You filled out that leave of absence wrong-You're FIRED!

[Bright_Star]

A friend of mine who had been working at Wal-Mart for many years got fired for the dumbest thing I ever heard of. She was the main cashier for the cigs register. She generally liked her job & was good at what she did.
So she filled out a leave of absence & was off work for a few weeks. When she came back she was told that she had filled it out wrong & was therefore FIRED!
Everybody who heard about that was stunned. What's next? Being fired cause you chew your gum too loud?
She's planning on suing Wal-Mart.

[CaroPhoenix]

Ummm ... no one in the head office could have called her up and said "Look, your LOA is filled out wrong, could you come back and re-fill it out or could we fax it somewhere and have you send it back corrected?"?

WTH is wrong with the Wal-Mart people!?

[Becks]

That's horrible!!!

[powerboy]

Talk about wrongful termination

[Jester]

It's Wal-Mart.

Is anyone REALLY all that surprised by this?

[Geek King]

It's Wal-Mart.

Is anyone REALLY all that surprised by this?

I am.

It seems like Wal-Mart has either great managers, or terrible ones. I've talked to people from the local Wally World, and they love the place (the place, not the customers. They all say the customers suck...). Then we get stories like this, or some others on this site.

Still, this a fairly low bit of management.

[Boozy]

I'm notoriously anti-Walmart, and I don't doubt they treat their workers poorly in many cases, but this seems a bit odd to me.

Are they not desperate for people? Every Walmart I've ever heard of is hiring, all the time. Why would they fire someone over something so trivial? Even if they don't have problems hiring staff, its very expensive to replace a good, fully-trained worker with a new untrained one.

There is more to this story, I think.

[sld72382]

FWIW if said person lives in a "work at will" state that can fire her for any reason, even if it's a sucky reason like that. And she can't sue for wrongful termination because the store can make up something like, "we caught her stealing."

[ShinyGreenApple]

I tried to fill out an LOA for Wal-Mart last November, because my Mom's brother wasn't doing well and we wanted to go see him. Mind you, I hadn't seen him in over 15 years. I was sitting in the personnel office, filling out the stuff, when the SM spotted me, went bug-eyed, and left the room. SM is the only person whose signature can approve an LOA. I finish the papers, and suddenly he's become very elusive. I can't find him anywhere! Personnel also refuses to page him for me and only says to "Try looking for him in the stockroom!"

I rounded the store a few times, and still no SM. I decided I was not going to play games like this with a man twice my age who probably made at least 4 times as much as me. I dropped the papers in the box with a note attached saying that it was urgent and I could not wait around for him any longer.

When I returned, I had been terminated. I've been told I was rehireable, but they never did call me back about the apps I filled out later.


A former coworker of mine was asked if she could come in and work on her day off at a certain time. She said she could come in, but it would be later than the time they asked for because she was taking classes at the time. She showed up 'late' on her day off, and that's right, was terminated.

Yet another was fired for missing too many days, even though she could prove it was from difficulties she had with her diabetes. She threatened them, and they let her come back to work.

Yet another guy who worked overnights, had been there for nearly two years, was fired because one of the noobs went to management saying that he had sexually harassed her. I knew this guy; he lives just down the road from us. He was very friendly, but he would not do something like this. He told me that he only asked if she and her mother would like to go out to a restaurant with him and his mother. She said for him to never speak to her or come near her again

He was canned and put on the Do Not Hire list.

Another woman was out of work for a week because her six year old was in the hospital coughing up blood. Again, fired.

Sadly, I could go on and on with stories of very decent people getting the boot from the smiley face place, while the ones who never show up on time, don't do any work, and take two hour lunches still remain, much to the annoyance of their coworkers and customers alike.

[ArenaBoy]

You're all going to find this unusual (It's the Wal-mart founder FFS.) but I read this in an interview with Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart many years ago.

TIME: When you see a stray cart in say a Target parking lot do you do something to the cart?

Walton: No, I put the cart back, working in retail is hard as it is and they don't need the frustration.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

FWIW if said person lives in a "work at will" state that can fire her for any reason, even if it's a sucky reason like that. And she can't sue for wrongful termination because the store can make up something like, "we caught her stealing."

Really? Wouldn't they then have to prove it with videotape or eyewitness testimony?

They may be able to fire a person for any reason, but I don't think they can get away with making an allegation that will harm the former employee when trying to find another job.

Now as for the OP's friend, either there is more to the story that's not known or being told, or friend ended up on some manager's shit list and they were looking for any reason to get rid of her. They may have the right to do that, but unless there's a good solid reason it isn't the right thing to do.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I got a job at 19 helping to set up and brand new Wal-mart in our little town. They hired a bunch of part time and a bunch of full time people. We all worked our butts off to have the store open before Christmas.

The day after Christmas a bunch of us went in to work and found out that they had terminated every single part time employee. Over a hundred of us, no warning, no nothing. It was really weird. When we were hired nobody told us "This is a temporary job, just until we open and get past Christmas." Nothing. One girl was very upset and wanted to talk to the store manager and he refused to speak to her, and had her escorted out of the store and told her she was never allowed back in. She was crying, but not throwing a fit or anything. It was just really strange.

[Gurndigarn]

You're all going to find this unusual (It's the Wal-mart founder FFS.) but I read this in an interview with Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart many years ago.

Quote:
TIME: When you see a stray cart in say a Target parking lot do you do something to the cart?

Walton: No, I put the cart back, working in retail is hard as it is and they don't need the frustration.

Yeah, but that was back when Sam Walton was alive. Wal Mart has changed since he died, for the worse. I'm not saying that there weren't abuses before, but that was usually local management acting out of line. Now the corporation is being run by desk jockeys who don't have any real retail experience, and you can see how the place is changing. I expect that before I'm dead, it will have followed the KMart path and be the place that people actively avoid.

[ShinyGreenApple]

They have actually hired one of the former bigwigs of KMart. My store always referred to him as "Stormin' Norman". Since he 'joined the team', the store has gone even more downhill than ever before.

Wal-Mart hasn't been in the control of the Walton family for a very long time

[Broomjockey]

The day after Christmas a bunch of us went in to work and found out that they had terminated every single part time employee. Over a hundred of us, no warning, no nothing. It was really weird.

Here in Alberta, that's illegal, as they not only have to notify the employees, they have to notify the government that so many people are going to be out of a job.