Author: Olivia

How would you feel about a reciprocal contract with an employer that requires both sides to give a notice period to end employment. I'm likely to have my first employee soon, in trucking, and having an employee leave without notice could be very expensive, like anagram from ba few hundred to hundreds thousands, maybe even millions of dollars expensive. Under NORMAL circumstances: -The employee would be required to give 2 weeks notice, or have their remaining pay docked such that their last 2 weeks worked would be at minimum wage. Alternatively to docked pay, there could be any established payment the employee must give to the employer that could be enforced in court. -The employer would be required to similarly give 2 weeks notice of termination, and so long as the employee remains available they told be garunteed at least 2 weeks of pay. -If the employee gives notice, the…

“If you were offered more money to go to another job. Would you go?” It honestly shell shocked me. I thought it was a trick question. I'm still not convinced it wasn't. I looked him in the eye and said “yeah… I would, I honestly think it would be dumb not to… this place isn't close to where I live, I have a family to start… ” considering this guy hasn't engaged in any small talk / friendly conversation. I may have talked myself out of my job. Once he told me why he asked such a question “he was talking to the board members (read: his family) they were brainstorming ways to keep turnover low. So I just talked to him my own ideas about keeping staff. actually being involved in the business. (Helping us with the grunt work when its overwhelming or were understaffed) more money benifits setting…

Today I was fired. I had a feeling that something was up in the past few weeks. 5 years ago I signed on with a machine shop. I have 20 years experience in this field. I started on the floor, then moved to programming, then moved into a teaching position where I brought people from lower ranks into the machine shop and mentored them to become full fledged machinists. Several months ago HR discovered that I had a Linkedin profile and another on Indeed. I was confronted in a closed door meeting and informed that it was “unwritten company policy” to fire any employee suspected of looking for other work. I was told that I was an “exception” as I was considered leadership, so I was asked to make my profile invisible. Red flag #1. Fast forward several months and I was asked that the training manual (which I authored)…

On the news nowadays say that many industries are suffering a labour shortage, not enough people working various sectors from service to technical. My mom remarks, where did all the people go? Don’t they want to work? I said, well, maybe people aren’t happy with the working pay or conditions. She replied, so there are many people just sitting around doing nothing? Which made me think, what does a labour shortage mean when there are jobs to do, even if they may suck, versus people who are just out of work?