If you think that a verbal warning is not written down, then your understanding of corporate culture is far different than mine.
A verbal warning is written down on a piece of paper. A written warning is written on a different piece of paper.
Back when I was managing at Blockbuster, all our Verbal Warnings had to be documented and signed by the manager and the employee. After several (three, maybe?) Verbal Warnings, you would be given a Written Warning.
Don’t try to think about it too hard, or your brain will start to leak out your ears.
I’ll bet it was Makeesha.
I work at a place that has a similar alcohol policy but I drove around with a half empty keg in my back seat for a week. I even ferried people to meetings and made them hold on to keg so it didn’t roll onto them. It seems that I work with people who are more interested with you not working drunk then trying to remember to do something with booze after work. I suddenly appreciate my job more.
Is it signed? Is anyone’s name/title on it? Any way to copy/scan that puppy into a PDF & send it home? Fax it to a server fax number & email the resulting file in your Inbox home? It would make it easier when/if you email it from home to someone who could tell you if they are within their rights to do that to you or not.
No, I’m not an attorney. Yes, you should show that to one.
Not talking about it there, not complaining about it to anyone who works there, and showing zero reaction to it to anyone in that office right now would probably be good advice. If you’re right, it would only come back to haunt any action you’d try to take to get it removed from your HR file in future. And if you are wrong, it will only make things worse at the company for you.
Actually, I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to require Verbal Warnings to be documented and be effectively written warnings. The goal is to make sure that someone doesn’t continually accummulate (and disregard) verbal warnings. ETA: and then complain that one never got a verbal warning when one gets the written warning.
Now maybe they should change the name, and call the first warnings “Gentle Reminders” and the later warnings “Announcements of Impending Doom(if you don’t change your ways)” or perhaps simply “Shape up or Ship out”. But the basic idea of making sure, especially in a place with multiple supervisors and managers, (even ignoring the whole multimilliondollar franchise stuff), that Verbal Warnings are not just casual off-the-cuff remarks makes sense to me.
BWHa ha ha ha ha ha!
Dude, please scan or photo this and post it.
I would bribe the HR people with a bottle of vodka.
I’m trying to decide who is the bigger douchebag–the person who reported it, or the person who got the report and decided to write you up. I think either would be more useful to humanity as dog food.
What would really seal the argument is if the company policies refer to the “property” or “premises” when discussing other things - but (as you’ve said) specify “in the building” with respect to alcohol.
Here’s a little piece of advice that I once received from a labor attorney:
Write up a letter with your version of events (i.e. Unopened bottle locked in car, written policy states, “XYZ” is against the rules…In your opinion you did not violate those rules, etc) and give it to HR and ask that it be put in your file. That way, if it ever comes up, at your work or anywhere else, you have your written letter to contest their version of events.
Longtime call center employee, superivsor and later Operations Manager here. (Including a couple here in Madison, Otto - but all relay, no CS.
(No longer any of the above, thank Og.)
I have never worked in a corporate call center that DIDN’T have such illogical, convoluted and asinine policies. There’s such high turnover, and um…interesting subset of humanity working in them that without such policies and layers of paper you’d be sued out business right quick.
NOTE: This does not mean all call center employees are freaks, geeks, barracks lawyers and drama queens. A fairly large percentage are responsible, hardworking individuals. But anybody who’s worked in a high turnover center knows what I’m talking about.
(I really mean no offense to call center workers - it’s hard work and can be endlessly frustrating - but god knows how tough it was to supervise such a…disparate workforce)
No question in my mind - the person who reported it.
As for HR/Management, they are obligated to investigate/document/counsel regarding anything that is reported to them, no matter how incidental or specious. If they don’t, their asses and the companies ass is on the line. It’s sort of automatic at that level.
I get to have wine and beer on a fairly regular basis at work. About 2-3 times a month, more during the holidays.
Be careful about it, but I agree with protesting it based on the “in the building” part.
But there’s a difference between investigating every complaint and issuing a citation in the case of every complaint. The former may be warranted; the latter, clearly not.
Of course not! If they wrote them down for you, then they wouldn’t be unwritten rules anymore.
This might not bother Otto’s employers, though. They give Written Verbal Warnings.
What did any dog do to you that you’d feed him that? :eek:
Most of the places I’ve worked tend to be rather lackadaisical about booze (I had a blender in my drawer, and vodka and tequila in break room freezer). Our company has occasional socialization parties in the office, and they provide the booze for these.
The boss is giving a speech next week entitled: THINGS THAT GO WITHOUT SAYING
I guess I’m feeling quite cynical today, but how else do you expect them to make record of the warning, with a tape recorder? Burn it onto a CD?
I’m glad I don’t work anywhere so fucking anal. My small open-plan office alone has about seven bottles of wine and two of Pimm’s lying around - and at Christmas the HR department itself plied us with mulled wine, and the CEO gave us all champagne.
Keep the original. Take a copy. Send the copy to your supervisor, the HR department (and the CEO if you feel the need to escalate it), with a short, factual letter, explaining that you refuse to accept this warning, since the alcohol was not “in the building” and therefore was not in contravention of company policy, and you request that they remove the verbal warning from your record.
What a bunch of douchebags.