SWMBI is office manager for a medium sized solicitors with two offices in mid Cornwall.
Since the crash in 2008 she has had to give the chop to over 12 people at various times.
Due to government cuts regarding funding for the legal aid system, family departments of most if solicitors are obviously feeling the pinch.
Earlier this week, employee M (for mouth) emails owner of said business to say employee A and B have spent all day shredding due to lack of work.
So that’s another two for the chop, employee A yesterday (many tears) employee B’s tears to follow today.
Employee A is in her early 30’s and has been with the firm for 11 years.
Employee B is in her late 20’s and has been with the firm for 7-8 years.
Employee M now feels guilty.
Funny ole life :(
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Lawyers being sacked?
Is this a good-news or a bad-news story?
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Is employee M an equal or in a supervisory position?
If an equal, sees the writing on the wall, thinks they can score some brownie points and save their own bacon. Dangerous people and I'd be looking to fire them.
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>>Is employee M an equal or in a supervisory position?
An equal.
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probably go off sick now, claiming stress and over-work.
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Just come back orf maternity leave, both of them, at various times I do believe.
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….. and who's going to do the shredding now?
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outsourced to a DDC.
(document destruction company)
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>>and who's going to do the shredding now?
SWMBI?
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>> >>and who's going to do the shredding now?
>>
>> SWMBI?
OOO don't let her do that, clearly its career terminal activity.
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Watch your back - at work! perhaps better advice; who's opening their mouth to the bosses or become better at making yourself look busy at work.
Although I doubt two people are being sacked directly because they spent the day shredding paper.
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>> Watch your back - at work! perhaps better advice; who's opening their mouth to the
>> bosses or become better at making yourself look busy at work.
>>
>>
>> Although I doubt two people are being sacked directly because they spent the day shredding
>> paper.
Indeed, unless of course there is very poor management at work.
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>> Although I doubt two people are being sacked directly because they spent the day shredding paper.
They would have still had their jobs if employee M had kept shtum but, for how long is A. N. Other question.
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If it was a very short time, it might have been a co-incidence.
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If the three are solicitors, perhaps M was billing more than A&B anyway. That would have been evident regardless of snitching.
But I wouldn't want to work with M.
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 22 Nov 13 at 10:18
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>>If the three are solicitors, perhaps M was billing more than A&B anyway
I don't think they were solicitors, I'll find out but, I too will have to tread carefully or I'll be for the chop.
I'll find out more about M too.
:}
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A perfect storm of legal aid cuts, a housing market that was dead until recently and competition from so called Alternative Business Structures - legal work done on a production line basis. Sympathy for people seen as 'fat cats' is going to be in short supply but the changes are on the scale of those that hit industry in the eighties.
I get a daily e-mail update from the Law Society's 'Gazette'. Not a day goes by without a news item on either a casualty, a takeover/rescue or redundancies. Not just small firms either, some quite big names have gone down with all or most hands.
Bet RP is glad he got out when he did.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 22 Nov 13 at 10:56
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Pal of mine works for Manches. Well known and respected. Just "merged" with Penningtons.
Might have been just in time.
goo.gl/6zWQnF (Global Legal Post)
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Employee M feels guilty? The world is full of backstabbers.
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>>The world is full of backstabbers.
As I tell my children,
5% of the world is very decent and worth liking/ loving/ trusting.
5% of the world is obnoxious and worth disliking/ hating/ distrusting.
The remaining 90% is just people, much like everybody else and is merely worth accepting for just what it is.
It only goes wrong when one tries to treat any of the 90% by the approach needed in one of the other categories.
Working out which is which is the real trick.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 22 Nov 13 at 11:52
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Um, sorry, I got the wrong end of the stick (nothing new there)
They are both secretaries apparently, and so is M but, M works for the practice owner (her husband actually) whereas A and B work for someone else.
M is the oldest at 41-42 and has been with the firm for 9 years.
Now, where I got it wrong is that just one of the two has got to skedaddle.
A was told yesterday (tears ) and B was told this morning (okay about it)
Owners of said business will decide next week who is for the chop and who stays (not enough work for the two)
This is the way 'things' are done in the 21st century apparently, ah well, best go and get the coal in :)
Hang on ... B is still on maternity leave 'til April.
