They've had enough of the daily grind.. get it? grind? it funny cuz they work in a coffee shop.

March 19, 2006 11:30 AM

Every act of resistanceis a battle won, no matter how big or small. I think we've all wanted to do this at one point or another. (via)
posted by sambosambo (56 comments total)

Ha ha ha. Oh yeah -- they really stuck it to The Man. /sarcasm

The really funny thing is that those former employees will probably not find new jobs as fast as the cafe owner will hire new employees.

At least they went out with a proverbial bang, so to speak, and garnered some free press.
posted by davidmsc at 11:42 AM on March 19, 2006

Wasn't this here on MF very recently?

This is pretty much my only source for juicy links, and I swear I was reading this stuff within the last 48 hours...
posted by Meatbomb at 11:48 AM on March 19, 2006

That's cool, but "think more about your staff than your business?" That's a little over the top. For me, the concept of "the business" is the whole reason everybody's there, the ultimate source of everyone's job. Everyone should think about it.

I'm sure "think more about your staff" is all they meant.
posted by scarabic at 11:50 AM on March 19, 2006

Wasn't this here on MF very recently?

It's up on metachat too.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:56 AM on March 19, 2006

You ever run a small business, davidmsc? Finding good help is a bitch. Especially retail.

Yeah, he might find new employees first, but they'll probably suck. Retraining them will eat seriously into his cash flow. So will the mistakes they make with product. And if he's still a bastard to them, they'll be even worse.

And at the right moment in a given cash flow cycle, having all of your employees walk out can bankrupt you.

The moral? Don't be a dick. Especially not to your employees.

Speaking as someone who has managed production crews for small business, and a former business co-owner, I'm pretty convinced that this guy was a bad employer just from the sign alone. Not just bad, but absolutely terrible. We can safely extrapolate this, we don't need to hem and haw about what-ifs. The guy sucked. People don't just walk out on their jobs en masse and leave a sign on the door stating why unless they've waded through some pretty seriously deep bullshit.

And I've seen plenty of these insane managers and small business owners. I've seen them scream red in the face, throw things, swear themselves blue at employees while in the presence of frightened customers and otherwise display a remarkable lack of civility, tact or business acumen.

And the really funny thing? They've all gone under.

So, yeah, in one way or another they stuck it to their man, in one of the only ways they could. Realizing that their dignity, mental and physical health weren't worth the paycheck and just walking right the fuck out. /not sarcasm.
posted by loquacious at 12:03 PM on March 19, 2006

Talk about burning bridges: Jorge, Paisley, Hyun, and Stewart's names—and willingness to publicly criticize their ex-boss—are now broadcast worldwide. Bad idea.

The concept of praise in public, criticize in private works upwards as well as downwards. And if it doesn't, say thanks for your time privately (via f2f, letter, email, or voicemail), and go elsewhere.
posted by cenoxo at 12:22 PM on March 19, 2006

Cenoxo I disagree, when a boss pisses someone off that much I doubt the outburst will hurt them. A Lack of willingness to publicly criticize a boss is one of the major flaw of this society.
posted by Elim at 12:26 PM on March 19, 2006

"Slave wage labor" at a coffeeshop, who knew? Its one thing to quit over shoddy practices and treatment and another to complain about what basic low/no-skilled service/retail pays.

As far as civility goes. It cuts both ways. Why couldnt these guys just quit without the big dramatic note attached to the windows for the customers to see? Don't like it there, then just quit. They don't want to juts quit, they'd like to see this guy go out of business. That's not civil, that's revenge. This isn't exactly Watergate-level whistleblowing here.
posted by skallas at 12:32 PM on March 19, 2006

