Workplace gave me a death sentence...

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I have great work ethic. If someone is late, they should be fired. Companys lose money when people decide to be late.

I imagine you support unpaid overtime too. I'm not saying I'm habitually late, but that kind of whip-cracking just offends me. I have more customer "kudos" than anyone in my department, and solve the toughest problems without needlessly sending technicians out to peoples' homes - I *save* the company money by doing my job right, rather than the dum-dums who don't solve anything and send out techs for stupid things like plugging in a TV. Yes, my few minutes here and there may have cost the company less than an hour's wage, but I've more than paid for that in unpaid overtime and saving the company money at every opportunity. Still think that kind of employee deserves to be fired for an extra minute at break because he needed extra washroom time? If so, congratulations on rigid thinking.

If you are late, you deserve to be fired.

That kind of injustice bugs me. I remember one of the reasons I switched high schools was because they wanted to make me sign some paper where I agreed to not being admitted for my senior year if I arrived more than 5 times late through all of my junior year. No way!

Not being late is a rule, which purpose is to avoid loss of productivity. But if you say you're really productive and do your job well, then it's definitely a shame. I go with SpiritBlooms, I'd rather have someone who does his job well and is late, than someone who follows the rules and does little more than that. The spirit, productivity, is more important than the rule.

Congratulations on perfecting that rigid thinking and intolerance. You display the qualities described in The Peter Principle very well... zero objectivity (and little productivity) only following the rules to the letter and punishing those that don't.

Well, I'll be EXTRA early for work now (until I get something else) but the idea of being fired for taking an extra minute in the toilet is downright offensive. They've already canned a number of good people for this flawed logic and brought in a fleet of part-timers to take their place. Nobody enjoys working for a hooded psycho with a whip.

You're going to have to start setting a new internal rule of coming in a little early to give yourself a buffer zone.

I hope I didn't give the impression of coming in late all the time, but it usually is only 5-15min before starting time... Until I can find an employer not so inflexible, I'll just have to come in extra early, cut all breaks a few minutes short and continue with the unpaid overtime. I will NOT give them the satisfaction... and maybe this firing spree will end while my job is still intact.

I've been getting to work 5-10 minutes late for SEVERAL YEARS! I'm still there

They seem ok about it, I just go to lunch later to make up the time.

I agree in a way, that employers should do something about workers that are consistently tardy (have a talk with them or something though, take it into account in any performance reviews too). The ones who have genuine reasons for being late, such as kids (one girl I work with is late often because her kids muck up in the morning and won't get ready for school), traffic, lack of parking, car breakdowns etc, should be let off the hook without penalty.

This company you work for should prepare for very high staff turnover.

I wonder, what would happen if you refused to do unpaid overtime?

I don't know that principle, sooooo yeah.

Actually, I would never hire you, so that could never happen.

1. You love to come in early.
2. You seem to have a go at your bosses for enforcing the law.
3. Having a go at random people like myself, who actually do the right thing.

Those "qualities" are of someone I would never hire.

The company is doing the right thing.

Your black and white approach wouldn't work in smaller more close knit company's though (y'know, the type where the employers actually try to develop interpersonal relationships with their workers). BlueMax hasn't told us how big his workplace is yet.

Maybe it wouldn't, but in a big one, it would - hopefully. I suppose it depends on the company and so forth.

What if you have an IBS diarrhoea attack at break and come back a couple of minutes late because you had a waterfall pouring out of your backside?

There's no use arguing with that guy, he thinks just like HR drones do - with zero humanity. One instance now gets a written warning. The second is a termination. Period.

There may be forgiveness if the supervisor team has you in their circle of friends, but even that's doubtful.

This is a giant company with many thousands of employees... this is going to be very ugly for them treating so many people so badly. I DREAD going back to that place tomorrow, early or not.

My stomach is in knots!

Last edited by BlueMax on 24 Aug 2012, 11:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Right now, I am in a situation where if I arrive on the minute or later, I can't work for another half hour and I waste company time. But, I've still shown up right on the minute a couple of times, with no repercussions.

Most people don't make waves. They just buckle down and work even harder. It's very unlikely that anything ugly will happen for Management.
It sounds like they're trying to downsize without having to actually lay off any employees. I would definitely look for another job. If they're not able to make deep enough cuts in this round, management will just tighten down in another area to terrorize and weed out any other "weak links".
You don't get unemployment coverage if you're fired for cause.