I was fired this week for “performance” without any prior written reprimands…only warnings that were sorted out civilly months ago. The main points cited at my termination were lateness and performance. I am salary and would occasionally be 1-3 minutes late to our morning meetings (most of the time meeting had not even started yet). One time my boss was visiting (works in another state for a different location) and I was 1 minute late for a meeting. They make a big deal about this because they think I was 10 minutes late (I know they were the one who misread the time because I checked my phone walking up to the meeting and it was only 1 minute past the meeting time). Tried to explain this and was immediately shut down. I had been warned twice by the manager leading the meetings and appearently my manager asked about lateness because of this incident and the other manager told him about those times I was late and confronted about it (I was 5 and 7 minutes late respectively). Said not to be late again or I would be written up with HR. 3 months later to today and I was never late again so HR was not involved at all. This was simply a warning with no official documentation, and was resolved following the warning. A few weeks ago they told me they've been asking around about my lateness and found out I was late to a mid day meeting. Explained to them that the meeting was scheduled last minute and I was out in the facility working on something and did not even get to see the notification until I returned to my desk. Said that that was an acceptable reason and the issue was closed and I was simply told to be more careful next time.
Next was the performance, which was really a matter of being set up to fail. I was given poor direction, recieved little actual mentorship (all but one of our engineers resigned and the one left was too busy to help me at all). I want to stress that this is my first actual full time job after graduation as an engineer…yet I received no real mentorship and half a dozen project on things I didn't even know how to do…yet I am complained to constantly about how my projects have not achieved any meaningful results…which is rediculous. I am in an entry level position…I cannot just be given the work of literal engineer 3's that have been in the industry for decades, given no direct mentorship, and then expected to deliver at the same speed and quality as these senior engineers. I can survive without mentorship, but that is going to take a long time of fumbling and learning before I can churn out results…and my manager clearly didn't understand that that's inevitable with an entry level person who just doesn't know all the ropes. This manager has complained to me a few times about not using him as a resource to learn, but there's an incident that made me not want to do that anymore. At one point they gave me a lead on a project, one that took months to follow because it involved a foreign supplier that needed additional large tooling from another country to follow this lead. Basically, 3 months later all the data is collected and it points out that what this manager said was the problem was never the problem. Then the following week I'm blamed for “wasting time chasing only one potential solution” when this manager has basically shot down any other ideas I had in favor of approaching it the way they wanted me to. Turned out to be kaput…and then it's my fault for wasting all this time. Like, if you're going to provide input and not only be wrong, but blame ME for wasting time and money doing the work YOU told me to do…then I'm not going to use you as a mentor…or even a reliable source of information for that matter, my manager or not.
That's probably the majority of the story. This manager never liked me personally either, which I believe is the reason I was even fired in the first place, and he is just conflating every little flaw he could find to try and make a case.
This is all to get to the point that when I was terminated I simply took my termination papers and walked out of the building…but thinking back on all this now I am curious if I have a case to recieve severance or if I should just settle for unemployment. At the end of the day none of my actions were formally reprimanded, and all were solved between me and this manager when they arose. I had no way of knowing my job was even in jeopardy (though I had been applying elsewhere for weeks now knowing this job was going nowhere fast). In all honesty this should have been a layoff with severance given the fact there was no write up or coaching, and this was mainly a matter of them needing someone more experienced to take this position. I tried to switch to a different position where I would be managed and working directly within the facility instead of a random corporate manager 6 states away….but was told they didn't have the money right now to add another position, and that I wasn't experienced enough (obviously) to take the place of the senior engineers that left. Said basically I was going to have to wait until they got approval to add an entry level engineering position for the facility. My then current manager was involved in this conversation behind closed doors, and I'm sure this request of mine pissed him off and, to be facetious, fired me before I could get any hope of transferring.
I was honestly just completely screwed over in this position. I can't look myself in the mirror and say I didn't do my best, but unfortunately I'm now unemployed regardless.
Do I have any potential recourse here? I feel like I have a case to go back and get some kind of severance (never actually signed anything). I'm not sure…but I'm trying to get all I can out of this. I've been in consistent employment since I was 16 and have never been terminated before, so I simply didn't know how to negotiate during a termination meeting.
Thanks for the help everyone….