Is this employer request unreasonable?

Is this employer request unreasonable?

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Discussion

craigjm

17,907 posts

199 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
Hammersia said:
craigjm said:
Hammersia said:
I'm sure your credentials are impeccable. However I've know many HR directors who have completely misplaced confidence in their abilities and knowledge.

The picking up of random men is clearly already becoming a regular thing. And of course it is not inappropriate for a parent to raise safeguarding issues of a lone woman. It could hardly be more appropriate.
Unless I missed something she was asked to and eventually did do it once?

I didn’t say it wasn’t appropriate to raise safeguarding issues I said that it was in appropriate to go down there and act all I’m the big daddy infront of the manager. We have all seen those kind of activities end up with someone, usually the dad, being carted off down the Nick and that is not going to help anyone.

So many of these threads end up being responded to with suggestions to escalate the situation to nuclear immediately and that is rarely helpful just like the suggestions to look for another job also.
Based on the timeline of this thread, she was asked and immediately did it once and will doubtless have done it again tomorrow or Monday. It's happening.

I have made no such suggestion to storm in to the manager and I don't recall anyone else doing so either.
We don’t know that. All we know is what has been said in the thread by the OP. For all we know this request may never come up again.

Further up the thread -

hammersia said:
At that point as a dad I'd be off down to the shop and having it out with this gorgon, calmly, in front of witnesses. Your daughter is too young to deal with this


Do you not see how this could end badly? Also if you have a teenage daughter then you would know they would rather do anything than have a parent do something like that.

I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with you that this is wrong BUT if one is to deal with it appropriately then the employee themselves needs to decline and then if continually pressured raise a grievance which is the advice I gave earlier.

Edited by craigjm on Thursday 16th March 15:42

craigjm

17,907 posts

199 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
pocketspring said:
ZedLeg said:
Hammersia said:
Muzzer79 said:
Hammersia said:
And of course it is not inappropriate for a parent to raise safeguarding issues of a lone woman. It could hardly be more appropriate.
She. Is. Not. A. Child.

If my wife's (who is definitely older than 18) employer asked her to collect someone on the way to work, do you think her Mum and Dad should call her manager to deal with it?
If she was being bullied into it (which is what this thread is about) then an appropriate adult / mediator / chaperone / guardian should step in, absolutely yes.
See my comment further up, this isn't school. Going into a work place as an "appropriate adult" to talk to a manager on an employee's behalf is almost always a bad idea. Only exception may be a union rep.
What if the person is a vulnerable adult or special needs?
The avenue is still raise a grievance with HR. The HR policies and procedures are there to protect you just as much as they are to punish you when you do something wrong. Stepping outside of them is the employment version of taking the law into your own hands.

If the employee is vulnerable in some way then the organisation should already have processes and plans in place that would deal with the vulnerability but still the route is to decline and then a grievance if requests are continued

Muzzer79

9,805 posts

186 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
Hammersia said:
said:
What?

She is the appropriate adult. Unless the OP says otherwise, she's a perfectly capable adult, just as my wife is.

The mediator/chaperone that should step in is the HR department of the company. Not parents.

If one of my staff's Dad turned up to discuss an employment situation, I wouldn't let him in the front door.

Parents/Guardians are there for minors and those not capable as adults. Neither of which applies here IINM.
But you haven't broken employment law as this manager has done. So that's irrelevant.

Edited by Hammersia on Thursday 16th March 15:35
It's completely relevant. It doesn't matter what I have allegedly done or not, it's for HR to deal with, not Mummy or Daddy.

Parents directly intervene with minors/vulnerable adults. They don't directly intervene with adults.

Parents advise young adults from the outside of the situation as to what to do. I can't believe this is so unorthodox for you to understand.

Would you join her appraisal? Or pay review maybe aswell?

If she was arrested for a crime of some sort, would you want to be in the interrogation room with her and a lawyer?



craigjm

17,907 posts

199 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
Super Sonic said:
craigjm said:
just like the suggestions to look for another job also.
Managers obviously a st, and a bully. The fact that they've employed someone who can't get to work shows there also incompetent, as does the fact they resort to bullying. If the employee goes to HR and gets this resolved, the manager will hold a grudge. Would you want to work in this situation? I certainly wouldn't. The employee should absolutely look for another job.
We don’t know if that manager employed the other person and we only know one side of the story. We have no idea how the manager is being treated by their boss. If we all spat the dummy and got another job every time someone at work pissed us off our CV’s would need to be 50 pages long with 40 jobs a year listed.

