I've just been sacked!

[Matthias]

I've been sacked 3 times...

Lighthouse Media Centre - sacked for headbutting a client. I was young!

McCann Erikson - sacked for constant arguing with FD over IT budget. I called him a tight cunt.. he showed me the door! I felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders.

CCR UK - When setting up e-mail and net access, I was told to keep things lax... "we all like the occasional rude e-mail from time to time," the MD told me. 6 months later, a guy in the office was sacked for receiving porn in his e-mail and I was sacked for allowing it into the company. It fucked up my finances as the events of 9/11 had just happened and nobody was getting employed. I had to sign on for 3 months. As a direct result of this, I have had to sell my house in order to clear debts that I just could not pay.

Things are back on track now for me financially now... but, never ever assume that you are safe in a job.

[Lady Beany]

lots of hardcore sacking stuff

I think I have just found the man that I want to spend the rest of my life with!

[Sherringford Hovis]

lots of hardcore sacking stuff

I think I have just found the man that I want to spend the rest of my life with!

You'd better have a job yersel', y'know. I canna be held responsible for the bairns goin' wi'out shoes an owt. I'll help bray em for ya' like, if you let me sleep in the shed, yer b-b-b-b-bee-yatch.


One forteh-nine!

[23 Daves]

Oh bloody hell... here we go again...

I was handed a letter yesterday by my boss saying that I need to attend an urgent meeting on Tuesday with an Employee Relations person due to "changes in my role".  

My workload has completely dried up, so I know what this means... I'm also on a nine month contract with the company, so I'm hoping - praying in fact - that they'll at least do the decent thing and give me one month's notice.  Is anyone aware of the law surrounding this?  If you're on a temporary contract (as opposed to going through an agency) are you still entitled to the full month's notice for termination?  It's just I can't legally claim unemployment benefit because I have a dependant non-English spouse, so I'm really screwed if they try to do this any other way.

I respect this isn't quite the same thing as being sacked, but it is starting to seem as if every time I take a job in Britain I get dicked around... third time lucky perhaps?

[The Man With Brass Eyes]

I don't think you're entitled to one month's notice at all - temp contract employees have stripped-down rights.  The nature of temping makes it flexible for employers (the firm via the recruitment agency) to ditch you at a moment's notice - in the same way that you can also leave at short notice.  It may be that your specific contract may have been upgraded to say "one month's notice".  Otherwise a month's notice isn't standard for temping, even in redundancy scenarios.  Effectively you get the same notice & pay as if you leave or are sacked.

If you mean Job Seekers Allowance when you say unemployment benefit - you should still be entitled to it.  It sounds like your job role was no longer required - which is the same as redundancy.  It may not come with the benefits of proper redundancy - ie payouts and one month's notice, but it should still count.   if you were sacked sacked then there might be trouble getting JSA - but there are probably ways around this.

In regards to having a spouse, I believe you may have to apply for (means tested) income-bases JSA rather than contribution based.

[terminallyrelaxed]

I've never been sacked as such, although I have had employment end abruptly a couple of times (redundancy, discovered management fraud, outsourced etc) and I'll say to you what I say to every one who starts one of these threads; every time, without fail, it has been the best thing that has happened to me in recent memory. Granted, there were a couple of months of unemployment after each one (don't take the first job that comes along), but after that I landed on my feet in better jobs, every time.

[domesticgoddess]

Shit, I hope that's not the case Daves.  How often do you get paid?  That's generally the minimum notice you should expect to give / receive.

[Banana Woofwoof]

Wankers, what are they playing at?

EDIT: How long have you been with them, Dave?

[Adina Loki]

stuff

erm i'm curious.What did you do about references then?

[23 Daves]

Shit, I hope that's not the case Daves.  How often do you get paid?  That's generally the minimum notice you should expect to give / receive.

I get paid monthly - on the last day of each month, in fact.  

