others previously.

all good material for life lessons to be learnt that will benefit him going forward

DeftGoldHedgehog · Today 04:41

I would also persuade them to report it to the police, and go with them to support them. I'd at least comfort DC make it clear that what happened was totally unacceptable.