Yes the manager may be a st and yes the situation is not one that the kid should be in BUT that’s life. She probably will look for another job but if we jump to nuclear options at the first sign of any roughness in life then all one is doing is making the st worse

I’m just amazed on these threads how often the get another job advice is wheeled out almost as option one


ZedLeg

12,278 posts

107 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
It depends on your own situation, would I go looking for another job because I had a bad day with my manager? Probably not.

If I was an 18 year old working a McJob I probably would've just walked off with nothing to go to. I in fact did do that when I worked for McColls. They called me at 5 in the morning to come in as someone hadn't turned up. I just turned my phone off and never went back. Had another job in a bar 3 days later.

cashmax

Original Poster:

1,099 posts

239 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
Ezra said:
A lot of the posts here are why this country is in such a state. I don't mean the OP's question - just a lot of the responses. We're going to disappear up our own arses if we're not careful. His daughter has occasionally commuted to the other shop before - it's not become a daily thing, there's no need for biz insurance - she's commuting, there's no safeguarding issue - she's giving a colleague an ad-hoc lift. Of course she should agree to the request.

If I ran a biz like this and a new employee, who should actually be showing flexibility and trying to make a good impression, started kicking off as many posters here suggest, showing all the signs of an entitled, woke, gen z'er, she'd be out straightaway. If she said 'of course, but any chance of some petrol money to cover the extra miles' - that's very VERY different.
I'm very sympathetic to this and it was the main reason for my post in the first place. I have run my own company for many years and especially in the early days, expected staff to go the extra mile. But it was reciprocal, I would take liberties and often ask them to do things like this, work on their own time, come in on the day off etc, in return they knew the could get time off at short notice, use company property & vehicles, expense the odd night out, that kind of thing. Secondly, we were a start-up environment, it simply wouldn't have worked without this flexibility.

The situation my daughter is in is very different, sadly her ability to excel at her job is probably one of the reasons her manager is doing this. It's one of those little ivory tower scenarios where although the business is part of larger, household name group, within the little bubble of that shop is about 7 staff, including a manager and an assistant manager - the area manager has requested that my daughter do the training of new staff, help troubleshoot problem stores etc, so her manager probably feels threatened. I am also lead to believe that women will often see other females as competition.

I did send her a link to this thread last night and she was amused at the Harry Styles comment, I messaged her today to ask if he was indeed Harry Styles, but have not had a response as yet.




DSLiverpool

14,670 posts

201 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
If a privately owned small set up then maybe ok with insurance, checks etc.

However as a national chain her manager is incompetent and badly trainex to think this is remotely ok.

Super Sonic

4,512 posts

53 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
craigjm said:
We don’t know if that manager employed the other person and we only know one side of the story. We have no idea how the manager is being treated by their boss. If we all spat the dummy and got another job every time someone at work pissed us off our CV’s would need to be 50 pages long with 40 jobs a year listed.

Yes the manager may be a st and yes the situation is not one that the kid should be in BUT that’s life. She probably will look for another job but if we jump to nuclear options at the first sign of any roughness in life then all one is doing is making the st worse

I’m just amazed on these threads how often the get another job advice is wheeled out almost as option one
Manager is a bully. This is not the first sign of any roughness. Mgr previously asked emp to work at other shop, fair enough, then mgr asked emp to work at a different shop, and collect a total stranger for which she would not be insured. When emp tried to refuse, mgr said it's compulsory and threatened emp. Bullying only gets worse over time. Emp should contact HR, and look for another job. Would you work in these conditions?

Fastchas

2,639 posts

120 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
Get your daughter to play that very heavy metal shouty music at a very loud volume in the car. If the fellow tries to turn it down, ask him wtf he thinks he's doing!
Seriously though, no one is obliged to take anyone in THEIR car that they don't want to. Employer has no grounds. It's a shame the daughter has already done it but she can still refuse.

craigjm

17,907 posts

199 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
Super Sonic said:
craigjm said:
We don’t know if that manager employed the other person and we only know one side of the story. We have no idea how the manager is being treated by their boss. If we all spat the dummy and got another job every time someone at work pissed us off our CV’s would need to be 50 pages long with 40 jobs a year listed.

Yes the manager may be a st and yes the situation is not one that the kid should be in BUT that’s life. She probably will look for another job but if we jump to nuclear options at the first sign of any roughness in life then all one is doing is making the st worse

I’m just amazed on these threads how often the get another job advice is wheeled out almost as option one
Manager is a bully. This is not the first sign of any roughness. Mgr previously asked emp to work at other shop, fair enough, then mgr asked emp to work at a different shop, and collect a total stranger for which she would not be insured. When emp tried to refuse, mgr said it's compulsory and threatened emp. Bullying only gets worse over time. Emp should contact HR, and look for another job. Would you work in these conditions?
In that situation I would have, as I said, refused and then if the manager continued to ask I would raise a grievance.

