2) I bet the sanctimonious old fart would have a helluva time if he 'accidentally' fell down a flight of stairs at his age, wouldn't he? 
Sometimes, you just have to be the catalyst for history to unfold the way it should.
Posted on 05/10/2010 2:21:26 PM PDT by LowOiL
Today I was fired because "I wasn't a team player" and "didn't fit in". I worked for an eccentric "Christian" man in his 70's, I myself am Christian also. I will call the owner "Old Mac" for simplicity.
The place I worked as an mechanic was in a fabric mill (no more detail is needed, you know how hard the textile industry has been hit lately). The majority of the mill is illegals and some legals (from Mexico and Guatemala), with about a 30% other population of mostly white fixers and managers.
I worked a second shift and had only met "old Mac" casually before. Stories of his strange behavior ran deep but I never believed them before. Stories of how "old Mac" once saw a fellow on the loading docks lounging around and didn't like it, so he walked up to him and asked him how much he made and was answered XXX per week. Mac calculated the amount in his head, paid the fellow cash and said he was fired. The fellow took the money and left and Mac later found out he didn't even work there, he was just a delivery man.
Anyhoo... my story is one night "old Mac" came in at lunch time (we work 8 and 1/2 hours a day, 30 minutes are suppose to be lunch time and he does not pay us for it). I used to go to my truck and eat lunch in the cab in the parking lot. I would "allow" the "illegals" to go outside too since it was their lunch time too. I didn't see there was any problem, since he wasn't paying them. Old Mac came in and was furious, he did not want "little Mexico" outside his doors and that they were in the mill and he could be fined XXX amount of dollars. They were not in the mill, but they could be he reasoned. I was flabbergassed, I couldn't believe he was doing this. He often ran the air system so the illegals could run their machines during their "lunchtime" but any work they did was not time and a half pay like the law requires. Also us fixers (me and another fellow) were expected to repair the machines during our "lunchtime" and not being paid for it.
I asked "old Mac" if he owned us during the time that he was not paying us, he slowly looked at me and said I was "not being a team player" and that "it set a bad example for the Mexicans" at lunchtime and that they were NOT allowed to go outside whatsoever.
I told "Old Mac" that it was not right to keep me his "slave" during the time he was not paying me. He grumbled off and today I was told I was fired. I was handed my paycheck for the last week and told to leave. I argued that he was not "Christian" what he was doing and that I would bring up the subject to his church on Sunday.
I went to get my supplies and tools and booklets and say bye to everyone and as I left the back door I smelled tire smoke. A police officer had just tore into the parking lot and was waiting close to where I was parked. I guess "old Mac" had called the police on me. I never said a curse word, I never even called him anything more than "Sir". I was Christian about the whole affair, but I was not ran over by him like he wanted me to be.
My question fellow Christian Freepers is this... What is the precedence (protocol) for presenting my case to his church. I do not belong to his church (Baptist) but I am a fellow Baptist of a neighboring church. I have read before somewhere that I am allowed to address their church elders and then I am allowed to address the church next if that fails. I have talked to their pastor (nice fellow) and he said actually I had no Biblical right to talk to their church in that manner since I was not a member.
I seek godly knowledge from fellow freepers.
Please.
Go ask the boss for your job back, if you need it to feed yourself and family. Submit to his authority. Pray for a door to be opened elsewhere; search for the grace and lesson in this trial. Be patient: wait.
That is biblical too, he is not rendering unto Caesar Obama.
Sorry to hear this happened to you, but if you live in an ‘employment at will’ state, there’s not much that counts as being fired ‘wrongly’. Unless you’re in a union in one of those states, your employer can fire you for any reason at all. Doesn’t like what color your shoes are? Fired. I would take everyone’s suggestions, however, and do whatever it takes to turn him in for hiring illegal aliens. Frankly, however, I’d have done so long ago. I hope you find another job soon!
I sometimes wonder why the Lord would want to put me in a place with so many poor examples. Two ways to look at it. Are they supposed to be supporting me in my walk? That seems unlikely. Perhaps my real job is to be supporting, uplifting and setting an example for them? Thinking of it that way helps when I get frustrated with some of them.
I know this advice doesn't help in the situation you're in now, but you'll probably encounter the problem again. Good luck!
Alabama, No I am not a union member.
