Please help me :(

[kelsmills]

Hello there,

I worked for a very well known Cosmetic skincare company, and absolutely love my job. I got hired as assistant manager there and every day i felt like this is what i was born to do.

The company have rules and regulations like everyone else. As a member of staff they give you an allocation of cheaper items you can get which you are not allowed to buy and then sell on.

I received some gifts while at a management conference which i would never have used and didnt realise that the same rule applied (it is in the handbook it was just me stupidly assuming)

It wasnt until a few days after i was having a discussion with my manager about a girl getting sacked for selling a xmas present for over £1000 that it came to light i was not allowed to sell gifts too.

I retracted everything off ebay and refunded everyone for the items sold apart from one which had already been sent a few days earlier.

Now this has all come out and im 21 weeks pregnant and they have sacked me for gross misconduct. Im in total bits, it was an honest mistake and I tried to recover everything i could but they still see it as breeching company rules and regs.

What am i entitled too now, not only will i struggle to find a job being 5 and a half months pregnant, i have gross misconduct on my cv PLUS no SMP as im 21 weeks and not 25. :(

Please help me..I feel like ive failed as a mother already

K x

Sorry to hear this.

YOu should be entitled to Maternity Allowance which is paid fromt the Job Centre Plus. I've been told that unlike SMP, this isn't taxable.

I think the best thing to do is to contact the Job Centre to find out what you are entitled to. Also, you may now be entitled to the Sure Start Grant of £500 and the Health in Pregnancy Grant of £190.

Please don't feel like a failure - once you have your LO in your arms, thats all that will matter!!!!!

Who gave the gift?

Thanks Channie44 il have to go there first thing monday morning.

I just cant believe they are sacking me when they obviously know i made a mistake and tried everything to put it right. :(

It was the company who gave it to us Lucinda, just stupidly thought it wasnt the same as a concession that i would buy and not be able to sell.

xxx

Oh and please note the gift that was already posted that I couldnt get back was only worth about £30!!!

I feel for you I really do, however if you are considering some kind of action because you think their decision was unfair I'm not convinced you'd get far.

There are strict rules about not selling on stuff you have been able to buy at a cheap price, so really your employer would have an excellent argument for saying it's absolute common sense that of course the same rules would apply to things you haven't had to pay for at all. And if there is any doubt, you say it is specifically in the handbook anyway so you could have easily checked.

They can't let you off because you claim it was a mistake (I'm not doubting you), because then anyone could sell stuff and claim the same thing.

You should be entitled to maternity allowance as mentioned, which isn't that much different to SMP, see here

I know, I dont stand a chance despite being an obvious mistake (seeing all the refunds) that I tried to rectify the situation.

I know the rules are rules. They could have considered demotion but she said given my status of assistant manager she doesnt feel this is viable.

It annoys me though as I said over and over that I would rather hand my notice in than get sacked for this, and when i asked if when i attended the meeting and they decided on my termination whether I could hand my notice in instead she told me to bring it with me.

However when i asked after they told me their decision they said that because the meeting was held that it had gone to far!

I was just so concerned after all this about my M allowance and the fact that I couldnt cope financially to give my baby girl a good life.

Thank you all for your help

x

The trouble is that you are (were) in a management position, a position of trust, so really she was right to say that anything other than dismissal in those circumstances isn't really viable.

It's also really fair enough to want to have sacked you rather than just allowed you to resign. No one wants 'reason for leaving' to be dismissal so as you can imagine, it's pretty common for people who have done something serious and are invited to a disciplinary hearing to resign first, and also not uncommon for disciplinary hearings to be held during a notice period so that the person is actually sacked. Either way it would go on a future reference - them not having time to dismiss you wouldn't avoid that, and even if you'd managed to hand in your notice, you wouldn't presumably have avoided the hearing for the duration of whatever notice period you were on, so it wouldn't have made a difference.

I really don't think you have any cause to be angry at them tbh, instead you need to focus on what comes next, making sure you get your Maternity Allowance sorted out and taking your mat leave to think things through and work out a plan for what you want to do next.