by Anonymous
(Virginia)
I recently was offered a management position with a retail chain and have been only at the job for 3 weeks when I have been told that they needed to make some staff changes and that I was the one being let go. Also, it was not up for discussion and could I please turn in my key and clock out.
This came as a shock, and I thought there might be some discussions that day as I was to meet with my new District Manager who was just recently hired. She had called the week before and wanted to know why we only had in 200 dollars so far that day. It was unacceptable to her. I explained that I was just hired with a brand new store that just opened and hadn’t had any training or onboarding yet and was bogged down in operations but fully plan on getting our team to achieve our goals. Which later that day, we did pick up and make our daily goal. The next morning I wrote up an action plan and emailed it to her and she just answered “Thanks.” Every time since then any question I ever texted her went unanswered and she would not communicate with me.
It also came as a surprise that she hired her friend one of our outside sales reps to step in my place as manager. They had worked together previously and this rep just also happens to be great friends with another store manager.
I am just so confused as to why they would be evaluating performance after 2 weeks of a store being open with pretty darn good numbers, and also managing those numbers during two bad snowstorms in the area which really affected our traffic.
I and every employee there thinks it was just plain nepotism because of their friendship. One of those employees told me that a senior manager equal to our DM had told her that corporate was thrilled with how we were performing so far…
Im not sure I have any ground to stand on since I haven’t even been an Employee for the usual 3 months. I just feel like I should contact HR and complain about how I was treated or at least demand an exit interview.
Chris’s Response – Your Unemployment Issue is Not Nepotism
Your story could demonstrate why claimants lose what could be a winnable unemployment appeal .. if they would just start focusing on what the employer might try to prove as their good cause to discharge you.
Keep what is irrelevant and in this case only what you speculate to be the cause of nepotism out of it .. because you can’t prove that to be the cause.
When you accepted the management position .. the terms and conditions of your employer were substantially changed and as any sensible employer knows .. when an employee is promoted and new responsibilities are added there is often times some new training involved and time required for a person to learn the ropes of a new job .. so to speak.
After three weeks .. you say you have numerous texts which show your new boss was either unwilling, or unable to respond to your plea for training .. and time to adjust to your new duties and next thing you know .. you’re being fired like this .. which is good in that it concisely states what you do know about your discharge from a job you were very recently promoted to.
“I recently was offered a management position with a retail chain and have been only at the job for 3 weeks when I have been told that they needed to make some staff changes and that I was the one being let go. Also, it was not up for discussion and could I please turn in my key and clock out.”
I like this because it’s concise and to the point that you were fired after only three weeks in a new and challenging position. And then you told you me reached out repeatedly to your boss for training and with questions about how to accomplish your new job with the company .. to their standards expected of someone in your position.
Where’s the mention of previous performance warnings .. Where is the final document that made the employer aware there job was in jeopardy .. which would be a difficult sell anyway after someone has only a done a job for three weeks.
It might of been nepotism Anonymous .. that got you fired, but if it was, it might also be a very bad case for proving misconduct as the cause .. unless you help that case along and start coloring outside the box with reasons you can speculate about .. but don’t stand a snowballs chance of proving as the employer’s real cause.
Chris