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What a steaming dunghill.
I hate the workplace.
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B is safe then. can't make her redundant while on maternity leave.
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I'd assume the axe would fall in April if B is to be the one.
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>> can't make her redundant while on maternity leave.
Pretty sure you can, but opens the potential to be Tribunaled for discrimination, of course (would need an excellent paper trail to be able to defend).
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But they have a lot of under-employed legal types around to defend any action.
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Tribunals now attract an initial fee of £750.00 lot of applicants cannot afford to spend or risk that. People may take the changes lightly but a lot of "normal" people are being squeezed out of the legal system.
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>> Tribunals now attract an initial fee of £750.00 lot of applicants cannot afford to spend
>> or risk that. People may take the changes lightly but a lot of "normal" people
>> are being squeezed out of the legal system.
Not quite that much PU. Either £160 or £250 to issue depending on claim type.
A Ryanair style menu of additional fees applies as case progresses to hearing though so your figure's not far off mark for getting a contested claim to resolution.
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I've been made redundant once and on another distant past occasion told an employer which sun-free place to insert their ( rather well paid ) job without having first secured an alternative. That was fairly satisfying for about a month until the bills started to exceed the savings but hey, you learn !
I have though, from time to time had to make people redundant and much more occasionally had to sack people and it's never an easy thing to do, even if in the latter case, they more than deserve it.
Employment, to most people anyway, is such a double edged sword. Lucky indeed is the individual who gets paid for doing things they mainly enjoy. For the most part I count myself in that fortunate category. Not every day mind.
I still want to be a consultant lumberjack. Somewhere warm. With every Monday off. And half days on Fridays.
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>> Lucky indeed is the
>> individual who gets paid for doing things they mainly enjoy. For the most part I
>> count myself in that fortunate category.
Me too. But we've just been taken over, the new buyer doesn't want the bit I work for, and unless they can sell us off in the next few weeks I'll be joining Dog's friend A. Negotiations are fairly well advanced apparently so not too worried yet, but we were told a decision was 'imminent' a couple of weeks ago...
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>> But we've just been taken over, the new buyer doesn't want the bit
>> I work for, and unless they can sell us off in the next few weeks
Phew - Intel found some loose change down the back of their sofa and have signed an agreement. Good news, we think...
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>> >> But we've just been taken over, the new buyer doesn't want the bit
>> >> I work for, and unless they can sell us off in the next few
>> weeks
>>
>> Phew - Intel found some loose change down the back of their sofa and have
>> signed an agreement. Good news, we think...
>>
Sounds better than it was..Good Luck.
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>> >> Phew - Intel found some loose change down the back of their sofa and
>> have
>> >> signed an agreement. Good news, we think...
>>
>> Sounds better than it was..Good Luck.
Thanks - as long as they don't move us from our nice offices in central Bath to here:
goo.gl/maps/q9SEY
Probably not the best place to work if you like your light of the natural variety :o
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I have a friend who has made a career of being made redundant. During the Hi tech boom years it was easy to flit from start up to start up, be paid a huge overinflated salary and then be laid off when the money ran out or takeovers hit. He now has a £750k house paid for from redundancy payoffs.
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A friend of ours years ago was working in a senior job for a company but had been headhunted by his employer's main competitor into an even more senior role.
Over a weekend he'd done the deal with the new employer and went into work on the Monday morning with his resignation letter in his jacket pocket. He had intended to ask for a private meeting with his boss to do the resignation deed but was slightly surprised to be met at the reception desk by his boss who unprompted, asked him to come into his office and shut the door.
The upshot was that his boss was very sheepishly telling my friend that regretably, he needed to make him redundant but that he would receive the maximum payoff, could keep his company car and that all his unused holidays were enough that he could leave that day if he wished. What's more he handed him a glowing letter of reference and promised that "if there was anything he could do etc.."
Needless to say, he managed to show at least some regret while silently cheering inside !
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>>can't make her redundant while on maternity leave.
Oh yes you can. And you can do it to a person on sick leave as well.
