I was taught a hard lesson in employee/employer loyalty today. After a year with my current company, I decided to leave to pursue a better opportunity with a competitor. After all, when it comes to your career, if you aren't looking out for your own best interests, nobody else is.

Naturally, I provided my employer with a two-weeks' notice as a courtesy. Generally in my industry, if you are leaving for a competitor they will send you home the day you give notice, paying you for the two weeks you were willing to work.

Not my former company.

They had the audacity and unprofessionalism to terminate me without pay last Thursday to avoid paying me up until this Friday. Here I am, with "Exceeding Expectations" status on my performance reviews and they do this to me. I am making it my goal to let every other employee I know there about this so they can avoid giving the two-weeks' courtesy.

Other employees before me who were leaving for competitors were alllowed to work the full two weeks and receive pay.

I just find it amusing and sickening that a company tries to impress loyalty upon its employees, then pulls BS like this. Bollocks I say!

Argggggggg, at least I have a great new job to look forward to at a better company. Sorry for the rant, but this kind of childish behavior from my former employer drives me up the wall.

BT

you should have worked for my former employer :-) talk about childish ? medieval more like !
theyre just hurt by you leaving them and resorted to childish behaviour ,mine still tries to make life difficult now and then to the point where i had to inform a lawyer about thier personal harassment almost 3 months after i had left . then it all stopped ? good luck in your new job mate .
i'm sure youll be much happier !

I know how you feel when I was installing business telephones for a contractor who had the contract for whom I work full time with now I left them as I had the change to earn £50 more a week working for an other contractor doing the same job . The manager threatened me that I'd never work in the cable business again they took a load of money off me but hey I'm still here the company went bust who's laughing now,,,,,,,,,, :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) and to top it all off the manager was such a fat twat one of the other lads broke his nose for him it was well over due!

Well since they fired you you may be able to get unemployment for two week??? May be to much trouble

Oh yea - Put in a corner a company will be no more loyal to you than a starving Tom Cat with Jerry Mouse in the corner.
Loyalty goes incredibly well as long as they company is making money off of your sevices. Don't get me wrong, some are better, they are very few and far between though....

Glad you're off to better things.

In some states that is considered illegal as retalitory. It's probably not worth if unless you are up for a lot of year end bonuses and such that make fighting it worthwhile.

Welcome to the wonderful world of American Companies, they want your undying loyalty to them but yet they feel no loyalty to you. I had my company dock my pay about a year ago and as a non exempt employee I can not be docked by law. So I had to force their hand with the threaten wil complaints to the Deptment of Labor and a lawsuit to get me docked pay ... that they approved over a month in advance that I could take off. Long story short I still work there as they are in NC and I'm in KY and see my boss only about 4 times a year and only talk to them via voice mail and e-mail. But I'll tell you this I don't go out of my way for them and I don't trust them in the least.
Correct you watch out for you, as companies are going to watch out for themselves. Long gone are the days where you worked 20 or 30 years for the same place. They'll drop you like a bad habit if they think for a second they can get some one to do it cheaper.

Oh well has a nice day, you want fries with that?
Dave

Thanks for the support all. Glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I just had my exit interview. The HR rep has never seen this happen to anyone in her two years there and apologized to me on behalf of the company. I told her my manager said it was an HR policy - ultimately he was lying and trying to hide behind that.

I exposed him for the worthless sack that he is and I hope HR comes down on him for trying to have them take the fall for him. Hmmm, kinda sounds like the way he treated his employees, which I documented in my exit interview

Anyway, I will enjoy a couple of days off. Maybe head up to Reno for some gambling, etc.

BulletTooth - your company sounds an awful lot like mine, even down to the rating scale! You've got me very curious...

A couple of years ago, my "cluster" team had a conference in which we focused on "You, Inc." On one hand, it was very depressing in that no matter how good you are, being in the wrong place at the wrong time was all that mattered in the end. On the other, it was sort of refreshing to see higher management say "take care of yourself" and "here's how to get training on the company's dime."

I've survived at least four RIFs in the last few years and I hope that things stay on the upside for awhile. Even though their severance was on the upside of generous, I still don't like the finality of it.

Just remember Gunfighter, as Robert DeNiro's character Neil in the all-time greatest film HEAT says:

"Don't let yourself get attached to anything you aren't prepared to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner"

I mean this in terms of your career, of course. Not family or anything like that

Good luck with staying on the right side of the re-orgs. Those can be real doozies

Anyway, what is done is done. I'm glad it is over and that I have something new to look forward to.

I am fortunate, I have been employed by the state of California for almost 29 years and will have a comfortable retirement .
This BS with the 2 week notice has GOT to be illegal! If your company has set precedent with other employees by giving them their 2 weeks pay, that is a past practice and seems like some sort of labor law violation.
Have you checked with your local labor commision to see if this is legal?
At least you have another job to go to!
Good luck!

