I was fired yesterday, but not due to the recession.

MrsBrady

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Sat Feb-21-09 10:18 PM
Original message

I was fired yesterday, but not due to the recession.

Edited on Sat Feb-21-09 10:22 PM by MrsBrady

I was fired from my job as a valet yesterday. I have never been fired before.

I am back in college to finish a music degree at a local university. My dear sweet husband (I just had my 2nd anniversary), wanted me to go back to finish my degree.
So after jumping through a lot of hoops, I’m in my second semester back. I’m hoping to graduate this fall, but it will probably be next spring.
I bought a car while we were dating, and I still have a car payment. So I needed a college type job to at least make the car payment since hubby is covering everything else right now.

I needed something with odd hours to work around my class schedule. So I thought that this valet job would do the trick.
This company, which operates at DFW airport, is one of the 3 companies that do valet service there.
When you are hired, they make you sign a form saying that you understand their policy that they will deduct $100.00 from your paycheck if you take the wrong car to the airport.
The procedure is that they send the customer/car info to a phone/radio. You verify the info on the phone with the car assigned. A no-brainer it seemed to me. Sure, no problem.

If you have never been a valet (and I had never been before now), one would think that you would remember every Lexus and BMW and Audi and Hummer and whatever that you drive.
Not so. Car after car after car and customer name after customer name---I just don’t pay attention anymore. After a while, it’s all the same.
I get the car info, check it with the car, get in and go. We don’t have much time to waste. Must be on time with the right car. Sure, no problem.

I don’t know what other people do, but I never get into a car without checking. I never not check. They have their staff so in fear of making mistakes.
They even have another $100 fine policy if you even back out of a space outside of their procedure.
I didn’t really think too much about the policy, because I knew I would always check and recheck to verify I was taking out the right car.
Why should I worry if I know I’m checking? Sure, no problem.

Well, not so fast. A couple of Saturdays ago, on Feb 7th, I supposedly took the wrong car to the curb.

When you get the car to the airport you have to “click” on your phone that you have put the car at the correct terminal/gate. Ok -- at that point the info is off your phone forever.
So here they are telling me I took the wrong car, when I know I checked. I know that I checked because I always do. Period. But I have no proof.

But that is not good enough for them. No “first time warning”, no “let’s see if there is something wrong with the system”, no “let’s see where the break down was”, no “are you sure you checked?”….nothing.
The employer’s attitude was: you are wrong, sign the form, we take $100.00. It didn’t matter for three solid months I hadn’t made one mistake.
I wasn’t even certain that I had made a mistake. I’m still not. I know I checked the phone info with the car.

This next part is merged with conversations with two different managers, but the gist is…
They told me I took the wrong car out. Impossible, I said. I always check.
But they insisted that there is no way that the system sent me the wrong car, that dispatch sent the wrong car, or that the phone could be wrong.
A glitch is not possible. They have the computer records to show that I took the wrong car.
I insisted that I don’t know what other people do, but I always check. Period.
And that there is no way for me to show what was on my phone because that info, as they already know, goes away, and I have no record.
They insisted that they have the correct record.
To them I was wrong, end of discussion. Sign the “discipline” form. And they take $100.00 of my money.
To them, there was no negotiation…no way I was right, I was wrong. I HAD to sign, according to them.

Well, in Texas, the only way they can take your money is if you sign. Maybe they didn’t know I know this, but I know it.
So I told them that I didn’t work for free and that they couldn’t have my money.
Essentially it was sign the form or I would have to “turn in my things”.
So I said to the second supervisor (and the last) while he was trying to get me to sign the form…,
“So essentially either I sign or I’m fired. Either you get to take my money or I’m fired.”
He said, “I’m not firing you.”
I said, “Well, if I don’t sign you just told me I would have to turn in my things. So what would you call that?”
At that point he stood up and said “I’m not arguing with you. Let’s just get your things.”

I had heard more than one person talk about this kind of treatment from management.
But I didn’t think much about it. I know I check MY phone. They felt pressured to sign or lose their job.
Boy, how I wish I had understood.

I know Texas is an “at will” state, but can they actually threaten you with your job like this? Sign or leave?
Maybe they expected me to just sign my money away? Excuse me, I actually need my money. That’s why I’m working.

I would have stayed if they hadn’t asked me to leave yesterday. In fact, I was even on the clock through the end of the day on the 7th.
I had talked with one manager last Friday on the 13th, but I told him I wouldn’t sign. I still worked that Friday night and my shift on Saturday.
And I was even clocked in for just over an hour before they got rid of me yesterday.
So, this is so urgent for them, and I was such a horrible employee that they kept me on for the 7th, 13th, 14th, and even had me work an hour yesterday????
I guess I think they just expected me to sign away my money. Everyone else seems to cow down.

But they also have high turn over. Hmmmm, you think? I thought management was horrible before this, but the job was working for me as far as my schedule was concerned.
I’m sure they don’t want me around if I’m not going to be cowed down. These people apparently don’t know how to manage staff without fining or firing them.
No wonder they have such turnover. If they only knew what their employees say about them when they are in the transport vans on the way back to the car lot.

But is that legal to threaten you with you job like that? Is it legal to try to coerce your employee to sign away their money?
Essentially: sign the form or else?

I would like to take my concern about this treatment to some agency somewhere, but I don’t know where to start.
Maybe there is nothing here that I can be done. But if there is, I would like to know.

I just want the public to know how they treat their employees. I am tired of workers getting treated like crap. I am concerned about myself of course, but I am fortunate compared to them.
My husband is working. Hopefully I can find something else. But what about the workers there that actually NEED the income, depend on it for rent and food, not just a car payment like me?
And they too have to sign or else?

Maybe OSHA should find out that they have non-working or pulled out seatbelts in some of their employee transport vans.
Or that they like to leave the lights off and you can’t see your way around the garage.