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Making my employees redundant when I had to shut my business in late 1992, was one of the worse things I have had to do.
OTH, it relieved the intolerable financial pressure/sleepless nights under which I laboured, although I date my dicky ticker and high blood pressure from the final couple of years of struggle.
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Reminds me of my days 'in trade' when I sacked several employees over a period of years. Always theft. I only ever had to make one member of staff redundant, when a competitor informed me that she was stealing off me and offering my stock to him at a knock down price. He would not get involved with a court case, so after taking advice from several sources, including a specialist solicitor, I had to make the person redundant. All options were considered, but that was the most cost effective, and quickest. It cost me just under 5 figures, many sleepless nights and a health problem. I still bear a grudge twenty years on.
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Been made redundant twice.
Both times got 90 days garden leave.
Both times started new, better jobs, on the 91st day.
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I've been fired, resigned, walked out and drifted away, but I've never been made redundant. It sounds awful and wonderful at the same time. You are dissed and flung on the scrapheap, but your pockets are filled with gold. That's the way you cats make it sound.
I couldn't hack that corporate carp for the life of me. At one point in the mid-sixties my salary was suddenly doubled to some very trivial-sounding level, £2500 I think (a year, not a week or month). Made me feel awfully rich but I wasn't of course. My colleagues looked on me pityingly for my inability to demand proper drinks in my hand now, squire... I'll wager the teenage Zero was doing better than me financially at the same time.
In more recent times I have been dazzled, and often appalled, by the colossal salaries paid in all sectors and the astonishing pension packages, golden bungs and all the rest of it lavished on capitalists, their running dogs and council and state daleks alike. I know times keep changing, there are cuts, we're bankrupt etc., and the fat years are behind us. But it amazes me what people think of as normal these days. The world has quite simply passed me by.
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>>You are dissed and flung on the scrapheap, but your pockets are filled with gold
About as accurate a summary as there can be. One can deflect the feeling of worthlessness by having another role to step into. But it usually results in resentment one way or another.
I love the corporate life and all that goes with it. Especially when its combined with actually needing to achieve something on a budget and a deadline.
As for packages; my hourly rate now is about 3 times what my monthly rate was when I started all those years ago. And I was probably more impressed with myself back then, I certainly felt richer!
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 16 Dec 13 at 17:48
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Have I got this story right - A, B and M are all employees at the same level? M emails the boss alleging that A and B have been slacking or have no work. So employer sacks A and B?
I would have
1) Warned M that I do not listen to gossip about other employees.
2) Conducted a proper investigation to determine exactly what work there was to be done, and who was most appropriate to be doing it
3) If we needed to reduce staffing and make people redundant, initiate the proper procedures, evaluations, consultation, matrices, etc.
4) Make it quite clear to all staff that I run the shop. I listen to what anyone has to say, and pay attention to their ideas and feelings, but it is not their job to be judging other people, unless specifically in a supervisary or managerial position.
5) Pay particular attention to what M gets up to in future.
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Cliff
I'd read it that M might had emailed the boss asking for proper work for A and B in a process that would be helpful for both boss, and A and B. Boss decided that there was no such work and the rest followed.
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The vital bit, Cliff, is that M is the boss's wife. SWMBO.
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>> The vital bit, Cliff, is that M is the boss's wife. SWMBO.
>>
Then she should stop interfering. If she is the supervisor, she needs to supervise properly, not engage in back-handed tittle-tattle. Or if she is an ordinary employee, she needs telling to keep her roles separate.
Married people at work cause problems and perceived problems for other staff. They need firmly keeping in their place and treated as separate individuals according strictly to their actual work roles.
IMHO :)
Aside:
There's a very readable story by Monica Dickens called "Man Overboard" about a bloke given a job as a school bursar and asked by the HM to investigate theft. When the bursar discovered that the thief was the HM's wife, he was sacked. The HM knew that, but didn't want to face facts.
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All well and good in theory, Cliff. And as your coda illustrates, SMBO usually trumps all other considerations in practice.
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Well I missed that bit.
In which case, M - as the (effective) owner of the business - is quite right to have done what she did. It's her (husband's) own money that is being frittered away on the surplus staff member's salary.
