Lied about firing me.

[mwfritz]

I'm new to this board, so I have to get used to using it.

I worked for a company through a temp agency. The company made product for another company. This is a new product that is barely on the market. I got the job back in August and was aware that the product may fail, thus I may get laid off.

Last Friday, one by one my boss, the owner, called my co-workers in and they left after without a word. I was last, and was told the company stopped paying them so my boss had to lay us all off. I explained that I understood, and would love him to call me up if they change their mind and he needs me.

Today, I was in the area for a job interview, I stepped in to say "hi" and found all my co-worker's cars there. I stepped into the doorway, and simply said "I guess I came in at a bad time" and I left.

So it seems I was fired, but my boss lied about it. I never was given any warnings, and I was almost never late. ONCE, I came in 2 minutes late, before anyone was even started. But many of my co-workers are usually 15+ minutes late on a daily basis.

That Friday, they asked me if my ears were ringing. I asked what they meant by that, and they said it means people were talking about me. I said simply that I think the publicity was good for me. (Sarcastic.)

The whole process of sending everyone home one at a time took the last 2 hours of Friday. Why? My friend said this is a technique managers use to fire a "loose cannon." Thinking back, I felt like I was taking hostages, and they were being released one by one. I feel like I was really a victim of a conspiracy. I live in Arizona, thanks for the advice and suggestions.

I have more to say about all this, speculations and such, but it would take pages, so I will bring those things up if you ask.
--Mike

 

[cbg]

What makes you think anything illegal happened? For that matter, what makes you think anyone lied? You knew that the job was not guaranteed. If you were working through a temp agency and the others were employees of the company, it stands to reason that you would be the last one brought back, or not brought back if they didn't need everyone. Unless you had an employment contract saying so, you had no guaranteed right of rehire.

Unless you are leaving something out, I don't see anything illegal here.

 

[mwfritz]

I didn't think I mentioned anything illegal. I just wanted to know if it is a normal thing to be fired in such a way.

All my co-workers belong to the same temp agency. I understand that the contract said I may be terminated for no reason.

However, they are not the ones who terminated me, the company I worked at did. I also had no clue this was going to happen. I've had clashes with managers with previous places of employment, yet it never resulted in termination.

Why the lie? Why tell me he had to lay everyone off, when in fact he didn't? If you are going to fire someone, come out with it. Don't mis-represent yourself.

I have been fired before when I gave two weeks notice. At least then I knew I was fired, because in that case, I did get a phone call not to return to work. I wasn't told the whole company folded or lost a major contract.
--Mike

 

[cbg]

Again, how do you know it was a lie? How do you know that they weren't laid off and then called back?

 

[mwfritz]

It would take awhile to explain. I had been there a longest out of those of us who were "laid off". Sure, that's doesn't mean anything, except, if I had been there so long, then the boss liked my work.

If it was a layoff, the standard way to do it was to gather everyone together and explain the situation. This is how it worked at my previous job, that way the employees could network and help each other with employment.

There are other things I should not get into. I just realized them by putting 2 and 2 together. If I had figured it out sooner, I wouldn't have posted my message here. I was treated unfairly, and I believe I know why.
--Michael

 

[cbg]

Different companies handle things differently. In my company when we had to lay people off, we told them individually too. We felt that this way everyone had a chance to absorb the situation in private. There's no one right or wrong way to do it.

There were people we laid off whom we liked and whose work we liked, but we didn't bring them back because the projects they had been working on weren't the ones where we needed the additional people. There are a lot of factors that go into making that kind of decision, and there's no way you're going to be able to make everyone happy.

I understand that you feel it was unfair, and perhaps it was. However, being fair to you might have resulting in being unfair to someone else. There are just too many factors.

Unless you have reason to believe that you were let go for an illegal reason, your best move would probably be just to let this go and move on to your next assignment. Dwelling on it isn't going to help.

I wish you well.

 

[mwfritz]

If any sort of litigation should come of this, I should record it just in case. I believe I know what really happened. I makes sense really, it had nothing to do with me actually. I don't know if what really happened is illegal or not.

But I do have a question I didn't ask before, if I work through a temp agency, aren't they the ones who should let me go? I've never heard it any other way. In the past, this is how this boss handled employees who were late a lot. He simply called the temp agency and told them he didn't need them anymore.
--Michael

 

[cbg]

It's standard to do it through the temp agency, but as long as both the employee and the agency are notified it's not required that it be done that way. There've been a couple of times when for one reason or another I've notified the temp directly. It's all dependent on company culture and the specific situation.

Now you've got me curious - why do you think you were fired?