I really hope that this boss was an absolute monster, and made life unbearable for both his employees and his prospective customers. I really hope that the four employees who walked out were smart, dignified individuals who decided they were worth more than the abuse heaped upon them, and that they weren't just some high school bozos who happened to hear about unions in history class. I'm not saying that these situations are impossible, or even unlikely-- gods know I've had some dreadful bosses in my time, and that's why I don't for a moment regret quitting my last job-- but there's no way of knowing at this point. It may turn out that Scott was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill hardass, and that the four ex-employees were lazy bums who just wanted more smoke breaks. If that's the case, then the customers of this joint are going to be really pissed off, and it's not Scott they'll be pissed off at.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:35 PM on March 19, 2006

go go people's republic of east van!
posted by ori at 12:36 PM on March 19, 2006

Our primary independant bookseller here in Worcester went under recently. It has been talked of as the end of an era, a huge blow for struggling independant retailers, etc. What all of these people fail to realize is that the owner was a total dick. I worked for this store for just a few months until my hours were cut to an unlivable level. During this time I watched as he cut down on specialty stock, increased inventory of what every other bookseller sold, and fired/laid off almost all of his longtime employees. He reduced staff in his cool old mill building here and pumped up the level of $6/hour new hires at his soulless new store in a suburb. Well, surprise surprise. Tatnuck Worcester is gone, his college bookstores all had to be sold to Borders, and word is the suburban store is about to be bought and/or shut down too. I have no way to verify this, but I'd imagine that a lot of people stopped going to Tatnuck when they realized how quickly and thoughtlessly this store owner tossed out those who had been loyal to him for so long.

Good show for these employees in the link. Hopefully some of the frequent customers saw this.
posted by rollbiz at 12:45 PM on March 19, 2006

Its one thing to quit over shoddy practices and treatment and another to complain about what basic low/no-skilled service/retail pays.

So did you bother to even read the note?

I quote:

"Your staff is tired of your attitude, your inconsideration, your ungratefulness and your lack of trust."

Nothing at all on there about the pay rate.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:47 PM on March 19, 2006

The really funny thing is that those former employees will probably not find new jobs as fast as the cafe owner will hire new employees.

Not true. They are baristas and servers. They'll have jobs within hours. That's the only good thing about the service industry -- you can pitch a screaming fit and tell your manager off in the middle of a busy shift and have a job the next day, maybe within hours, if you're on a block with lots of restaurants. Not a good job, but a job nonetheless. Waiters vote with their feet. Don't like the place you're working? Stop showing up, and use that time to get another job. People come and go constantly. I gave notice at a job once and the general manager actually told me I was the first waiter he'd ever had who worked out a two-week notice.

That everyone walked out simultaneously says more about Scott as a manager than it does about his staff as employees.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:49 PM on March 19, 2006

I once had the opposite happen. Showed up for work Monday morning at the "work" office. (We had a industrial/residential zoned warehouse style environment for building and configuring the equipment we sold and a pretty sales office.)

I'll just state now that we were paid monthly and it was towards the end of the month.

It was locked. As we looked through the windows we could see everything had been cleared out completely. When we sent delegates to the sales office, all we found was a single, lonely abandoned chair.

Well, as I lived in a city in California with a burgeoning real estate market, I soon ended up without my tiny, overpriced apartment and homeless. (Luckily, it wasn't TOO long before I managed to put things back together.)

A few months later, I found out he had coerced some employees into signature loans with himself as a beneficiary, and had used other employment information to apply for loans in the names of other employees (including listing me as his brother - same last name but no real relation). I did what I could to help the finance companies track him down (and, last I had heard, had some success).

Now that is a bad boss and a bad job...
posted by Samizdata at 1:12 PM on March 19, 2006

Elim said: A lack of willingness to publicly criticize a boss is one of the major flaw of this society.

It all depends. The tempest in the teapot here is about serving coffee, not public safety, criminal behavior, or national security. If you have a typical workplace disagreement with your boss, are you going public with it?

Most companies have a chain of command and policies to handle disputes in-house. If your immediate supervisor won't listen, take your complaints up to the next level (or to Human Resources), but don't tape them to front door of the business. What these employees did is extremely unprofessional. They look bad , the boss looks bad — however deserving we assume he is, without hearing his side (as if we have any right to) — and the company looks bad.

We (and our current bosses) have probably all worked where we'd like to say "Take this job and shove it." It's a nice daydream, but in reality it's not very wise.
posted by cenoxo at 1:13 PM on March 19, 2006

They should have unionized. Since they were going to quit anyway, they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Where is Reverend Billy when you need him?
posted by Jatayu das at 1:14 PM on March 19, 2006

Most companies have a chain of command and policies to handle disputes in-house. If your immediate supervisor won't listen, take your complaints up to the next level (or to Human Resources), but don't tape them to front door of the business.

