Fired at my 90 day review (USA based)

[Mr Fenix]

Hi all,

I'd just like to outline the situation and see what the PH collective think...

I started a job in April with a small construction business (high end rennovations or remodels) as the general builder's "apprentice". Anyway after 3 months of hard graft on my part, with no sick days, early starts, late finishes and generally going out of my way to be as helpful as possible I had my 90 day review on Wednesday.

I would like to point out I was being paid $15/hr on payroll. O/T was paid as $15/hr cash despite the law stating it is supposed to be 1.5 x regular pay. Full time employment, paid weekly.

Anyway, my boss would hire random labour at $13/hr cash usually from his Church or the AA program (he's been a member for 22 yrs). These guys had no skill, no tools and no transport. I was required to pick up and drop off these guys for a small $10 daily fee. Which was fine as long as we met halfway on my route to and from work I didn't mind too much.

So far so fine.

His 17yr old grandson enters the picture. The family has all sorts of tensions going on between Dave (my boss) and his daughter and son in law.

To get to point I was now required to collect "Riley" in the mornings as I lived closer to him than my boss. Halfway point agreed. Tried it for a few days and it failed miserably because Riley "had" to be driven to the meeting point by his father (who has graves disease) and slept in.

My boss and his wife (a grumpy, self important, fat fkwitt who is 50% of business) wrote me a letter explaining I was now offered permanent employment with the company. Being granted a raise to $16/hr but as a condition of my employment I was now expected to collect the grandson from his house in the morning 4 days a week. I would be paid $10/day fuel expense and nothing more.

Problem with that is is took me 20 minutes of driving in the morning to pick up the lazy, disgruntled ste bag and then 15 minutes to get onto the motorway to head off to work.

Basically I was getting up at 4.45 - 5am, leaving my house at 5.25am to get into work for 6.25am. Effectively I was losing 40 minutes of my workday due to Grandson and NOT being paid for it.
I raised this issue with my boss and wife on Wednesday and was promptly fired later that evening. My solution was to have Riley walk or cycle to halfway point and go from there OR my working hours start at 6am and get paid for it or I get to leave 30 mins earlier at the end of the day.

Both seemed like fair and sensible solutions to me.

I got fired for it.

What does PH think?


I would like to point out Riley had no experience, no work clothes, skills or tools and burning resentment being in CA away from his pals in Texas. He spent plenty of time on the phone texting or talking, when asked to do something simple like sweep up he would take an hour for a 5 min job. Ask him to setup the power saws he wouldn't do it because he "forgot" how to. The client's wife noted that he spat constantly and several times in the house on the garage, entrance and hardwood floor...

[Great Pretender]

What were the actual reasons for your termination in the letter they should have written you?

Sounds pretty unfair to me, but one must understand their side of the story first.

[Mr Fenix]

No letter of termination - California is a "fire at will" employer. They're reasons were "its just not working out" and "we need skilled labourers not apprentices at the moment"

The current job is due to finish on August 1st and when I asked whats lined up afterwards his wife replied " We're not planners, we've always landed on our feet and taken care of our workers"

Ding Ding! alarm bells started going off at that point!

[Pothole]

suck it up and move on...

[Mattt]

Sounds like a typical family business.

[Mr Fenix]

In all honesty I think it best I left the company. I already have some small handyman type jobs lined up to keep some money coming in whilst I go hell for leather to get into a real apprenticeship in electrical.

Thanks for the surprisingly sensible replies!

[Funk]

Much as it sucks to be treated like that, I really think you were having the piss taken a lot. You're better off out of there. I've tried working for small companies and more often than not it's been grim.

I now work for a FTSE250.

[davepoth]

FTSE250s can be st too.

In the US you probably have no comeback. The only thing I can suggest is see if you can get hold of the local Better Business Bureau and see if they'll accept a complaint from you.