Class action lawsuit filed against my former employer, HAW HAW!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It looks like the final straw was them making us find a seat in overcrowded aisles, find a PC that had all it’s parts functioning that day, and load almost a dozen separate programs, all before even being allowed to clock in for the day. What a load of crap.

I’m glad some people took it seriously enough and forced a change in their way of compensating people for their time.

People being moved en masse to different groups, and having groups just disappear were not uncommon things, and every time this happened it was musical chairs. There were often days that if you weren’t actively looking for a seat almost a half hour before your shift started, you risked being written up for signing on late.

Apparently some people were not compensated for their time after having taken the last call too. I had never heard the words “post-liminary time” before today.

That place was run by a bunch of crooks anyways, a call center for hire, many clients, no real leadership, and a constant contempt for their employees.

They never, ever stopped hiring. The waiting room for applicants was almost always full, due to high turnover due to several factors. The odd thing was that I met some VERY intelligent people working there (some of those nerds could write code like some people watch TV, no effort at all). I also met some people that I was shocked made it past the drug test, and evaded the police for yet another week.

It may please some of you to know that the primary client I worked for there was Verizon, in their DSL activation, Premium tech support, and FiOS tech support roles. If you were only kinda’ smart, you very well didn’t make it past the multiple hurdles that some of us did. A+ certification(s), somewhat rigorous entrance testing for higher levels, good call metrics, more testing, and final testing that weeded out a few really smart people I was sure I would be working with.

Anyways, sorry to rant, but I think those jerks deserve it.

2

You used to work on Hee Haw??

Oh wait—I misread the thread title.

3

This sounds eerily like my first employer, many many years ago when I was a phone tech for CompuServe. This employer of yours isn’t in North Texas, are they?

4

Or Iowa?

I was taking calls for Sirius/XM on what used to be the Verizon floor. I love the XM program and never worked for Verizon but overall some of the very things you mention irritate me.

I’m still out from my accident but I hear they are hiring again like you wouldn’t believe.

5

No. I’m sure Hee Haw was practically a Berkshire Hathaway compared to that company. The name of the game was always do the nest you can, then get fired for something almost unethical so we can replace you with someone who will work for less.

FTR, I was eventually fired from there. Seems that after a couple weeks of not showing up anymore, they decide to call you and ask what’s up. Had I really wanted to stay I’m sure I could have, because they had spent tens of weeks training me, and it would have been a net loss to have me gone. The company was so shady that I wouldn’t have ever come back, even for the higher rate they promised me, but never delivered on.

6

I used to work for a place like that, too. Sleaze. Lots of luck, brother.

7

Re Verizon, they laid off my niece’s husband a couple of weeks ago; he is 69 years old and was scheduled to retire in June, 2010. Plus, he had almost 30 years service, if you count his years with GE before Verizon bought them out.

8

I read it as “I used to work for Jack Chick”.

9

If Jack Chick had a call centre, that’s probably what it would be like, too. Hellish.

10

Are you going to tell us what it was?

11

Oh, I guess I wasn’t clear at all about what the lawsuit was about. They didn’t let us clock in until we had located a seat, found a PC that was working, and loaded a whole bunch of programs. Sometimes, depending on staffing, this could take almost an hour.

In the words of the lawsuit:

“Plaintiffs alleged (Company name) violated the above laws by failing to pay Plaintiffs and the Class Members for preliminary, continuous workday, and post-liminary time”
“Following the mediation, the Parties reached a settlement based on the mediator’s proposal and recommendation”

12

I just knew it was the phone company. My time there wasn’t as bad as yours(mostly because of the union, IMO…if your computer didn’t work, you had to tell the supervisors, but you still got paid), but I was just thinking this morning how nice it was to have a job where you don’t have to arrive 15 minutes early so that you could gather up your headset and other crap, find a workstation that was functioning, and get all logged in by your start time. As long as I am in the door and punched in by 7:30, I am golden. And that is 7:30 every morning. Sweet.

13

I’ve been at an awful lot of places that angrily demanded that peope arrive 10, 20 minutes before their shift and do X, Y and Z before clocking in.

And then give me the stink eye when I point out that, legally speaking, they cannot require hourly employees to take any actions off the clock. That they have to pay me and everyone else for every minute of that prep-time, and every minute of whatever they demand we do at the end of our shift.

Some of them were former cops, and they still didn’t get it.

There is a very big difference between “showing up ready to work” and “showing up and spending 20 minutes doing things we require you to do”.

14

I always made sure the work place knew they had to pay if you were doing shift prep they required. Punching in 15 minutes earlier was the equivalent of having one pay raise and not being paid 5x15 minutes extra a week.

15

I hear you, I think most of us have had similar problems with employers

Unfortunately all class action suits do are make money for lawyers. The thing will be settled out of court for the most money for the lawyers and the least money the company will have to pay.

If you sign up to be a participant you’ll be lucky to get a hundred bucks, probably less than 20

As Charlie Brown has been known to remark on so many occasions “Well that’s the way it goes.” <sigh>