I sincerely doubt this was an option at a privately owned coffee shop. It sounds like their beef was with their boss, and their boss was a business owner. I would be astounded to discover that such a place had an HR department.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:23 PM on March 19, 2006

The tempest in the teapot here is about serving coffee, not public safety, criminal behavior, or national security.

Gotta start somewhere.

To paraphrase an old sage: If not me, who? If not now, when? If not here, where?
posted by lodurr at 1:31 PM on March 19, 2006

I'd imagine that a lot of people stopped going to Tatnuck when they realized ...

I hate poor customer service. In Toronto there's a well known indie bookstore called Pages. I fucking hate the place and refuse to buy anything from them, though I often browse and then buy the books elsewhere.

In the olden days, I special ordered a book from them and they required a deposit. It was $5. So, some time goes by and Marc Glassman (the owner) calls me to tell me they can't get the book, it's gone out of print. I tell him, "No prob. I'll come pick up my deposit." His reply? "Seriously? It's only $5." Yeah, Marc, but it's my five dollars you moron, and you haven't seen a dime from me in 15 years because of your idiocy.

There's also a younger (than marc) balding fellow who works there and doesn't know how to say "You're welcome." Learn some freaking manners, people. :)

Burn, Pages, burn!
posted by dobbs at 1:33 PM on March 19, 2006

Rabbi Hillel: "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:34 PM on March 19, 2006

skallas writes "'Slave wage labor' at a coffeeshop, who knew? Its one thing to quit over shoddy practices and treatment and another to complain about what basic low/no-skilled service/retail pays."

The "slave wage labor" comment is by the blogger who noticed the sign in the window. It represents his inability to read and parse a simple sign with less than 100 words.
posted by Bugbread at 1:38 PM on March 19, 2006

>I sincerely doubt this was an option at a privately owned coffee shop.

FWIW, Blenz is franchise with a few dozen stores.
posted by skallas at 1:56 PM on March 19, 2006

cenoxo writes "What these employees did is extremely unprofessional."


But these were not in fact professionals, were they? They were barristas, not barristers or physicians.

If we don't pay them professional rates and don't treat then like professionals -- as in, knowing they must adhere to their profession's code of ethics even when that hurts the employer's bottom line, as in giving them a certain autonomy in how the perform their work, rather then micro-managing them --, how can we expect them to act with professional discretion?

The comments on the story allege the chain these employees left frequently sells badly made coffee and, in contravention of the public health laws, weeks-old bread. A professional employee -- a lawyer, a doctor -- might face personal sanctions, such as loss of license, for permitting illegal actions that threatened client well-being. But no association of professional barristas exists to hold these employees responsible.

In fact, we generally understand that the difference between professional and "mere" employees is discretion: a professional is told what to do, but has discretion in how to do it. Indeed, he is hired and paid precisely to use his own judgment, his own discretion, and can be held liable for failing to do so or failing to do so properly.

These barristas were asked the precisely the converse: to do as they were told, to execute the manager's judgment, and to defer to the will of the boss and the "always right" customer. If an employee's judgment was that two-week old bread shouldn't be sold, they were explicitly told to ignore their own judgment and sell it anyway.

So these kids were in no way professionals, and that's exactly how the boss wanted it. To complain that they didn't "act professionally" when they left is an empty complaint: professional means a lot more than just "don't make waves in public". It's a symptom of how pervasive the service economy has become that the term "professional " has come to be so misused and misapplied.

It's unfair and frankly foolish to expect people who are not treated as professionals to act as professionals.
posted by orthogonality at 2:27 PM on March 19, 2006

Hmmm, that place is just a few blocks from me, and when I went by there to go to Sophia books a couple of days ago, everything seemed fine. I don't know what happened between Feb 6th & then, but the place obviously survived it. No lack of coffee drinking customers in Vancouver.
posted by Salmonberry at 2:33 PM on March 19, 2006

"barristas"

Can't we just call them coffee makers?
posted by sharksandwich at 2:42 PM on March 19, 2006

Well, they make more than just coffee, so they aren't just coffee makers. But they don't serve tables, so they aren't waiters. Barristas is all that describe them well.
posted by jmhodges at 2:44 PM on March 19, 2006

"Seriously? It's only $5."

