I worked for Sprit Halloween for the past three seasons and this season they decided to terminate me. Why? Well to start, I already started off on the wrong foot. My previous DM had talked down about me to my new DM and Zone Manager so they already didn’t like the looks of me, even if my sales were through the roof. Regardless I get a store and immediately started being singled out. I wasn’t allowed to talk to people during build, I couldn’t voice my opinion in my own store and it got to the point where asking for help led to “figure it out” or “make it work.”
I’m not too sure how strict they are on policy and taking legal action on termination but basically one day my DM came in and had me on the phone with Loss Prevention who sugar coated this whole ordeal before saying “I ask these questions because you’re actually being ran under investigation” which was no surprise honestly, I knew I was doing things “wrong” in the store and when I mentioned them he kind of laughed and mentioned something completely different from what I thought.
One point was me being unable to take my deposits daily, which I get but id end up taking them by myself (which you’re not supposed to do) or come in on my days off to do them even though my DM was very adamant on me not working Tuesdays and thursdays so she could use those days to take them. She never did.
The second point I knew better. I started working a second job. It was a remote job, I could take my laptop with me but it overlapped with my hours at spirit. No, I’m not supposed to use company time like that but it’s not like I sat on my laptop for hours. I still ran my store, I’d hop on my laptop for about 15 minutes to work and spend a good 45 minutes in my store. Mind you my store at the time opened at 11a, I didn’t finish my remote job till 2p. I’d clock out an hour early on those days. I’m aware I can’t do what I did but I also asked for a compromise, that I don’t mind working everyday if it meant I still hit my 40hrs but as a store manager I know we’re supposed to open.
Regardless of that, I feel as though I wasn’t give a chance to speak as this morning I got the call that my DM and Zone decided to terminate my employment. I asked why haven’t they gone through the process of a write up or warning and it was immediately termination and she said “We just don’t do that because we don’t have to”
A lot of employees in my district don’t think it’s fair, a lot do them agree we’re being treated poorly but the biggest part to me is knowing that everything was going fine but if an employee steals or caused a disruption then they would be sat down and talked to then it’ll be decided if they’re terminated. In my case there was no talk to anyone really. I just want to know if this was actually fair considering what I did or they didn’t give me a chance ?