One incident is not really enough to say someone is a bully and deduce from that that it will get worse over time. As I said the manager may be having pressure applied on th we just don’t know because we only have one side of the story.

The bottom line in this whole situation is as said….

Refuse to do the task that is unreasonable and outside of contractual requirements
If the manager continues to ask make it clear it is not acceptable
Raise grievance



e-honda

8,824 posts

145 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
cashmax said:
Ezra said:
A lot of the posts here are why this country is in such a state. I don't mean the OP's question - just a lot of the responses. We're going to disappear up our own arses if we're not careful. His daughter has occasionally commuted to the other shop before - it's not become a daily thing, there's no need for biz insurance - she's commuting, there's no safeguarding issue - she's giving a colleague an ad-hoc lift. Of course she should agree to the request.

If I ran a biz like this and a new employee, who should actually be showing flexibility and trying to make a good impression, started kicking off as many posters here suggest, showing all the signs of an entitled, woke, gen z'er, she'd be out straightaway. If she said 'of course, but any chance of some petrol money to cover the extra miles' - that's very VERY different.
I'm very sympathetic to this and it was the main reason for my post in the first place. I have run my own company for many years and especially in the early days, expected staff to go the extra mile. But it was reciprocal, I would take liberties and often ask them to do things like this, work on their own time, come in on the day off etc, in return they knew the could get time off at short notice, use company property & vehicles, expense the odd night out, that kind of thing. Secondly, we were a start-up environment, it simply wouldn't have worked without this flexibility.

The situation my daughter is in is very different, sadly her ability to excel at her job is probably one of the reasons her manager is doing this. It's one of those little ivory tower scenarios where although the business is part of larger, household name group, within the little bubble of that shop is about 7 staff, including a manager and an assistant manager - the area manager has requested that my daughter do the training of new staff, help troubleshoot problem stores etc, so her manager probably feels threatened. I am also lead to believe that women will often see other females as competition.

I did send her a link to this thread last night and she was amused at the Harry Styles comment, I messaged her today to ask if he was indeed Harry Styles, but have not had a response as yet.
Sounds like the area manager is the person to raise it will.
If standing up for yourself once after 6 months is enough to get you labelled as "entitled, woke, gen z'er" then maybe that is something to aspire to.

Super Sonic

4,512 posts

53 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
craigjm said:
In that situation I would have, as I said, refused and then if the manager continued to ask I would raise a grievance.

One incident is not really enough to say someone is a bully and deduce from that that it will get worse over time. As I said the manager may be having pressure applied on th we just don’t know because we only have one side of the story.

The bottom line in this whole situation is as said….

Refuse to do the task that is unreasonable and outside of contractual requirements
If the manager continues to ask make it clear it is not acceptable
Raise grievance
She tried to refuse, was told it wasn't optional, and was threatened. We do know the mgr's a bully.
Anyway, we've both given our opinions and we disagree, it's up to th op's daughter what she decides to do.

Muzzer79

9,805 posts

186 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
craigjm said:
The bottom line in this whole situation is as said….

Refuse to do the task that is unreasonable and outside of contractual requirements
If the manager continues to ask make it clear it is not acceptable
Raise grievance
This x 100.

Deal with it like a professional. All this talk of walking out and getting other jobs is preposterous, let alone parents stepping in.

I think it's irrefutable that the OP's daughter should stand up for herself, not least to learn the right way of the world and use this as a life lesson.

Is the right way to do that to

a) Quit and run away to another job
b) Hide behind her Daddy's legs whilst he speaks to the nasty manager
c) Raise it formally and professionally and challenge the management through the correct HR channels?

I know what I'd pick

surveyor_101

5,069 posts

178 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
Hammersia said:
We established many pages ago that

a) The manager is female
b) The manager is breaching employment law (at the very least forcing a rideshare without insurance or comp)
c) The manager is a bully
d) The manager is not up to the job
e) It's likely the tip of the iceberg of what's going on in that workplace

Nothing to do with GDPR, these are factual non privileged conversations in front of witnesses and can be quoted as such.

Notwithstanding an employee can have a chaperone to any meeting that is disciplinary related if it goes that far.

18 year olds are not generally equipped to deal with this, I would step in.
Have you been a senior manager and run these meetings as I have run some, been involved in one and been through a redundancy process. You sound like you haven't a clue how these things work.


When I have been involved in work hearings staff could bring a union person or another member of staff from the current org. I know someone who asked to bring a sister or mother and it was a no! That was retail.