Wow. I hope that guy loses his shirt.

I once participated in a similar walkout at a bookstore whose owner was getting more and more tight-fisted and dictatorial. Things have to be pretty bad before that happens. I don't think this was a whim on the part of some slackers.
posted by languagehat at 2:49 PM on March 19, 2006

re: Samizdata and having the opposite happen, that sucks. Glad to hear you got back on your feet. I once had something similar(ish) happen while I was working, funnily enough, at the most anarchic coffee shop ever - I showed up early to open the place up, only to discover the boss had snapped at some point between closing the previous night and that morning and had taken off for mainland Europe with the contents of the safe and most of the paperwork. We never did find out whether we coffeeslaves drove him to it, whether it was the insanely nitpicky corporate office that sent him over the edge or whether he just went crazy. He was a nice guy, and I hope he made the few grand he nicked last.

Oh, and *applauds orthogonality*. I can't believe how cowed some of the people in this thread come across.
posted by terpsichoria at 3:41 PM on March 19, 2006

Being as I work retail myself, I can certainly understand the desire to just walk out. A group of us play the lottery (when the jackpot gets really big) in the hopes of doing just that. And I also see what bosses can do to moral in a work environment. I work in an understaffed industry, currently doing two 40-hour-per-week jobs in one 40 hour a week paycheck, catering to customers who aren't "always right". I used to really like my job, I like people, but the upper management makes life difficult. Case in point: we are always getting yelled at to cut our losses, control our "shrink". On Friday last, we received a late shipment of trout, delivered alone, one case. The driver dropped it off (two feet from the refrigerator), and no one ever thought to put it away. It sat out overnight, unrefrigerated. My boss the next day said to me "Are you sure it's bad?" Translation, "Can't you sell it anyway, and cut your losses?" EEEWWWWW!!!!!!! Not in my department!!!!! I'll take the loss, thank you very much. So come on, MegaMillions, I could really use a few millions!
posted by annieb at 4:05 PM on March 19, 2006

"Shrink", there's a word I haven't heard since I worked retail (clothes store at the mall in high school).
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:31 PM on March 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

I worked asst. manager at a place called 'Le Chatel' in Seattle some years back. The original owner was pretty cool but sold out to a christian fundie partner and things went downhill from there. He brought in some temperamental frenchman who was hyperactive as hell and always bothering the staff with his overly nervous energy. I was always highly thought of by the staff because although everyone busted fanny keeping things cleaned and customers waited on, I wasn't a hard-ass about anything like this guy was. Finally I was let go because 'I didn't smile enough' (honestly, that was the reason given.).
I didn't find out until several months later when I ran into one of my fellow former staff members on the street, but she said that the week after I was let go, everyone quit. They had to shut down the place to find new staff. These kids that quit were all honor students at high school and hard workers to boot. Screw employers that can't scrape up enough to give their employees some degree of basic human dignity. And screw customers or others who think their fellow human beings should work as indentured servants and 'just get over it.'
By the way, 'La Shithole' is out of business now, the last remaining outlet is owned by an asian couple and sells nothing from the original menu at all. Basically soup 'n' sandwiches, stuff you could get at a 7-11.
posted by mk1gti at 5:10 PM on March 19, 2006

the really funny thing is the over the top rhetoric of the blogger:

For that one moment, anyone who has ever had a shitty boss stood and rejoiced. Every one who has worked for minimum wage stood together in defiance.

that dipstick could write duhbyuh's iraq speeches.
posted by quonsar at 5:22 PM on March 19, 2006

Me, I prefer hitting them where it hurts: in the pocket/budget/accounts. Rip the fuckers off any way you can. Skive. Work to rule. Fiddle expenses. Lie about sick days, and often. Dick off on company time; surf the web. Whatever it takes to make damned sure that every injustice they visit upon you, you return with interest.

The relatively smart ones get it, eventually: if they want good workers they have to treat them well. If they don't want workers who take the piss, they have to not take the piss. If they don't want workers who are constantly sniffing around for a better job, make the job better and don't fucking think you can whine about "difficult market conditions" as an excuse for laying a hundred people off and then expect any loyalty in return when maybe the market conditions are healthy enough to make your employees saleable elsewhere.

