new part time job - time off, schedules?

Phibsboro

Hi,

A friend of mine did a interview for a part time job in a large video rental organisation that shall remain nameless. He's in final year college and during the interview he said college recommended 12 hours a week but he could prolly stretch to 14. He was offered a job this Friday just gone to start on Monday.

When he went in yesterday he found he was scheduled for 22 hours this week and ongoing weeks, including the bank holiday weekend for which he has previous plans.

He spoke to the local manager today who basically said no way he can have that weekend off and she can't see how he is any use to her with less than 22 hours a week, basically saying take it or leave it in a polite way.

Any thoughts on this? It seems most unfair to offer someone a job knowing the hours they can work and then insist they do significantly more than that. And the bank hol thing just seems silly - if you want an ongoing relationship with an employee you gonna have to accept they may have holiday plans already made for the first few weeks of their employment? Is the local manager just bluffing maybe? Is there any value to talking to HR directly?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers,
C

neil_hosey

Im not the best man to answer this but out of curiosity did he mention in the interview that he could only work 14 hours max?

just curious.

She's a b1tch if so. ( the manager that is)

If i was him, i would push for the sac and take said unnamed video shop to the cleaners

prendy

and in the interview did he say directly that he cant work the bank holiday....me thinks if he did he wouldnt have got the job!!!
i can understand the employer about the weekends...i mean if your taking on a part time worker you expect them to work weekends especially bank holidays to give permanent staff time off.

Nody

Phibsboro wrote: »

He's in final year college and during the interview he said college recommended 12 hours a week but he could prolly stretch to 14.

You see if someone told me that their college recommended 12 to 14h work a week I'd see that as 12 to 14h Monday to Friday and then I'd expect the person to be free to work the weekends as well. Hence I can easily see 22h in such a set up. And the manager is right, 12h and no weekends is a waste of her time.

As for him well short of interview notes confirming only 12h a week in total AND not working the BH well...

Phibsboro

He did mention 14 hrs max in the interview, I can't see them taking this to mean that he could work both weekend days on top of that.

The thing is that the interview was done in a walk-in large scale yokey so the local manager had nothing to do with it. So really I think we have a disconnect with the interviewer saying yeah that should be grand and the local manager going wtf?

Re the weekend, I understand thats what part timers are for, but its normal to expect some committments in the first few weeks of a new job. He didn't mention it cos he wasn't expecting things to move so quickly tbh. If a company is going to fire someone cos they can't do a weekend 10 days after their start date, I'm not sure that company is really interested in having a good ongoing relationship with their staff:(

Having said all that, I had the good luck to never do part time retail myself so maybe this is just the way it is nowadays. Anyone know any other minimum wage jobs with flexible hours?

Thanks for the responses so far.

C

estebancambias

It's Xta-Vision right?

Yeah, I am looking for a job with only about 10 hours a week, with little contact with customers. I want to work as a cleaner in a gym or something.

neil_hosey

Like i said im no expert on these sort of thing, but thats boll0x! I would seriously complain about that and not let someone bully me into working time that he specified in the interview that he didnt want to work.

Not your friends problem if theres a lack of communication between manager and interviewer!

Dont leave so easy. get some money out of them!!! or threaten them, that always works

leeroybrown

neil_hosey wrote: »

Dont leave so easy. get some money out of them!!! or threaten them, that always works

As a new part-time employee they will have almost no rights. The company in question won't care, deal with this all the time and will just get rid of them.

Attol

I'm going to presume he's on a 6 month probationary period in which time they can just say "it's not working" and that's that. He has no come back legally or otherwise. That's retail for ya. It will be pretty difficult to find a job as accomodating as that but he should try supermarkets. With the large amount of staff they have he may be of use to them, but most places will not take on part timers who refuse to work weekends.

pow wow

Either issue on it's own might make the manager more friendly but both together is what's the problem. Not only can he not work the hours she scheduled him for (either she ignored or didn't hear him say he could only do 14) he ALSO wants a weekend off within a couple of weeks of starting. For him this is reasonable, for an employer it can come off as taking the pee.

So basically he either wants the job on her terms or he doesn't. Harsh but true. I just took a retail job working 3 shifts a week when I only wanted 2 (24 hours v 16 hours) as I am in my final year too but beggars can't be choosers and I'm going to see how it goes. Realistically there isn't a huge amount he can do about it (and to be fair would he really want to if she's being such a mare so soon?!) and I doubt HR would be interested in the woes of the bajillionth student who has worked for them whos hours didn't suit him.

Either put up or get going.

Phibsboro

Thanks to everyone for their comments.

Just to let you know the outcome... They agreed to compromise on 18 hours and he did get this weekend off - yay So all in all a fair outcome I think and he is enjoying working there so far.

LuckyStar

he will quickly learn that the retail world is like that- there are always 10 more people that could replace you so managers aren't always easy to deal with

Attol

Retail is terrible to work in. Worked in it for 4 years. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It's getting me through college, as soon as that's done I can't wait to get a real job.