I was forcefully asked to resign from my job waiting tables due to the fact that I did not appear enthusiastic at work, didn’t help out and said negative things to other co-workers about the management. It was not a premeditated firing, the manager had been extremely edgy all day and pulled another guy into his office for suggesting the manager was standing in his way, presumably he threatened the poor kid’s job, and had him justify why he should be allowed to stay.
I’m normally a positive, eager person in the workplace, but this place was a sweatshop. The management put the employees through some really trying situations rather needlessly. They also made sure that certain people consistently made a lot of money while other people consistently made a fraction of what they could have. If you said anything, they considered it a threat to their authority and would let you know that you weren’t being “positive” and would control your income/working conditions accordingly. I put up with it because I was already just scraping by because of them, and needed something to pay the bills while I was looking for other work.
I’m not all that heartbroken about not working there, although it was my sole source of income. But I have been thinking about whether I was stupid/wrong for not keeping quiet and smiling even though I was quite purposefully put in an unprofitable station every day and others around me having to stick around for 12 hour shifts despite having no tables. Maybe I should have played their game. Or maybe they were unethical for trying to fire people for speaking out about the (imo) genuinely crappy working conditions. Is it valid to fire someone who performs all of their work duties but says disparaging things about the workplace?
Also taking suggestions for how I may get back at my former employer (just idle joking for laughs of course ;))
Without making any judgement about your specific situation, I see the merit of telling someone “perhaps you’d be happier someplace else.” I’ve had coworkers who spent all their energy bitching about what a crapassed boss they had, or what a crapassed task they had been assigned. If you didn’t agree with them, well, then you were a crapass, too.
Several of these people were extremely good at what they did, so it wasn’t an issue about their job performance. But they became so “toxic” (to quote one of their supervisors) that they dragged down the morale of the entire team. And yes, eventually their attitude became obvious to customers.
The supervisors normally would have a closed door meeting with these people, after which they’d usually either resolve their differences or voluntarily look for another job. But I knew a few who were so negative that they actually got fired.
Sometimes, it’s just the wrong person in the wrong job at the wrong time and place.
Ignoring all your other questions, the answer to this one is, “Yes.”
A person can really spread negativity. It can act like a disease that slowly pulls everyone else into it. Particularly if the job is already bad enough, having some guy constantly reminding you of just how bad it really all is certainly isn’t going to make your day go by any better.
An an employer, you can either wait until the entire work force is so demoralized that they start quiting, or you can get rid of the guy who’s causing all the moaning. The upshot is that everyone is a little bit happier, and all of them (except the guy) still have the job.
And, it’s worth noting, most often the job isn’t all that better or worse than any other job of the same pay-scale so it’s really just the one guy moaning that’s making everything seem so bad. This may not be true in your case – we have no way of knowing what your level of tolerance is nor what you encountered – but almost certainly the employer thinks that you were just being a complainer, not that you have a valid complaint. He was just looking after everyone’s best interests, so far as he saw it.
I’ve had co-workers that obviously didn’t like their job. I’m not talking about a bad day, which everyone has, but all the time. Their dislike made my job harder and less pleasant.
So yes, if an employee’s attitude affects the work of others, firing them is a valid move.
It depends a bit on which state you are in, but most places can fire you for …breathing too loudly or whatever. Really.
I live in California, and to get unemployment here you have to be fired/laid off. If you leave a job voluntarily the odds you will receive any sort of state sponsored unemployment compensation is very, very small. Don’t let them pressure you to quit.
As for revenge, it’s really not worth it. Word gets around pretty quick. But if you are not worried about ever finding gainful employment again, a while back someone posted about leaving a beeper that would go off randomly in the ceiling tiles (or maybe it was glued into a cubical wall) of their former office. That would drive me insane pretty quickly.
So, if I’m reading this correctly, you had a bad attitude and you bitched too much and too loudly on the wrong day, and got fired for it. When you hate your job and the management is unfair, you find another job or you quit. Bitching publicly at work is not an option (or, surprise! it will get you fired).
ETA: Forgot my compassion - sorry you lost your job.
Yes, it’s ethical. Everyone has a bad day or two, but if I were a boss and I had to look at a sad, pouty face all day, it would bring down my morale, forget about the other staff.
Your performance at the bottom of the totem pole often determines whether or not you will have a chance to rise to better conditions. Not always, sure, but often. You might have blown an opportunity to transfer to a more profitable station by doing a mediocre job at yours. 'Cuz really, if you had to pick between the affable person and the person who looks like he’s just going through the motions, would you really pick the latter?
Workplace morale is very important, and it’s never wise to badmouth management while on the job. For one, the walls have ears. Secondly, the person you might be bitching to may not really be on your “side” and may mention your comments to management at the first opportunity. If you’ve got to vent (which we all have to do sometimes), go off-site and only with a trusted confident.
