“The boss is a jerk. I dread coming to work every day. I’m treated unfairly. Everyone else gets better treatment than I do. My pay stinks, and my company’s paid-time-off policy leaves much to be desired. I should sue!”
The Daily Mail had an article this week about “the moment [employees] started hating their jobs,” based on a Reddit discussion thread entitled “What work moment made your attitude go from proud employee to ‘I’m just here for the paycheck’?” Some of the anecdotes are pretty bad, but of course, we don’t get to hear the employers’ side of the story. (Dear Reddit: how about a thread on “What work moment made you go from World’s Best Boss to wanting replace all of your employees with robots”?), but it’s always interesting to see what people say about where they work.
What evil lurks in the hearts of your employees? The Shadow knows!
Here are some of the Reddit posts (you can click to enlarge):
Uh-oh. That violates the Fair Labor Standards Act, and probably applicable state wage and hour laws. Not cool.
“Very evil!”
Here’s another:
Micromanaging is not against the law, but a boss who makes employees this unhappy is likelier to be the target of a lawsuit — along with her employer. On the other hand, employees will go out of their way to give the benefit of the doubt to a boss who respects them and treats them as colleagues.
These folks seem to agree:
This next one is nice (not). “$7.25 an hour doesn’t grow on trees!”
Heh.
Is it unfair, or is it illegal? I can see it both ways.
Then we have the dreaded favoritism:
Favoritism or nepotism aren’t illegal. The VP can promote his daughter if he wants to. But employers should still be careful because perceptions of unfairness – even “legal” unfairness – can destroy morale and result in charges and lawsuits.
The Shadow knows!
This last one is just funny:
LOL!
. . . AND ALSO OF INTEREST . . .
Even if you’re not a safety geek, you’ll want to read about the lawsuit recently filed by the U.S. Department of Labor against U.S. Steel. What did U.S. Steel do wrong? It required employees to “immediately” report their workplace injuries and illnesses, and disciplined them if they didn’t. The horror! Our OSHA Practice Group heads, Bill Principe and Pat Tyson, have the full story including the method to the agency’s madness, assisted by David Phippen and head of our Workers’ Compensation Practice Group, Eric Proser.
Image Credits: Orson Welles as The Shadow from Wikimedia Commons (public domain). All others from flickr, Creative Commons license: Blue silhouette by Nick Page; vase and faces by Jeff Golden; shadow puppet (it’s a goat, btw) by Double-M.
