Holistic Employment Considerations

This entry was originally posted at Roaming Seattlite. For more information see Uh, the other blog..

I think one of the things that really bugs me about being fired from Starbucks is that I was fired under a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. Specifically a rule regarding punctuality.

One of the things I have come to firmly believe from both my experiences in the workplace and from my academic work around managing employees is that people’s individual needs and differences should be reasonably accommodated, while also taking into account their relative contribution to the organization. Thats a kind of fancy way of saying that you should treat people as individuals not automatons.

So for the sake of fairness here is a summary of the three incidents where I was late:

1. I was scheduled to open the store at 4:45 AM Saturday morning with the Assistant Manager. I did my usual where I set three alarms as usual. (One light set to go on, my clock radio alarm, and my cell phone alarm.) I woke up for no reason at all around 1:30 AM and went back to sleep about 2:00 AM, wanting to get as much rest as possible. I awoke late at 4:50 AM, and immediately got dressed and got in my car and sped to the store to open. I didn’t call anyone because I didn’t have the assistant store manager’s cell phone number. (Although, I did have her home phone number I didn’t use it because she should not have been at home.) I arrived at 5:05 AM and immediately got to work getting the store open. We opened on time with everything mostly in place. So the net effect was that the store saved 20 minutes of labor, gave the assistant manager some unnecessary stress, and a policy was violated.
2. This time I just was late in getting going after waking up. I called in advance to let the manager know I was going to be late, and I was 11 minutes late. There is no additional explanation for this lateness.
3. The final time I had a DSL installer scheduled to arrive between 12 noon to 4 PM. I had picked up a shift from another employee from 4:45 PM to 9:30 PM on the same day, not realizing the scheduling overlap. (The only reason the shift was available was because another employee had no called no showed and was terminated.) Once I realized this, I considered the situation and realized it would be tight, but it should be doable. The DSL installer arrived around 3:10 PM and began his work. While he was doing his work I received a call from the store asking me to come in early. I told the shift supervisor that I had the DSL installer here at the moment, but as soon as he was done I would be on my way. I changed my clothing in the restroom while the DSL installer was working, and followed him out the door at about 4:15 PM. This should have been plenty of time to drive however I-90, the route that I use, was unusually congested. I kept an eye on the clock, and still believed there was a possibility that I would be able to get to work on time. When it got to the time I was supposed to arrive I called the store to let the shift know that I was running late, and that I would arrive in three or four minutes. (I didn’t call earlier because I knew they were busy, and any shift supervisor who is running their shift on 4 minute tolerances really needs to do a better job, I know I was a shift supervisor.) So I arrived at about 4:51, six minutes past the time I was supposed to. Additionally the shift supervisor had started a timer when she spoke to me and I arrived about 3 minutes and 40 seconds after we spoke. So this time I was late because I failed to anticipate unusually heavy traffic.)

So in total I was 37 minutes late over a period of two months. Admittedly this isn’t the best performance. But I’ve omitted several times where I stayed late, came in early, and performed other tasks that went above and beyond what was expected of me.

Although I do understand this from a cultural preservation perspective, I believe when considering this from a holistic perspective I don’t think this ultimately was an appropriate decision. The employee who goes above and beyond is penalized for three slip ups.