I hate business managers so very, very much.
posted by Decani at 5:35 PM on March 19, 2006

Although good customer service employees can easily find a new job, it's so much easier to stay at a place where you're established, where you know the routines, the customers, etc.
If you get pissed off, you have a million different ways of getting satisfaction without having to polish the ol' resume.
Speaking as someone who's worked in and managed a diner/restaurant (Ladder climber/Sell-out), this boss must have deserved it.

Good on them.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:57 PM on March 19, 2006

Every act of resistance is a battle won, no matter how big or small.

Can someone point me to the stone where that was carved by some almighty force?

It seems to be one of those things which many automatically assume is an absolute truth, yet there never seems to be any proof for it.
posted by HTuttle at 7:54 PM on March 19, 2006

It seems to be one of those things which many automatically assume is an absolute truth, yet there never seems to be any proof for it.

It's true because it's so vague that it's kind of automatically true. Every X is a battle won in the sense that X, by simply existing, has won a "victory" over every Y that does not exist.
posted by juv3nal at 8:38 PM on March 19, 2006

I've actually done this. In HS, I was working at a large Supermarket deli. It was just for the summer, and near fall I gave my two week's notice. The Deli is supposed to have 4 workers during peak hours, two in the evenings. The Deli Manager, realizing he'd be a man down, decided to grant the other three employees vacation time in the last week I was there, leaving me to run the deli by myself. On the last day, which was a Saturday, so it was extremely busy, I finally got fed up. Simply put on my street clothes and walked out. No one realized that there was absolutely no deli staff for about an hour, and then the store manager and the meat dept. manager had to work the deli for that day. Needless to say, things did not go smoothly. The meat dept. guy had run a deli cutter before, but not the store manager. Oh the glares I got when I stopped by to pick up my last check... I probably cost those asswipes at least $800... All because they were trying to punish me for leaving. Fuck 'em.
posted by Debaser626 at 8:47 PM on March 19, 2006

passive resistance.
posted by exlotuseater at 8:54 PM on March 19, 2006

I worked full-time at a busy cafe in my neighborhood for about three months. The job nearly drove me nuts, even with a wonderful, smart manager, who worked the shifts with us and never pulled a superiority trip. We were paid minimum wage, plus tips; on busier days, more people would work the shifts and we'd end up getting less tips despite working much harder. Meanwhile, insanely long lines would keep us constantly moving for hours, dealing with the often-elaborate details of each person's order and responsible for seeing each one to completion. Customers stand tangled in the line with a general air of anxiety, impatience and confusion - a vibe that is difficult to not internalize. By the time they get to the counter for us to take their order, most want to get out as a fast as possible or sit down, and don't look us in the eyes or say hello or please or thank you. People can get very hostile when even the slightest thing is off with their order - in one case, a lady threw a temper tantrum and stormed out because she wanted a single-shot "half-caf" latte. The barista only put a half a single caffeinated shot and forgot the decaf. The woman could not stand such an affront of negligence, demanded a refund and stormed out, fuming. Another time a mother gave her little girl a hot chocolate to drink, then screamed at us for "burning" her daughter. Forty hours a week of this can be really draining. Instead of having people live in their homes and cook their meals for them, the middle class has farmed out its domestic servants to restaurants and franchises, hiring them a la carte behind uniforms and counters so as to not have to deal with them personally or acknowledge them as human beings.
posted by bukharin at 9:13 PM on March 19, 2006

Instead of having people live in their homes and cook their meals for them, the middle class has farmed out its domestic servants to restaurants and franchises, hiring them a la carte behind uniforms and counters so as to not have to deal with them personally or acknowledge them as human beings.

