Poll of the Day > Need some work advice

(+) Yeah! (+)

I manage a warehouse and we go through temp agencies when it gets busy and we'll sometimes hire guys that do a good job. I'm pretty chill as a manager, but I still try to run a tight ship and I think I do a pretty good job balancing being kind and respectful with making sure people are doing their job. But when you're nice, sometimes people take advantage.

Got a guy that has been with the company as a temp for about 7 months and I've been trying to get my boss to hire him for the last couple months and he's been delaying it until finally putting in a request today for the guy to become an actual employee in roughly a week and a half.

Problem is the guy has started screwing around and trying to be slick with his time. We only have a punch clock for regular employees and a timesheet for temps. Last week the dude left after half a day telling me he had a family emergency. Fine, no problem. The next day he came in an hour and a half late. Well, I checked the timesheet and he wrote 9-5 for every day. I document whenever someone leaves early so I don't forget. So I talked to the guy and told him "hey i know I'm nice and I let people get away with 10-15 minutes every so often and I'm relaxed when people have to leave, but I can't be gifting you half a day and i need you to be honest about your time." He played dumb but he changed his time on the sheet.

Then today the guy sneaks off 30 minutes early and gets in his ride and again wrote 9-5. I watched him as he left and he got worried and texted another employee who then told me about the text where the guy was asking if I said anything about it.

I feel like it's kinda messed up to fire him after having been pretty good for 7 months up until now but I already warned him once. Just seems like blatant disrespect and someone I can't trust moving forward. Would it be wrong to fire this guy or should I warn him again? Problem is that it's only a week and a half until he's officially hired so he could just suck it up and be honest for one week until he gets hired. And it's tough to fire someone once they're hired unless they screw up badly or multiple times

I guess I'm trying extra hard to be forgiving because he doesn't have a car or his own place and not having a paycheck would probably suck for him, but if you let people get away with that stuff before you know it other people are doing the same shit

Dude is stealing from you. Got called out on it and has continued to do so.

Id fire him immediately.

You dont need to feel bad about it. He put you in that position.

I agree with Glob.

If he had a good excuse or communicated what was up no big a deal. But if he's just like nah I'm out then he'll continue doing that crap

nah dude. you talked to him about it and hes still doing it. you were kind enough to give him a warning but hes trying to take advantage of your kindness. fuck that

the only time Ive ever been fired was when I did that once or twice at a job when I was like 19-20 and it was like 10 minutes max each time. not saying I was right for doing that but if someone talked to me about it i would have wisened up.

Well, you guys are definitely making me feel better about what I think I'm gonna have to do

I'd say you've done everything you can be expected to do. Maybe sit down with him and ask if there's some reason why he's suddenly fudging his time sheets after being great for so long (if there was a family emergency last week, he may have a bunch of other stuff he needs to take care of secondary to that that's making it difficult to work his full shifts, but he's also tight enough for money that he can't give up the hours), since there might be something you can do to compromise until he gets through this crisis (like an advance, or some overtime opportunities once things settle down). There's a fair chance he is just dicking around now that he thinks he's got the full position in the bag, in which case saying "smarten up or you're fired" or just outright firing him for it (he's a big boy, he knows what happens if you choose not to do your job this blatantly) are the only ways to solve the problem, but there could be a legitimate reason.

I supervise a small fleet of truck drivers and time theft is tough to catch due to the nature of the job. Drivers are continually on the move so it can be difficult to know if they've simply hit traffic or got held up at a stop for too long or if they're stealing time.

We have GPS trackers and cameras in the trucks but even then drivers typically get caught only when they do it habitually. Once a pattern emerges and their productivity dips it's a lot easier to zero in on the ones that are taking advantage of the fact that they're often not under direct supervision.

Having someone stealing time after they've already been caught and spoken to about it is pretty disrespectful. If they were contrite and made a sincere effort to report their time honestly I'd cut them some slack but it sounds like this particular employee just threw it right back in your face. I wouldn't stand for that, and I'm sure the company I work for would stand behind my decision to terminate their employment.

My previous job at a cosmetic factory was the same way, with permanent employees having punch clocks and temp employees using the time sheets. And sure enough, one of the temps was doing the same thing with fabricating her times.

She was able to get away with it because at the time, our department didn't really have an afternoon or overnight shift like the others. She worked in the mornings and I was the only afternoon guy. When work was super busy, they allowed unlimited overtime, so she would stay until an hour or two after everyone else left, then write some outrageous time like 7am-9pm and no one questioned it because she was super well liked by everyone especially the manager, who always seemed cold to only me (I was the newest temp there). She was nice to me but if anyone asked me about her directly, I would be honest, but no one ever did. She ended up getting fired anyway because she was caught on camera stealing a ton of the defected products out of the waste bins.

Anyway, you should totally let him go

SilentSeph posted...

She ended up getting fired anyway because she was caught on camera stealing a ton of the defected products out of the waste bins.

Am I misinterpreting something here? Because getting fired for "stealing" something that was being thrown out seems pretty ridiculous.

adjl posted...

Am I misinterpreting something here? Because getting fired for "stealing" something that was being thrown out seems pretty ridiculous.

A lot of defects were minor things like skewed barcode or slightly underweight and might get recalled or replaced. Other things were completely destroyed so that there's no possibility of it being sold while defective

But they're still things that were being thrown out and therefore had no value to the company. What, then, was being "stolen"?

adjl posted...

But they're still things that were being thrown out and therefore had no value to the company. What, then, was being "stolen"?

