Honesty Is Still The Best Policy, But Seldom Seen In Business

I had a rather difficult experience yesterday.  My adult daughter called in tears saying she had been let go from a job that she loved.  I went right over and picked her up from her apartment and brought her home because she was devastated and her husband was on a 5 day underway.  She was only a couple of weeks into the job and had actually only worked a total of 8 days.  Each day she worked she was told how well she was doing.  She loved what she was doing and she had really come to like her co-workers.  She went in to start her shift and was a little confused when her employee stuff was gone.

Yes I understand that a company reserves the right within the probationary time period to decide an employee is not working out and I can respect that.  If my daughter had been given any indication that she was not working out or that there was a problem it would have been disappointing but not devastating.  Instead the manager pulled her into the office and explained that they were letting her go.  She proceeded to tell her why and it became really confusing at that point.  The reasons given were things that happened due to unclear policies about social media and an incident where a long time employee did not understand company policy and gave incorrect instructions to my daughter.  If either incident had been addressed prior to this meeting, things could have been easily corrected,  At the end of the meeting the manager proceeded to tell my daughter that she did nothing wrong.  So the question remains why was she let go?

If you think I am ranting because my daughter was let go, you would be wrong.  I am ranting because the employer was not honest in the reasoning behind the action.  We are thinking that the employer realized that she really didn't have a position to fill after all.  If that had been the reason given, that would have been understood.  I have been fired 3 times in my life and none of the reasons given were the real reason.  So why do employers feel they have to come up with lies in order to get rid of employees?  One place was a car dealership where the used car manager would call me babe.  I asked to have him use my name instead and I was fired the next day stating illegible handwriting as the reason and not giving messages to people in a timely manner.

Things happen in business as they do in life.  In the car dealership job it came down to a receptionist with grounds for a sexual harassment case vs a longtime used car manager.  Instead of dealing with the root of the problem they used a band-aid by getting rid of me.( I was the 3 person terminated from that position in 7 months)

I have seen so many dishonest business practices both as a customer and as an employee.  I have seen deceptive sales practices as others were training me in direct sales.  I have worked in a position where the owner went to jail and had his business sold just months after I left the company.

If businesses were honest with their customers and employees then I think that we would be in a much better place in our country.  People are willing to be understanding for the most part when things go wrong.  People do not want to be mislead as they are looking to do business.  Honesty in business will bring stronger success on a real foundation rather than a foundation built on lies and deception.