That is an extremely interesting comment, definitely a direction in which I had not thought before.
I've been often struck by how unprofessional managers and business owners can be towards their staff. It cuts both ways- if you don't a) have a coherent business plan, b) respect your workers, c) actually, you know, manage on occasion, d) really have any interest in running a business, etc., don't expect your employees to grin and bear it for very long.
posted by 235w103 at 9:30 PM on March 19, 2006

Instead of having people live in their homes and cook their meals for them, the middle class has farmed out its domestic servants to restaurants and franchises, hiring them a la carte behind uniforms and counters so as to not have to deal with them personally or acknowledge them as human beings.

how very true

for what it's worth, i've never heard of a group of people at a coffee shop or whatever doing this ... this guy must have been downright awful to work for

he probably begged and wheedled staff from the other locations in the area, so it's probably not as big a victory as it sounds ... truth is, a independant store owner would be a little more careful about how he treats people

most of the time, bosses like that just have to deal with high turnover and unmotivated workers ... and the only employees they keep seem to be buying into the same dynamic and mindset that keeps people in abusive relationships

another thing ... as time goes by, i've noticed that each generation of workers is a lot more likely to say to hell with it and just walk if they don't like a situation, even if jobs are tight
posted by pyramid termite at 10:18 PM on March 19, 2006

Having worked in the service industry myself, I cannot believe some of the comments expressing more sympathy to the boss than to the employees. The very nature of the industry is (literally; McDonald's even has psychologists figuring out how to make employees more compliant) designed to make employees act like subservient little robots. Even with good management it is a thankless business, and with a bad boss, it simply becomes unbearable.
posted by blue shadows at 10:30 PM on March 19, 2006

I've worked some pretty soul-draining jobs for some pretty awful bosses. The closest I've come to this was when all twelve employees called the owner (who lived on another continent) and told him that we were holding a meeting next Tuesday and if he wasn't there then he wouldn't have any employees. I'm pretty sure that these barristas felt what we felt, only they didn't have anyone higher up to appeal to. For the record our boss did show up and fired the CEO, who was not only an awful boss but as it turned out was embezzling to boot.

You might get one or two people walking out in a huff for no good reason, but a whole shift? That doesn't happen without a damn good reason.
posted by cali at 11:13 PM on March 19, 2006

I once worked for a corporate-owned 7-11. Eventually they sold to a franchisee. It was announced (how stupid) we'd all be fired, for no reason.

Did you know that beer and wine can grow legs and walk out of a store under its own power?
posted by Goofyy at 5:28 AM on March 20, 2006

"By the time they get to the counter for us to take their order, most want to get out as a fast as possible or sit down, and don't look us in the eyes or say hello or please or thank you."

I'm of two minds on this--to what degree am I required to interact with my surly bus driver, for example?
posted by mecran01 at 5:46 AM on March 20, 2006

orthogonality : "But these were not in fact professionals, were they? They were barristas, not barristers or physicians. "

I always parsed "professional" as the opposite of "amateur", with "amateur" meaning "someone who doesn't get paid for what they do", and "professional" to mean "someone who gets paid for what they do".
posted by Bugbread at 6:17 AM on March 20, 2006

A couple of people have blasted the blogger who spotted the note for misinterpretting it as a complaint against low wages. However, he described them as "...sick of slave wage labour and an ungrateful boss...". Slave wage labour is not the same thing as slave wages. In other words, the employees were sick of working like slaves and not being appreciated. Although there was more to he note than this, I don't think this summary is inaccurate. Instead of dumping insults on someone we don't even know, I think we should be thanking him for posting this interesting photo.
posted by ubiquity at 6:18 AM on March 20, 2006

I once worked for a corporate-owned 7-11. Eventually they sold to a franchisee. It was announced (how stupid) we'd all be fired, for no reason.

This is company policy when stores undergo new ownership. You're always allowed to apply again for your job, unless maybe, you weren't wanted there.

Did you know that beer and wine can grow legs and walk out of a store under its own power?

Way to go. Perhaps petty thievery could be a reason why you are a less than desirable employee?
posted by Dr-Baa at 6:39 AM on March 20, 2006

ubiquity : "Slave wage labour is not the same thing as slave wages. In other words, the employees were sick of working like slaves"

I parse it as (slave wage) labour. You parse it as slave (wage labour). Your interpretation hadn't occurred to me. Thanks.
posted by Bugbread at 7:05 AM on March 20, 2006

Dr-Baa : "Way to go. Perhaps petty thievery could be a reason why you are a less than desirable employee?"

Sure. "These employees are undesirable, because after I fire them, they will steal from me. Thus, I must fire them."
posted by Bugbread at 7:07 AM on March 20, 2006

... or maybe: "These employees are undesirable, because if I fired them, they would steal from me. Since they are untrustworthy in that way, I can assume they will be untrustworthy in others. Thus, I must fire them."