Bullet Tooth, I'm sorry they treated you so poorly. I would think that you should have no problem collecting unemployment for the time you were not allowed to work. Not all states are the same regarding unemployment rules, but from what I have experienced, you should be entitled. Where I work, they will lay you off without batting an eye, so I am fairly used to needing to jump through the hoops until I get another job. The problem is, that when the place I work calls you back, it is usually in your best interest to go back due to pay and benefits. As for loyalty from them, well, they are going to close our plant at the end of March to shift our production to Canada, where they will save millions on health insurance and taxes.

We're pretty lucky in SA. If an employer pulls that kinda sh*t, the employee can take the employer to the Council for Mediation and Arbitration. Of course that sword cuts both ways...

At least you got your own back in your exit interview, something that is not too common in SA...

Best of luck in your new venture.

RR

LOL, 2 weeks? I have an non-disclosure/non-competiting agreement signed with my company that if I leave, I cannot work for the competitor for 6 months...

6 Months, I don't know how many models I can build....but it's kinda long.

I know how you feel I've went through 3 in the last 2 years and iit stinks the last one seen my team get slashed from 15 down to 3 and we still have to do the work of the 15

BulletTooth - that quote is dead on. The RIFs (reductions in force) taught me quickly what true company loyalty is. Things are good here now, but I am far from blinded by it.

I'm in management and I'm still astounded by what transpired on your end. I've seen some ugly affairs in my time here, but nothing quite like that. Best of luck in your new career path!


Mikeli125 - we've gone down from 10 to 4. Some days, I can see the wisdom. Other days (often the majority), we're pushing the limits. My office has been fortunate in one sense as the largest office in our region has gone down from 25+ to 9, and over half of those remaining are managers whose roles and responsibilities lie more outside of their office and more on a national level.

Thats why I got out of all that and started my own business. Now I can fire myself and give me a raise or bonus or vacation...if only I had the money! Ah but the freedom!

Sorry to hear of your issue BulletTooth but I'm as sure as I can be you'll have some legal recourse in California. I went through an employment problem there once many years ago and the state backed me up to the hilt. More than I can say for Colorado, but that's another story.

It's bad to say this but I'm convinced that "loyalty" as far as employers are concerned is normally a one way street. They expect, and require, loyalty from you, but don't expect any from them.

Good luck with your new position, and at the tables in Reno. Take them to the mat if you need to to get what is coming to you.

BT, best of luck in the new venture!
Some people are just . I once had a supervisor who stopped talking to me when I got a promotion and wouldn't be working in her unit anymore. She'd be three feet from me and a co-worker and greet the co-worker and ignore me! :-)
As to RIF's, we went through a lot of that in my old assignment as the institution was "consolidating" and we were palcing a lot of people in the community. Every year, the team I worked with would have significant changes from layoffs. People I'd gotten close to would get layed off or have to take a transfer to another work location. Things are relatively stable where I am now, however.

I think it's the same situation all over I have been with this trucking company since May of 1996 Not that it means anything to them

I see other drivers in my company get issued brand new trucks,and I get stuck with this piece of crap

Here soon I just may tell them to shove that loyal service One thing I have in my favor is nobody depends on me to bring home a check

I just support myself

Wow theres so much of it around !
in my company they told me in no uncertain terms "do not trust unions " ."they will see you fired on the spot for violation of company policy and failur to meet my contracual obligations .
what they meant was if you join a union it will expose us as a bunch of regs deffying money grabbers and we'll find a way to get shut of you !
didnt know that then :-)

Kenaz, on this side of the pond, the company would be in violation of federal law for threatening you (collectively) for organizing or engaging in activities related to unionization.

Well AJ, it may be illegal, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. North Carolina is a so-called "Right -to-work" state which essentially turns out to mean that you've got a right ot work but no guarantees or protections. The Aviation repair station at which I've been employed for 8 years has been involved in 4 attempts by the IAM to unionize since I started working here. The management (most of whom came from the production floor) was told bluntly by the board that if Organization was carried they'd shut the doors & move the operation to Texas or Arizona. When the IAM reps complained to the State EEOC, they were informed that since it was a privately traded 'Essential Enterprise", the shareholders could do just about anything they wanted to.
The Golden Rule: Them what gots the Gold, makes the Rules.

BT, I hope you sue 'em to Hell.

Yeah Al i know that know mate its all partly the reason i left there
its sucks though eh ?

I'm a big fan of Employee Laundry services. That is an excellent idea. My socks have become quite noisome.

Oh? Loyalty?

Nevermind!

dont they have to have a reason for firing you?!