I have never known any employer allow parents to attend to employment meetings or hearings. When I went through redundancy in 2019, I wasn't even allowed to have a member of the HE staff despite the meetings taking place in their offices and that was who I was working for through another company who had the ASC Contract but I had a HE staff badge. No family or 3 parties other than union. That's been the case in retail, police and national companies i have worked for! You can join the police at 18.5 years old, you can't have daddy to fight your battles.


We are not talking that the Daughter is in any form of disciplinary hearing in any event.

At 18 your supposed to be equipped to deal with things as an adult.


You are talking about attend her place of work to discuss potentially unreasonable demands there is no obligation on the manager to engage with you and it will probably breach their policy to do so.


I had a junior surveyor 19 under me years ago threaten to get his daddy down to tell me and the Project Director off because @ 19 with 9 months in a small building firm he made errors on basic contract docs and would challenge anyone senior when told how to do something ! He ended up being moved and gave really crappy tasks to do and was basically and administrator with a CSCS card and a day off a week to do and ONC!




Edited by surveyor_101 on Thursday 16th March 20:14

surveyor_101

5,069 posts

178 months

Thursday 16th March 2023
quotequote all
Muzzer79 said:
This x 100.

Deal with it like a professional. All this talk of walking out and getting other jobs is preposterous, let alone parents stepping in.

I think it's irrefutable that the OP's daughter should stand up for herself, not least to learn the right way of the world and use this as a life lesson.

Is the right way to do that to

a) Quit and run away to another job
b) Hide behind her Daddy's legs whilst he speaks to the nasty manager
c) Raise it formally and professionally and challenge the management through the correct HR channels?

I know what I'd pick
C) but..


Start looking for another job! Hopefully her job history shows more than 6 months somewhere else.


PurpleTurtle

6,935 posts

143 months

Friday 17th March 2023
quotequote all
cashmax said:
I did send her a link to this thread last night and she was amused at the Harry Styles comment, I messaged her today to ask if he was indeed Harry Styles, but have not had a response as yet.
I try my best to be both helpful and entertaining on PH!

So, plot twist, is he a dreamboat and have they fallen in love on the A4 to Slough? Do I need to be calling up the IP lawyers to make sure Richard Curtis doesn't swoop in and steal this romcom from under my nose?

Joking apart, now we know the OPs daughter has visibility of the thread let's hope she will be able to make use of the many bits of useful advice on it.

Although 18 and technically an adult, stepping out into the world of work can be daunting for many and encountering a line manager who is clearly and ahole is not the greatest experience, but has happened to many people.

OP's daughter: if you are reading, you've done the right thing to raise this, stand your ground fairly but firmly, in the long term it will show you up as someone not to be taken for granted. Oh, and if he is all Harry Styles, I want to be on a good table at the wedding, yeah? Cheers.

Hammersia

1,497 posts

14 months

Friday 17th March 2023
quotequote all
Muzzer79 said:
If one of my staff's Dad turned up to discuss an employment situation, I wouldn't let him in the front door.
It's a mobile phone shop. Not the headquarters of Goldman Sachs.

Context.

vaud

50,282 posts

154 months

Friday 17th March 2023
quotequote all
PurpleTurtle said:
Although 18 and technically an adult, stepping out into the world of work can be daunting for many and encountering a line manager who is clearly and ahole is not the greatest experience, but has happened to many people.
Indeed. And having rights vs exercising rights can be intimidating where there is a massive power imbalance.

craigjm

17,907 posts

199 months

Friday 17th March 2023
quotequote all
PurpleTurtle said:
Although 18 and technically an adult, stepping out into the world of work can be daunting for many and encountering a line manager who is clearly and ahole is not the greatest experience, but has happened to many people.

OP's daughter: if you are reading, you've done the right thing to raise this, stand your ground fairly but firmly, in the long term it will show you up as someone not to be taken for granted. Oh, and if he is all Harry Styles, I want to be on a good table at the wedding, yeah? Cheers.
Absolutely. I always say that you are not a good manager until you have had to successfully deal with an ahole employee and the opposite also hangs true that you are a better employee if you have had to deal with a bad manager.

In my view the earlier in your career that you can deal with both of these the better. Builds up resilience and makes you better prepared for the future. Unfortunately in this case it has happened pretty much in a first job but hey if you’re going to play the game you may as well get started early.

vaud

50,282 posts

154 months

Friday 17th March 2023
quotequote all
The good thing is that of you are 18, have transport and a work ethic then other jobs should be easy to find given the current labour market, though it will depend on town/city.