According to ET report, an employee was allegedly fired by the company for reaching his office late for the first time in more than seven years. Reaching the office on time is surely the first and foremost priority of almost every working professional but there comes certain situations for delays.
While some are fired for shoddy work, a few are sacked as part of a ‘cost-cutting‘ exercise for the company. The employee faces different issues at different points of time.
According to a Reddit post, the employee had been working in the company for over seven years and it was for the first time that he was late to work.
Reddit user @No_StopItStepbro said, “Co-worker who has never been late in 7+ years, gets fired for the first time being late.” The post read, “This happened last week and today Monday we just found out he was fired for being 20 minutes late FOR HIS FIRST TIME EVER… tomorrow me and ALL my coworkers will be late and will continue to come in late until they rehire him.”
“In my last job, I was late one time in 6 years. It was a massive snowstorm. I left for work at 5:00 and was at my desk at 9:05. I didn’t get fired, but I got a stern talking to that day and the [employer] actually wrote it into my annual review. Being on time was a performance goal for the next year, because I was five minutes late one time in a day that took more than four hours to get to work.”
“I started to drive to work a couple of years ago, and found myself stuck traffic so bad it made the national news. I was so stressed, I kept calling my boss with updates every 30 minutes or so. I was about 4 hours late (for a 36 minute journey). Pulled into a room, ‘don’t worry about it’.”
“I was working graveyard shift as a security guard and the guy who was supposed to takeover for me was always 20 minutes late. Every day. One thing I told him was ‘We are getting paid the same, but I’m working 8 hours and 20 minutes a day and you’re working 7 hours and 40 minutes a day.'”
“If you can do your job you do it. If you can’t you do what you can do. If you’re incapable of managing people but can tell time you clock watch.”
“When I was a supervisor for a while, I told the team that when it was bad weather, don’t bother to call or text me if you expect to be in to work within half an hour of your normal start time. My logic was that I would prefer that they not be trying to call or text me while driving in crappy weather (and likewise I didn’t want to be on a call or getting a text while driving in crappy weather).”
“I just tell them to stay home. I don’t want to lose folks because they tried to come to work in a blizzard or flood or whatever. I had a staff person die in an accident after going off the road while trying to get to a shift. Never again. The guilt still sits with me.”
“If being on time would be that critical, they shouldn’t rely that much on one person. They can always have an accident, or get sick, and it’s impossible to prevent completely.”
“To my knowledge, all companies have or should have a “grace period”. My company allows us to be late a max of 30 minutes without any notice, even if every day. And we can leave 15 min early if work is done. Imagine being charged for being a minute late, jesus.”
The post sparked a debate on social media, and some other users also narrated similar experiences at work. A person shared that he got late once for work because of a snowstorm. He said it was the first time in six years that he got late and that he did not get fired for it.