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It's a poor way to manage staff by planting your relatives in the workforce and then using them to gain information effectively by spying on others.
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>> It's a poor way to manage staff by planting your relatives in the workforce and
>> then using them to gain information effectively by spying on others.
But when you've married your secretary, she's hardly likely to sit there and say nothing when people are frittering away her own money.
A difficult position. But for other employees to expect anything different is utterly naïve.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Tue 17 Dec 13 at 12:57
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>>Earlier this week, employee M (for mouth) emails owner of said business to say employee A and B have spent all day shredding due to lack of work.
Was she wrong? Would she have been honest/responsible if she had pretended they did have enough work?
>>This is the way 'things' are done in the 21st century apparently
I think you'll find that its always been done this way. If people have too much work you hire more, if people have too little work you let some go.
It is also right that it is done.
Surely the only issue is how you decide which employee will leave when reduction is required?
And I would expect that to start with the bosses of the employees concerned. Because the failing has started with the boss(es) of the under utilized employees. There has either been over recruitment, lousy planning, or clueless delegation or some combination of them all.
If I was the boss I would *expect* my assistant/secretary to advise me of such things. In fact I would find it unacceptable and detrimental to her career if she did not.
Ironically if my wife worked for me, and she decided not to tell me, then I probably wouldn't be able to do anything about it if I wished to stay married and healthy.
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>> And I would expect that to start with the bosses of the employees concerned
I'm not sure that's true with secretarial cover. Secretaries are a cost centre, not a profit centre. A more efficient boss uses less secretarial resource.
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>>A more efficient boss uses less secretarial resource.
Usually wrong, but people often think that.
Let us say that any particular job is 90% technical expertise and 10% support services. It makes no sense for the expensive technical expertise to perform the support services, he should focus on the technical expertise.
The more efficient [or effective] the technical expertise is, then the more impact he will be fitting into that 90% and thus the greater the number of hours that will fall into support services and thus the larger amount of resource needed.
Simplistic and *unrealistic* example for illustration only; if every expert letter he dictates requires a typist, then if he dictates 10 expert letters he will need 10 typists. If he is typing them himself, then that is impacting his technical letter output by however much time the typing takes.
If I had an expertise that was not using support services then I would want to know why, suspecting that he was wasting my money - either because he wasn't doing enough, he wasn't planning properly, he was failing to delegate effectively or quite possibly he is himself unnecessary.
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>>. A more efficient boss uses less secretarial resource.
<<
A more efficient boss would have realised the situation on the shop floor without the need to be told by anyone.
Pat
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An efficient boss uses his secretary(ies) as his ears and eyes.
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>> >
>>
>> If I was the boss I would *expect* my assistant/secretary to advise me of such
>> things.
There's nothing wrong with accepting a tip-off. That's often the way the world works.
What is wrong, and sets an unfair and divisive atmosphere in the workplace, is acting on it without making any proper investigation.
We aren't told how many other staff there are. But the others will not be encouraged to work efficiently and for the good of the company by this episode. They will get the message that the important thing is to look busy, spin out tasks to fill the day nicely and always keep some work in progress on an open window ready to flip onto the screen if anyone approaches.
PS.
I read some good tips on covering your tracks in an office when you are not at your desk.
Leave a jacket on the chair.
Leave a half-full mug of black coffee on the desk. (Why black? Because it doesn't go mouldy)
Carry a piece of official-looking paper when you return.
:)
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>> I've been fired, resigned, walked out and drifted away, but I've never been made redundant. It sounds awful and wonderful at the same time.
>>
Unless it's voluntary redundancy, of course. I took that back in the early eighties (I had to fight for it, my job wasn't on the line and the job was fairly specialised but the union insisted on volunteers first, bless 'em), had a lovely two months skiving on the wedge I also got in lieu of notice and then walked into another job. After I'd been there a couple of weeks I received a letter from my old firm offering my job back with no loss of status (I'd still have had my service classed as eight years continuous), a good offer and the job was a good one but I declined under the "Never go back" rule.
The redundancy paid the deposit on my first house when I got hitched the following year and also stocked the kitchen with the white goods.
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Watch your back - at work! - Lygonos