In answer to the "What the fuck are they playing at?" question, Banana Woofwoof, the answer is they've simply been bloody disorganised.  They took me on a nine-month contract for a project they're working on (I don't get paid through an agency incidentally, I am working directly for them) believing there to be enough work to keep me going through the time.  In reality, the work dried up about 3 weeks ago, leaving me sat twiddling my thumbs most days, and isn't likely to get going again until the Autumn.  In reality, they would have been better off getting two different agency temps in for two different periods, it really wouldn't have damaged efficiency and they might have saved themselves a bit of money (though only a bit, and I have to admit I haven't done the sums for this).  

I did check the Intranet today though about employee rights in the result of redundancy, and that assured me that most of the time they will try to find the member of staff another post wherever possible.  However, I don't reckon there's much going on at the moment.

The other alternative that's been suggested online is sometimes they will downgrade you to part-time, which obviously isn't really going to pay the bills for me, therefore isn't really going to be an option.

As for my wife, due to Britain's marvellous immigration laws I am technically her sponsor - therefore, I have to be able to NOT claim benefits and have a job for her to legally stay in the country.  I've already signed immigration documents agreeing to that condition for the next two years.  I could attempt signing on, but it will possibly ring pretty serious alarm bells in certain departments.  Incidentally, this law would apply even if my wife were earning #100,000 a year.  Bizarre, eh?

[Big Jack McBastard]

Hovis your list made me grin quite a bit.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

I was going to ask the same thing. I don't think he posts anymore though does he? I don't really have any fun sacking stories, maybe one. Me and a couple of mates once occasionally did leafletting in our area but instead of posting them we got bored quite quickly so we just went out into the nearest forest and burned them. We generally just had a great laugh doing it though as we did spend a couple of hours posting them before we got bored. Got up to all kinds of mischief. For example we posted to this one house and as we left the driveway we heard some bloody physco shouting 'I DON'T WANT THIS FUCKING SHITE, FUCK OFF' and generally punching his door and walls and screaming in anger, slamming shit around. Naturally we went back to the house, posted more and sprinted, repeating this a few times. We got sacked (well, never asked back) because some other different house which he had hilariously left with hundreds of the leaflets for a jape had complained.

[23 Daves]

Well, that's it!  I've just been made redundant after four months - can anyone else top that feeble result?

The good news is they have given me one month's notice and are offering to pay off my (largely unused) holiday days, so it's not a complete tragedy, but still, I'm going to have to get my skates on and try and find more work.  

Anyone know of any?  Erm... please?

[Jemble Fred]

I lost my job in London after three months, and was given no real notice whatsoever. Cue eight months of unemployment.

The thrill of being employed still hasn't worn off, after 18 months of this job.

Sincerely hope things are sorted out for you and BWW asap. But if I knew how to get employment in London, I wouldn't be in Bath.

[terminallyrelaxed]

What do you do Daves?

[Huzzie]

Sorry to hear that Daves.

Good luck mate!

[23 Daves]

What do you do Daves?

Anything and everything at the moment it seems - this job involved setting up a new administrative procedure for a HR department, the last (proper) job before that was doing research and writing letters for Government Ministers, the job before that was sub-editing, proofing and writing for a non-fiction publishing house... etc... there's no coherent thread, really.

I'm pretty flexible, but it's been suggested to me by one wise sage that I really shouldn't jump on the first job I get offered this time, and perhaps I should spend the next week thinking about getting a more coherent direction to my career.  Nonetheless, not being able to claim dole does narrow my thinking space a bit.

Oh, and cheers, Huzzie, I'm sure things will work out eventually.

[domesticgoddess]

Hope you find something soon, Daves - I'll have my fingers crossed.

[Banana Woofwoof]

Dave, you keep an eye out for me and I shall do likewise.  You'll be alright.

[23 Daves]

Dave, you keep an eye out for me and I shall do likewise.  You'll be alright.

Cheers!  If I hear of anything I'll definitely let you know.  I'll start by bothering a shitload of people by e-mail tonight, that sometimes helps.