Just needs some clarification

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? ny

I read that some of the examples of misconduct are:
Insubordination or not following an employer's instructions:
Failure to follow an employer's instructions can be misconduct. However, merely not getting along with a supervisor is not misconduct. Neither is your "emphatic" insistence on discussing a situation, if your insistence is done in good faith and without hot-tempered remarks, threats, or insolence without provocation.

After finding out about all of the stuff mentioned below, My sister and I were on our personal computer, using our personal emails to talk over a google documents chat that the team usually used. It was after hours, no one was on, and we didn't know they were recording it.

Obviously we are irrate becasue at this point we are trying to figure out how we are going ot manage these impossible work loads. (explained below) My sister states:

"I wish Sarah would bitch at me for taking harder work and leaving easy work". (Which if you read what I wrote below we are allowed to do.) It goes on to us discussing how we are going to do this without help from the team and skipping a folder here and there. We never at all say that we won't follow the order given to us.

When we were let go, they used the conversation against us. The HR representative I am sure was only given half the truth and wasn't informed about the rest (everything I mention below). All she saw is that my sister was purposely skipping a folder. Which means our team leader must of told her that we are not allowed to skip any folders. However, I have the emails stating otherwise and that email was only sent to me and not my sister.

They are claiming it is insubordination. The Hr person goes on to say that they are not using it against us and tells us we can collect unemployment, but then later says us an email saying we were let go for not following a supervisors orders, and not working as a team.

In you professional opinion if they try to deny our unemployment claim do you think we have enough to protect ourselves.




Specific details below.
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I had grivences which were never addressed. I have emails of me going back and forth with my supervisor. We were taking normally about how some co-workers deliberatly do not listen to emails sent by the team leaders. We both clearly state how it is unfair for me since they are causing me to have to handle work loads that normally I would not have to do, and couldn't responsibly finish on my own. This was becasue I worked a shift directly after them. She spoke to our department supervisor he said he isn't to worried about it becasue he feels everyone skips hard images and that he would create a system to try to make it more fair. (He never created said system)

No one else really had this issue becasue I alwasy did my job, and I usually ended up covering all of my work plus all of the hard work the co-workers before me would leave behind. I have this stated in email as well.

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My supervisor stated in email that since I was finishing not only my hard work but hard work left by co-workers (And I was doing double the amount of work of them) that when done I could offset it by taking some of the easier work.

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I get an email from my supervisor saying that I could no longer skip any hard work becasue it is unfair to the team. We worked in a team of 4 and was suppose to help each other out. So in this situation: Not only am I doing double the work, but I had to now take work loads in exact order no matter what they were, regardless of the fact that I may not be able to responsibly finish that work load.

Normaly this wouldn't be a problem BUT.

My sister and I were the only ones with strict set daily quota that we had to make everyday. Everyone else could fluctuate and no one else had to take straight work loads like this. They were allowed to just take one folder finish it then take another.. and another. They would help each other out by sliptting work folders and making sure that none of them got caught with an impossible work load

~~~They were doing 30-60 folders a day - which equates to about 200-600 images. We were doing 70-80 folders a day (Which had only recently been dropped to include as low as 70) - which equates to 600-800 images a day period, and keep in mind we had to do all the hard folders that came up in a straight line of 5-8 folders - co workers didn't have to.
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Here's my understanding of your problem:

You and your sister had some guidelines to follow that you think were unfair. You had a documented monitored conversation, online, that your employer had access to, where you and your sister complained about your employer and the instructions you were given. You were both fired following that conversation. And now you want to know if you will qualify to receive unemployment benefits.

File for unemployment. They will consider your claim, along with any information they receive from the employer. It is impossible for any of us to know if your claim will be approved because we are not privy to the details of your termination. It is not up the HR department at the former employer whether or not you collect unemployment - it's up to the department of labor in your state. If your former employer chooses not to contest your claim, then your chances of collecting unemployment compensation are good.

And if you are going to complain about your employer in the future - be careful who you complain to - and who else can hear (or read) you!

Good luck.

No you have that absolutely ALL wrong, which proves that you didn't read my post carefully.

So let me make it simplier for you.

YES! I was given an order from my supervisor to not skip hard folders.

Did we skip the hard folders? NO

Did we talk about skipping the hard folders? NO

DiD we talk about taking the hard folders as instructed and there fore leaving behind the easier folders for our co-workers? YES

Is that we then did? YES

Did we complain? Depends on how you look at it. If you consider us trying to work out strategies as to how we will get nearly two days worth of work (EACH!) done in one.. complaining .. then yes.


You sit down at a computer and try to somhow look through, edit, retouch, crop, and color corect 600-800 badly photographed images (most of the time more) in one day, and be told they had to be perfect.

At the same time your co-workers are only requires to do 200-600 images (pushing it).Then you are ordered to do ALL of the hard work and leave them easy ones.

And do this every day, see how much sleep you get. Though I am sure that is unfair asking that of you, since you might not be able to do such work.. so trust my word when I say that what they asked of us was impossible.

AND no I am not inflating the situation. We have documented email conversation PROOF that she worked from 2am- 2pm with no sleep and 3 hours towards breaks and meal periods combined. What happened when she was ready to go to sleep. She got an email threatening her job if she didn't continue working. She complained baout being sick during all this as well. the next day had to go the doctor for breathing problems and was given a pump and a note not to work for 2 days.

AND yes when they gave us these orders, we were already doing nearly twice the work of our other co-workers.

This is not he said she said. I am not making this up. I have the EMAILS, I have the spread sheets.

So actually.. I think we handled our situation very well. despite knowing it was unfair, and not liking it, we did it.. and broke our damn backs (figurtavily speaking) doing it. And never once talked or expressed any intention in not doing it.

(We didn't have time to stop and eat.. we worked and ate at the same time to makes these impossoble numbers

Excuse any typos, to upset to look though it.

janimal, please read the poster's previous threads.

Was hoping that Commentator (our resident expert on all things unemployment) would chime in here.

Come to think of it, where IS Commentator? On vacation? Haven't seen her in a while.

Actually I want to apologize to him. I didn't read his full post and spazzed. He had the situation wrong... and I stopped reading.

My apologies.

I know I keep asking question, but I am not going to lie. I am dumbfounded to most of the law.

I know that if they tell the truth this is the WORSE incident they have on us. The only other being me trying to plead with my superioir that she was reporting false accusation of my work. (all documented becasue we weren't allowed to communicate any other way.)

AND since I am dumbfounded.. I wanted to know if such incidents could be used against. Luckily for us we have every conversation documented.

Probably not. At best, "complaining" about working conditions with other employees is protected under the National Labor Relations Act.