The reasoning, of course, stands or falls on the evidence; but if the evidence is there and is sound, the reasoning is sound: If your employees are the kind of people who'd steal from you as revenge for being fired, you probably don't want to have them working for you in the first place.

So, better to fire them quickly, to contain the damage.
posted by lodurr at 8:12 AM on March 20, 2006

"Professional" is an interesting term. A lot of people make the "professionals:amateurs" opposition, but it's not the most important traditional usage of the term "professional." Ortho is (AFAIAC) right about that.

In the '80s, I worked as a secretary. There was a movement afoot at the time to get secretaries re-designated as "office professionals". I saw it then and see it now as a sop -- a way of "giving" administrative personnel something that had no actual value to the recipient, but which benefited the giver by creating the illusion of value in the mind of the recipient. We were to think that we were in some sense on par with the salaried professionals we served, when in actuality that was not true in any sense that was useful to us.

Or, more succinctly, and to quote the Harvard and Yale clearical workers unions: "We can't eat prestige."
posted by lodurr at 8:16 AM on March 20, 2006

lodurr : "The reasoning, of course, stands or falls on the evidence; but if the evidence is there and is sound, the reasoning is sound: If your employees are the kind of people who'd steal from you as revenge for being fired, you probably don't want to have them working for you in the first place."

True, but it poses obvious questions: did the employer in fact fire them because they were the kind of people who stole? Was the employer capable of determining "these are the kind of people who would steal from me if I fired them without reason"? If so, why wouldn't the employer try using a reason?

I've known coworkers who I certainly wouldn't keep in my employ if I were a manager. However, I've never seen a work force where I would fire every person simultaneously. I've never known someone I would fire for whom I wouldn't provide a reason for termination.

If given a situation where a new employer, who doesn't know their new employees, fires them all, simultaneously, and without reason, I think it's a far greater stretch to assume that the new employer fired them all immediately after instantly determining their characters, and that they all had poor character, and that it would somehow be advantageous not to provide reasons, than to assume that there wasn't some other reason, most likely more related to the new employer than the employees.

Also, thanks about the pro/am thing. I'll have to look into that, I wasn't aware about it.
posted by Bugbread at 8:41 AM on March 20, 2006

True, but it poses obvious questions...

... which I wasn't intending to address, though I suppose that's not clear. I was just trying to express that it's not always as clear-cut as the folks on the downside tend to think it is.

Adjust my wording just a little and it starts to sound really paranoid. The problem is, with paranoid data, the logic looks good. With real data, it is good. How do you tell the difference? (More or less what you're asking, I think.)

As for pro/am, I'm always on the lookout for a good excuse to say "we can't eat prestige."
posted by lodurr at 9:10 AM on March 20, 2006