Honestly, in this economy, there are enough people out there who are really down on their luck and would be grateful to be making any money at all that there is no need for a company to keep someone on who is crabby about being there. Why risk that customers will notice the person is unhappy and be offended or turned off by it?
This might turn out to be for the best. I hope you find something you actually like better soon.
You know, you can speak about crappy work situations without bringing down the whole department. It sounds like you had a bad attitude, and your boss was right to get you out of there.
In all seriousness, customer service is an industry where demeanor is a job requisite. You have to fake it even if you don’t mean it. The best servers are great at faking it at the tables. It’s ok to hate your job as long as you don’t make it bleeding obvious that you hate your job.
You also have to eat shit from management and not complain. That part sucks, but it is what it is. You at least have to do it until you can find somebody better to work for. Yes, you will run into some dipshits in the restaurant business (and in professional life in general), but it never works out well to let them know you think they’re dipshits. At the very least, you have to fake it until you find something else, and quite often, taking the high road will soften them anyway.
Forgive me, I am still young. This is my first experience working in a grossly mismanaged workplace that and knowingly stomped all over the lives of the staff (and believe it or not, it’s fairly simple to care for employees in a restaurant because there are so few middlemen). To go out on a limb, I am fairly certain they were making working conditions so hard that certain servers would be frustrated and then the management would have an excuse to fire them. And I am well aware that crap happens at most workplaces, but in a restaurant there’s no systemic bureaucracy to overcome-- you are talking directly with the people who could choose whether or not to screw you over.
I’m not trying to disagree with everyone who said my employer was right. I’ve just been mulling it over a lot and (obviously) have a lot of time to do so. I mean, they know that they are doing things that are far beyond typical restaurant BS, but rather than trying to fix things, they are giving special treatment to some staff who are the most physically attractive or “have great sass”, and keeping around only the most docile employees who quietly hope things will get better. I understand that it’s legally/logically valid and I guess this is my “welcome to the real world” moment, but am I wrong for thinking it’s a little bit more evil than usual?
FWIW, I have been smiling and happy for all my tables. I even say good things when they ask me how it’s been working here. This was by far my most abusive job, and I’ve worked at 6 restaurants, one of them being an Applebee’s with the highest turnover rate in the tri-state region.
A lesson I learned was, act happy and look for another job. It really doesn’t do anyone any good to talk about how much a job sucks. It makes a crappy situation worse for everyone: you, your boss, and perhaps most importantly, your co-workers.
Looking back on it, I worked some crappy jobs and bitched and moaned, but it never occurred to me that I was bitching to people who knew they had shitty jobs, but they were trying to raise their kid, or take care of an elderly parent. I was just making their hard lives even harder.
If you’re unhappy at a job, get another one, but don’t make everyone else miserable in the meantime.
Maybe I’m just grasping at straws here, but I wouldn’t say anything like “That guy is such an idiot”. It would be more like “I wish they would let us out now, when we are no longer needed, so we wouldn’t be an hour late to our other jobs”. Or, “If you came in for a 7AM breakfast shift, and it’s now 6PM, and the people who started working at noon got to go home before you, and the night crew has already taken over your section, they probably shouldn’t have yelled at you for asking to go home because the babysitter is waiting for you.” I guess it’s a personal thing, I would rather commiserate than pretend everything is okay. If everyone around me acts like everything is dandy, then I start to feel alienated and crazy. And I hated the idea that the company could get away with everything they were doing.
Also, some of my co-workers were shocked to find out that the management thought I was negative.
Eh, now I’m just getting defensive. You guys are probably right, but I just needed to decompress.
Someone that expresses negative comments about the place on a regular basis or causes strife between employees should be told to leave. It’s referred to as poisoning the work environment or a toxic employee.
I won’t say you’re this bad. Your boss could have just had a really bad day or been told to cut an employee to stay in budget. That happens often.
Just mentally file away all the names of the assholes you had to deal with. Karma’s a bitch.
One day you will be in a position to pass the “good times” back on those soul suckers.
Be patient. It can take years. I recently had the pleasure of making sure an old boss, who made my life miserable eight years ago, was rejected from consideration for a position at my current company.
I believe all “original” abuses of authority are to be paid back ten-fold.
You had a crappy employer who mistreated everyone and then fired you for a crappy reason. There’s really not much more to it than that. If you’re going to stay in the business, take names and plan your revenge.
Yeah, it’s not that your boss wasn’t a giant asshole. Its that his/her assholishness towards you does not justify your assholishness towards your coworkers (being a toxic, miserable person to be around). What it does justify, is looking for a new job. Then when you’ve secured one, you can enjoy a good storm-off like Jennifer Aniston’s character in “Office Space.”