Unproffessional Boss

Deadevil129

Wasn't too sure if this should go here or in personal issues, since it's work related I put it here but mods feel free to move it...

I have a friend working in an video rental store at the moment, lets call him Mike for the time being. Mike loves his job and after dropping in to him a few times at work I can see he does his job damn well, he's friendly, but doesn't over do it, has their filing system mastered in the short amount of time he's been there and just generally likes being there.

His boss doesn't see him in the same way. For the last few weeks his boss has been complaining about Mike preformance to other employees. For example, and this is the only slip up Mike's made so far, he forgot to hoover the floor when the Boss asked him. So the Boss reminded Mike that the floor was supposed to be hoovered, then leaves. Mike spends around fifteen minutes dealing with some customers then goes to get the hoover, before he does that, the phone rings and it's the Boss. The Boss askes to speak to the other girl working with Mike, lets call her Amy. So Amy takes the phone, listens to the boss for a minute then looks over at Mike and said "No he hasn't hoovered yet".

I might take this time to add that Amy, (who's hasn't been working there much longer than Mike) is somewhat the Boss' favourite. On many occasion Amy has forgotten to come into work, or gotten her shift mixed up and guess who gets called in when Amy forgets to come into work?... That's right, Mike does.

So for some reason the Boss decided to ask Amy to check is Mike had hoovered when it would have been just as easy for him to ask Mike himself if the hoovering had been done or not.

Now I'm not exactly sure of the ins and outs of working in this store, but I know their preformance is rated on some scale. Fast forward to last week and Mike is working with another guy he gets on very well with, we'll call him David. David tells Mike that the Boss had been talking to him about Mike's preformance, and not in a good way. David tells Mike that the boss thinks his preformance is "rubbish", so Mike goes off to check how he's doing and finds his preformance is only 0.2 below Amy's.

And these are just afew situations I've heard of from him.

Now maybe it's just me but I'd be of the mind that if your manager has a problem with your preformance or wants to question what you've done he or she should tell you directly, not spend his time telling other people you work with how you've been doing, as far as I'm concerned, you're preformance, good or bad, is nobody else's business.

I've asked Mike would he not consider approaching his boss and mentioning that if the boss has a problem with his performance or actions at work, he'd prefer hearing it from him directly rather than down the grapevine from other people he works with. The thing is Mike doesn't want to cause trouble due to his probation period, plus he still thinks he should watch his step for the next week or two because of the lecture he received about forgetting to hoover.

My question would be, does he have a right to say something to his boss or does he honestly fact dismissal at the end of his three months if he puts another foot wrong? At the moment he just sits there quietly accepting the fact his boss doesn't like him, but it's really getting to him and I'd like to see something done about it considering how unfair it is given how other people behave in the company.

Cheers

Buceph

The probation period means that he can be fired at any point up to the three months, and the boss does not have to give a reason. Although if this is going to be a long term thing I'd tell him to looking up on constructive dismissal.

Red Alert

the boss has a boss who can be approached if needs be.

fifth

I wonder is it the same chain of video rental stores that I am a manager in?

It sounds awfully like the kind of thing that goes on. Well all I can say is stick it for the three months probation and keep the head down, after that things might relax a bit.

Wishbone Ash

Buceph wrote:

The probation period means that he can be fired at any point up to the three months, and the boss does not have to give a reason. Although if this is going to be a long term thing I'd tell him to looking up on constructive dismissal.

The Unfair dismissals Act 1977 does not apply to employees with less than 365 days service, therefore an employer can legally dismiss an employee with less than one year's service. (There are several exceptions to this but they do not apply in this case).

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1977_10.html


2.—(1) This Act shall not apply in relation to any of the following persons:

( a ) an employee (other then a person referred to in section 4 of this Act) who is dismissed, who, at the date of his dismissal, had less than one year's continuous service with the employer who dismissed him and whose dismissal does not result wholly or mainly from the matters referred to in section 6 (2) (f) of this Act,

Huggles

funkyflea wrote:

I wonder is it the same chain of video rental stores that I am a manager in?

It sounds awfully like the kind of thing that goes on. Well all I can say is stick it for the three months probation and keep the head down, after that things might relax a bit.

Sounds exactly like the video change i worked for in college. Over 4 years i saw this happening all the time, most of the time tho, the guy/girl in managers bad books has done summat to deserve it.

Deadevil129

I can assure you he hasn't done anything bad enough to warrant the treatment he's received. I think his plan of action will be to just keep his head down for the next few months and see how things go. If they don't improve however I'm hoping he'll leave.