DD Part Time Job

[chlxeh]

Hi, My DD got a job at a newly opened cafe about a month ago, and all the staff were new. Recently she looked at her rota app and one of her shifts had been ‘deleted’ and she wasn’t scheduled to work for the next 3 weeks. Yesterday, she checked again and her account on this rota app had actually been deleted. On Friday she emailed her manager asking what had happened but had no response and today emailed again and got a reply within 5 minutes (he had obviously ignored the previous email), stating that unfortunately she hadn’t passed her probation period. Now, am I being paranoid or is this ridiculous? She was only in for one shift and that one shift she was put on potwashing (don’t know how she physically could have gone wrong) and she did absolutely nothing wrong at all. She had been trained on everything so surely it was a waste of money. The email stated ‘we did want to tell you in person’ but I’m here thinking, how were you supposed to tell her in person if you just took her off all shifts without telling her? I don’t know whether it’s my parent senses kicking in but I’m furious at how this has been handled and how she was practically fired after one shift without actually being told. Am I being ridiculous?

You aren't being ridiculous, but, if that is the way they treat their staff, then she is probably better off out of there.

I would be angry too, but as long as she’s been paid for everything she’s owed and you don’t have any reason to suspect discrimination or anything like that, there’s nothing she can do.

Urgh, not a very nice introduction to the world of work for her. Unfortunately a lot of employers see young people as cheap short-term labour and don't really see themselves as having any responsibility to them. I suspect what's happened here is they've over-recruited expecting some to drop out and are now over-staffed. Or possibly the manager's DC/niece/friend's kid now wants a job, or the owner messed up their plan and can't afford as many staff as they thought. Either way someone had to go and your DD was just the unlucky one, as you say it can hardly have been anything she's done in the one shift so I'd try and encourage her to not take it personally. I suspect most people had some kind of similar experience at some point (I was sacked on my spot from my first ever waitressing job for dropping a gravy boat on the restaurant floor, very humiliating!) and ultimately it's character building, although I'm sure it doesn't feel that way to your poor DD!

They did this on one of my early part time jobs. Not to me but my friend just suddenly had no shifts and asked why and they said ‘sorry we don’t need you anymore!’