If it's anything like my warehouse, we often will salvage good parts out of returns or items with just one defective part. Basically, anything not good enough to sell we use for customer part requests. So if someone is taking items like that then it could actually cause us to have to take items out of inventory for customer part requests

I don't know if it's necessarily stealing, but it may cost the company money

Not all of it was being thrown out or destroyed, a lot of it was being recycled. I guess they weren't necessarily 'waste' bins. But we were told we couldn't keep it. I don't know I was just the lonely temp guy lol

OhhhJa posted...

If it's anything like my warehouse, we often will salvage good parts out of returns or items with just one defective part. Basically, anything not good enough to sell we use for customer part requests. So if someone is taking items like that then it could actually cause us to have to take items out of inventory for customer part requests

I don't know if it's necessarily stealing, but it may cost the company money

That'd be fair, then, provided it's actually a salvage bin and not just garbage.

SilentSeph posted...

I don't know I was just the lonely temp guy lol

Fair. It wouldn't be the first time companies have tried to crack down on people "stealing" their garbage (quite a few grocery stores will lock up their dumpsters and hire guards to make sure nobody takes free food), but that's all above your pay grade.

adjl posted...

But they're still things that were being thrown out and therefore had no value to the company. What, then, was being "stolen"?

I work at a grocery store and taking stuff deemed "trash" is considered stealing, simply because it would be too easy to claim viable goods are "trash" so you could get it for free.

SunWuKung420 posted...

I work at a grocery store and taking stuff deemed "trash" is considered stealing, simply because it would be too easy to claim viable goods are "trash" so you could get it for free.

If there's a pattern of you throwing stuff out and then you picking that same stuff out of the dumpster, sure, but the way that scenario is presented it sounds like it's already been thrown out by others and she was just grabbing it before the trash was emptied.

adjl posted...

If there's a pattern of you throwing stuff out and then you picking that same stuff out of the dumpster, sure, but the way that scenario is presented it sounds like it's already been thrown out by others and she was just grabbing it before the trash was emptied.

It's quite easy to pull stuff off the sales floor, claiming it's trash without it ever making it to a trash can or dumpster.

SunWuKung420 posted...

It's quite easy to pull stuff off the sales floor, claiming it's trash without it ever making it to a trash can or dumpster.

This is the problem, taking actual trash would actually be beneficial but when you implement any system or rule, you must consider what loopholes it may lead to.

This is the one I know of for trash, if all it takes is 'oopsie-- this is defective now,' then employees have incentive to trash things just to get access to them for free.

Instead, the company just calls the garbage further company property and any theft from it to be theft from the company. Many birds with one stone.

adjl posted...

That'd be fair, then, provided it's actually a salvage bin and not just garbage.

Fair. It wouldn't be the first time companies have tried to crack down on people "stealing" their garbage (quite a few grocery stores will lock up their dumpsters and hire guards to make sure nobody takes free food), but that's all above your pay grade.

I worked at Asda for a while (UK branch of Walmart) and they used to pour bleach on the food in the bins to stop homeless people eating it.

If the only problem you have with the guy is him juicing his time sheet, then the punch clock should fix that when hes hired. This guy more than likely needs his entire paycheck and needs all the hours he can get. If hes a hard worker and not slacking off, then thats better than having some dude who is constantly just milking the clock and underperforming their entire shift. I would sit them down again and give a final warning (3 strikes) but once again him manually having to clock in and out will fix the issue from the sounds of it.

GameLord113 posted...

If the only problem you have with the guy is him juicing his time sheet, then the punch clock should fix that when hes hired. This guy more than likely needs his entire paycheck and needs all the hours he can get. If hes a hard worker and not slacking off, then thats better than having some dude who is constantly just milking the clock and underperforming their entire shift. I would sit them down again and give a final warning (3 strikes) but once again him manually having to clock in and out will fix the issue from the sounds of it.

I disagree. The real issue is that the guy cant be trusted. That doesnt go away just because youre sitting on him.

SunWuKung420 posted...

It's quite easy to pull stuff off the sales floor, claiming it's trash without it ever making it to a trash can or dumpster.

In which case if you notice a problem with more stuff spoiling than usual (which should show up under any competent inventory management practices), you can check camera footage to see who's removing allegedly spoiled stock but not taking it to the dumpster. If you're aware of the employee taking garbage home, you can also check the garbage they're taking to make sure it's actually spoiled.

There are excuses that sound nice on paper, but overwhelmingly the actual reason for stores not wanting people (employees or otherwise) to take defective stuff out of the garbage is that a lot of defective stuff is still useful, and getting something good enough for free from the garbage means they won't go into the store to buy something new. It's an artificial scarcity measure, disguised as loss prevention.

Glob posted...

I disagree. The real issue is that the guy cant be trusted. That doesnt go away just because youre sitting on him.

Yeah, unless there's an actual reason for fudging his sheets like this that you can address, he's pushing the envelope to see what he can get away with. The timesheet problem will go away when there are no timesheets, but you don't want an employee that you have to constantly keep an eye on to keep him from taking advantage of your good faith leniency. People who need to be micromanaged to keep them behaving well aren't worth employing.

Yeah, that's my logic. A guy like that will find other ways to steal time or if he can't he'll find other ways to slack off. But I also have other guys under me that know he's trying to do it so it sets a bad example if I hire him after all this

Also, to elaborate, he isn't a hard worker. He's passable, and in my experience, passable is better than 99% of who we get through temp agencies. I've had to wade through some crazies to get this dude. We could use another guy there, but I don't want to hire someone like that just because we could use another hand. I think even the others under me would rather me get rid of him at this point

Why are these two things diametrically opposed in your management style?

balancing being kind and respectful with making sure people are doing their job

Melody_JR posted...

Why are these two things diametrically opposed in your management style?

They're not... that's kinda my whole point even if the wording may not be perfect. The fact that I'm kind and respectful gets taken advantage of by some folks because sometimes it gets mistaken for being a doormat. Sometimes people fuck around and find out simply put