Elderly woman evicted, jailed days before birthday

NY Post ^ | December 14, 2017 | Joshua Rhett Miller

[jimnm]

Me too. It sounds like she just didn’t want to be helped and is a difficult person.

At my previous company, I ended up in a similar situation to you and this played out 138 times over a year. I really wasn’t comfortable at first and felt sorrow for the workers/families but it was a situation where these people knew the rules and refused to abide by them. I had taken over a really disfunctional division and they were all people hiding and sleeping on night shift (and a few on day shift). This was really impacting the company’s performance and I was on the line now too. It took about 4 months for it to slow to a trickle, ie, they started working. The company turned around and the remaining (and new) people who were working kept their jobs.

I ended up getting numb to the excuses and started enjoying it since every time I got rid of one and replaced them with a person who wanted to work we visibly did better. I’m a very sympathetic person so I was conflicted and ended up leaving when I found a better position elsewhere but I can’t sympathize for lazy, incompetent workers anymore.

I do think about their families from time to time since it was a place where finding other work is very difficult but it’s on their loved ones, not on me.

[xrmusn]

It makes not a whit of difference that this event occurred days from her birthday, or just before Christmas
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Used to be a ‘big debate’ when it came to laying off or firing employees (Asphalt Co in Northern Virginia)
We used to shut down just before Thanksgiving and open up around Apr 1 with Supervisors and Operators paid for ‘working’ around the office, plant and shop.
If County need ‘emergency’ repair the Sups and Ops were manning the shovels and equipment during the ‘down time’.

We ran into a period where weather stayed good and we almost worked year around...

The question of when to fire someone was always tricky.
If you
‘fired’ or let go from
Sep - Nov, the excuse was ‘I paid for a big summer vacation thinking I had a job’.

Dec - Feb, I wouldn’t have spent all that on Christmas.

Mar-Jun - You are firing me when I can’t get another job as no one is hiring new at this time.

Jun-Sep - If I would have know you were going to fire me I would have taken that job with ????????

SO, there is NEVER a ‘good time’ to fire someone on THEIR TERMS... Just do it and don’t look back.

MY strategy was to pay them as soon as possible after firing. (Which ‘my people’ balked at saying ‘they’ would use that as an excuse to get paid early. MY comment to that was... Fine, Just don’t hire them back)

Let them go off and get something else, don’t give them a week or so to stew, then show up and looking for check with an ‘attitude’, GET THEM AWAY FROM YOUR BUSINESS ASAP.
If possible give a ‘fair’ reference when someone inquires about them...

Since the era I am talking about it is ‘against the law’ to give a ‘bad reference’ or talk in cryptic terms about their time with you.

Again, you want them ‘hired’ by others to get them OFF your unemployment roles....(for the most part UE was paid no matter the circumstances...I guess mostly because a company didn’t want to ‘shut down’ for a day so witnesses could ‘testify’ at the hearing)

The BIG BAD CORPS are ALWAYS wrong when it comes to employees complaints......or so it seems.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks EinNYC.

she refused to leave her home after being evicted

She's 94. She wants to be at home. There are better ways to handle this. In fact, this isn't about helping her, so it's probably about $$$.

[generally]

Great points.

One thing people don’t consider is that a poor employee is taking the job of someone who could do better. No one ever remembers to have sympathy for the unemployed person who will now be able to move into the vacant job.

BTW, all those excuses you listed indicate to me that the person is a poor planner. If you are living paycheck to paycheck and spending money you haven’t yet made, without an emergency savings account, then I also question whether you are smart enough to be a good employee.