Couple of experiences to add to the pot— I used to work at a food co-op, where I was the night manager. We were continually understaffed, and while I was tasked with managing folks, I had no real power over them. We had people who couldn't mop a fucking floor, yet I had to schedule because only my boss had the power to make personel decisions. Which basically meant that I was being paid an extra 50¢ an hour to be responsible for the store. Since I wasn't interested in working a 12 hour shift every night, I'd have people start the cleanup when we were slow, before the end of the night (that meant topping off bins, making sure everything was fronted). I was rebuked for that, and basically responded that the options were either for me to start the cleanup before close so that we could leave an hour or so after close (for an eight hour shift), for me to work an extra couple of hours (since all of the shifties were blunt about having to bail right after close) every night, or to leave some of the stuff undone for the morning shift (which seemed fair to me, as they never completed their shift-end checklist before handing off to me). None of those options were acceptable to our front end manager, and I ended up being moved to day shift as a "probation" for insubordination.
The day before Thanksgiving is INSANELY busy in a grocery store, and I was supposed to be a floating register. Someone spilled flour on our tile floor from the bulk bins, and I told the front end manager about it. I could see it from my register and it wasn't being cleaned up. For those of you who don't know, flour on a tile floor is extremely easy to slip on. I waited an hour until we had a slow period, then I went and cleaned it up, after complaining again and seeing nothing done. They let me work out the rest of the shift, then called me aside and told me that I was fired for abandoning my register. You know, in order to clean up something that could have led to serious injury.
That led to a walkout of about eight (out of approx. 25 total workers) of the senior staff, which led to the front end manager being canned. The co-op is still a shitty place to work, and they still have an average turnover of less than two months. They still pay full time wages for an "outreach director" who only designs signs and a newsletter. They still haven't implimented the fairly simple changes that would prevent people from stealing the vitamins and supplements (which was the biggest incidence of shrinkage while I was there, and still is according to people I know who still work there). They still promise health care and then fuck with people's hours to make them ineligible. (All this from the supposedly progressive food co-op, which very much banks on its hippy appeal).
But getting fired there was what led me to find a job writing and part of why I went back to school full time. It's also meant that since I've seen the inner workings, I know that even when my shift (and it wasn't just me, we had some great people on my shift) worked to decrease shrinkage, decrease till discrepencies (I was never off by more than a dime the entire time I worked there) and increased customer satisfaction and profits, the workers got none of the reward as it all went to raises for management (and often the inessential positions of management, who were essentially grandmothered into well-paying jobs by virtue of involvement with other members of management as friends or lovers). This has meant that when I go in, and I see someone shoplifting, I don't bother to stop them like I might in a store that I felt some connection to. It means that I feel no shame about snacking from the bulk bins or changing PLUs on my bulk goods to get 'em cheaper. I use every trick that I learned to prevent there, because I know that the workers they have now don't care enough to prevent them and that the management has been warned and failed to impliment things that would stop them. All of the former workers that I know do the same, as do many of their friends, and the only repurcussion is less money for funding "outreach" drum circles and bonfires for the downstairs office staff and their friends.

(And that's just one story of incredibly shitty bosses that I or people I know have gone through, and the ill will that it engenders.)
posted by klangklangston at 9:45 AM on March 20, 2006

All this from the supposedly progressive food co-op, which very much banks on its hippy appeal

Eh, somehow I'm not surprised. I think this usually gets rationalized on a means/ends basis: They'd say they're "doing good" by virtue of being there, so if they feel they have to screw with people a little to stay in business, they think it's justified.

Mind, they won't know that they need to do that, because they'll most likely have a really fuzzy grasp of -- well, anything. If you make an ethos out of being alternative, then you will often find yourself eschewing on principle things that could make operations more consistent. And what you're left with is a bunch of half-stated, de facto rules. Then you get positions of authority being filled by people who feel a need for order. In their minds, they codify these de facto rules and invent others, and it's hell to pay for those who violate either.

If the rules were codified, and things were orderly, then there wouldn't be the kind of ad hoc shit that made your life difficult.

And in that mix you also find people who are willing and able to take advantage of that kind of situation. People who thrive in vague situations because they know how to work the angles. People like "outreach directors"....

As for the silver kick-in-the-pants, I can cop to that cliche, too. I was working as a microcomputer tech at a small college -- one of those ridiculously expensive places with a library that's constantly on the edge of de-certification, where they make up the students' schedules for them until they're seniors. Such places usually pay crap. I left a $9/hr 40/hr job as a secretarial temp for $9/hr 35 hour job doing this stuff (I took the pay cut because I saw my tech skills getting softer by the day). It was insanely busy during the semester; the job could not be done in 40 hours a week, much less 35, but neither underperformance nor overtime were acceptable outcomes.

Well, the reasons aren't important here (and are a matter of debate in any case), but I got canned. I'd loved that job, even though it made my life hell and I loathed going to work and the pay was crappy and I resented the unpaid overtime (that I could never admit to because, you know, state law and shit). But a short while later, I landed a job that paid a buck and a half more per hour and had a full 40, for a net increase in take-home of about 40%. And it had career development potential.

That was the job that put me where I am today. Or, arguably, the job I got fired from was that job.

Thing was, it was a lucky break. We could accumulate a bunch of tokens to illustrate this kind of progression, but to take a positive lesson from them we have to ignore all the times we got kicked in the ass without being shielded by a silver lining. That's the rule: You get canned, you find something...maybe as good. Maybe.
posted by lodurr at 10:59 AM on March 20, 2006