Last summer my oldest son got a job at a famous sub shop famous for a certain length sub. At first he seemed fine and happy with the job. Slowly he started missing shifts with valid reasons that I didn't think twice. Not too many. The most he missed was when he tested positive for covid after exposure at school. He did everything right by testing and reporting the results to his manager. That's when everything started going to sh*t real fast. I didn't know at the time but a new manager had been hired not long before that. She was the only manager. Not sure how the store managed before but it did. After she came on my son seemed to become very withdrawn, snappish, and unhappy. We didn't make any connections because he was 17 and ripe for mood swings. So his little sister(15) applied and also got hired. They weren't on the same shifts because of being family which was understandable. But after the first 2 days my daughter told me the new manager was badmouthing her brother to her constantly and it was making her uncomfortable. I told her to ignore it because I honestly didn't know better advice(had it happen myself with a friend but my solution was finding a better job which she wouldn't entertain). Next day my son came home an hour into his shift. The manager sent him home because she thought he was disrespectful. My son is on the autism spectrum so I immediately knew she misinterpreted something. Thats when i made a mistake by trying to intervene. I tried calling the DM to ask if it was commonplace to be impatient with employees on the spectrum but unfortunately my son had given me the wrong number. He gave me the manager's number. I tried so hard to be respectful but she made it hard by insulting my son and defending it because she had a child on the spectrum. The way she talked I highly doubt that's the case and if it is that poor child has a terrible mother that doesn't understand them. I did eventually get a hold of the DM next day and she defended the manager by trying to say my son had been written up multiple times. My son was only aware of 1 sit down conversation about how he could be faster but she claimed there were 5. At that point I knew they were lying so I said my son wouldn't be coming back. His mental health is more important. He was a minor at that time and I valued his high school education above that job. I never said anything about my daughter. She voiced no issues other than the behind the back talk so I felt it was her choice to stay or not. Unfortunately she came home the day after that conversation saying she was fired for not learning the job fast enough. This was her 4th or 5th scheduled day, max 15 hours.
Well fast forward 9ish months. We found out that manager got fired suspiciously around the time that a negative customer review popped up on Google about witnessing her screaming at teen employees and making customers uncomfortable(not me i made my negative reviewages before). My daughter reapplied but ultimately decided to turn down an interview after she realized the same DM is in charge. She has friends who still work there so that's how we found out.
I could have handled it better but I don't feel sorry for defending my son who was a minor. We had a talk so he knows his rights from now on. I also did warn my daughter against working in the same place as her brother. She knows not to work on the same place again. So hopefully this was a learning experience for everyone. But I forever will never spend a dime at that place again.
I don't think the state laws are on our side for anything about retaliation or discrimination. I believe we're a right to work state. It'd be a difficult lawsuit if we pursued it and we can't afford a lawyer.