4 ms·
Why is it not a legitimate cause for firing that an employees can't fit in socially amongst the other employees and take part in company functions? Companies ha
by PKop 5y ago
Why is it not a legitimate cause for firing that an employees can't fit in socially amongst the other employees and take part in company functions? Companies have all sort of annoying requirements and tasks employees must do, how is this one different? Isn't company culture a thing many find necessary to uphold? Maybe birthday parties are part of this company's culture.
One might say it's not necessary to the job, but is this true? Social events and employee camaraderie are arguably necessary to a well functioning workplace. I'm not even arguing that parties are necessary but that a company can decide for themselves if they are no? And that if someone is so uncomfortable taking part then perhaps they don't belong at the company.
Why is it a legitimate expectation that a company and its employees must accommodate your problems to such a degree?
- betwixthewires 5y agoIn the US, the americans with disabilities act requires workplaces to provide reasonable accommodation for disabilities. They're not required to hire you if you're incapable of doing your job as per it's description, and they're not required to accommodate to an unreasonable degree. Not throwing someone a birthday party sounds like a perfectly reasonable accommodation. Beyond that, people have to push back at those annoying requirements. Should a company be allowed to have whatever requirements it wants to have? Should I? Do we belong to them?
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoThey fit in fine, as far as job functions are concerned. It's explicitely not ok for 'social fit' to be a firing offence, isn't it? That's another word for "Not our kind of person" which opens an ugly door. Parties targeting one person are so, so problematic. Nobody asked anybody to 'accomodate' this person. They asked to be left alone, which is literally zero accomodation.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> explicitely not ok for 'social fit' to be a firing offence, isn't it? Most employment is at will. That permits firing someone for not being a good fit. (You can't define "fit" however you feel. But someone not getting along with their colleagues and not responding to feedback would generally be fireable for it.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dijksterhuis 5y agoCourt docs said ... > When the company threw him a lunchtime party against his wishes, it triggered a panic attack and he left abruptly to spend his break in his car. Four days later, after his office managers confronted him about his reaction to the party, he was fired from the Northern Kentucky company Julie Brazil, the founder and [COO] said ... > My employees de-escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible while removing his access to the building, alerting me and sending out security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what they were supposed to do, we have a zero-tolerance policy and we stand by our decision to terminate the plaintiff for his violation of our workplace violence policy. The plantiff's lawyer said ... > I believe (he) was so happy and relieved that the jury recognized that he was not some violent and menacing person and that it was not okay for Gravity Diagnostics to just assume that he was without any evidence to support those misconceptions. So the case seems less about > @manager please can we not have a birthday party for me please and more about the > @employee you're fired for being violent even though we do not have evidence to back this statement up ... Whole article smells to me like the company blaming the employee for something he warned them about anyway, but that's just my opinion.