“Some of my worst injustices have come at the hands of fellow Christians or those who just like to play “church””
Same here.
Don’t go the church route. Two reasons:
1. Your motive is that you are wounded and you want to strike back. I don’t think this meets the criteria that you find in the book of James about confronting a brother.
2. You will look bad in front of potential employers (the folks at Ol Mac’s church.)
I feel you pain. I can share similar stories to yours. If you want to strike back, report his dealings to the government. But your time is better spent seeking a wonderful new job that I’m praying to God right now for you to receive. Your going to trust God through this tough time. He is going to be more real and more precious to you than He has ever been.
Call DHS and force him to pay market wages to citizens.
Instead of going to his church, get together with one or two of your Mexican former coworkers (to interpret for you), go down to their church (yeah, they actually do have them you know), and organize them against him for better working conditions/wages. Turn them loose on him. Hit him in the pocketbook... In spite of his Christian rhetoric, it's obviously all he cares about.
You let them know what they can do if they organize, and they'll fix him. Then, turn 'em Conservative.
I wouldn’t ask for his job back? It’s not a pride thing but he’s worked for a man who has MAJOR character flaws along with committing crimes against his employees, his state and our nation. He’s not to be trusted.
If you’re going to hold ‘Christians’ (he obviously is not) to your Christian standards, then you need to adopt them yourself, first.
Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.
If you’re a Christian you believe that and turn it over to God who is wiser and mightier.
If you are just a good person and a Christian like most of us, and you see someone breaking the law and scamming people, which is WRONG, and hiring illegals as slaves and eliminating jobs from US citizens, then the law is the proper authority, not the church.
Embarrassing him at church is cheap and corrects nothing.
Now, if it was me, after I slashed the tires on his cadillac, I would hire a couple of those illegals to sabatouge all the machines in the joint to the point of putting the jerk out of business...cost—about $500...but worth it.
As for the christian approach, he is not practicing his own religion so do not worry about him. You cannot go to church on Sunday for an hour or so then go the rest of the week acting like an atheist while calling yourself christian. Think about the old duck analogy: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and lays eggs like a duck, then it must be a duck. And, as someone else here already told you, do what you have to do while looking for a new job.
Lastly, God bless you and your efforts while looking for work and in dealing with this problem.
Making people work off the clock is usually a pretty big deal. The state labor board or Feds go mental about that stuff and it is wrong.
I knew someone who was set up and the employer attempted to sc*ew them out of unemployment. I paid for their labor attorney. It was like $200 and they got their unemployment.
My Mother used to tell me when something bad happened to me, to let God handle it. And that God had something better in mind for me, I just didn’t know yet what it was.
She was right.
Every time something bad happened to me it sent me off in a different direction and always, just like Mommy said, something better was there waiting for me to stumble into it.
It didn’t always happen as quickly as I would have wanted. But God always did send me off to something better. He just made me wait awhile.
Thanks for posting this. My 21 yo son was fired this morning also, after two years. Small company that basically just ran out of work.
His boss told him, “Oh and by the way, you weren’t fired, you quit. If you file for unemployment I’ll fight it and give you a bad reference so you’ll never work again.”
Poor kid is devastated.
As far as you not being a member of his church, IMO, that is not important. You ARE a member of The Body of Christ. And Christ has one body. It’s weird how some pastors take ownership of HIS church.
Seems the majority here are on the same page - get your unemployment/back pay settled and report him quietly.
In my own experience, since being saved in '81 ... I check myself first.
One of the very first messages I ever heard from my independent, fundamental Baptist preacher was about the problems we have are really sin problems and we should look at ourselves first and confess to God.
100% of the firings I've experienced were my fault.
Give it all to God and have faith.
If your flesh insists .. I see no wrong in contacting ICE
So, you lost your job and your primary concern is how to complain to Old Mac's church?
Without any substantive information from you or especially "Old Mac", it sounds to me like you have no grounds to defend your dismissal so instead you are turning to "Old Mac's" church in the hopes of gaining sympathy from his fellow church goers..............
Something ain't quite right here..........
2) I bet the sanctimonious old fart would have a helluva time if he 'accidentally' fell down a flight of stairs at his age, wouldn't he?
Sometimes, you just have to be the catalyst for history to unfold the way it should.
“Now, if it was me, after I slashed the tires on his cadillac, I would hire a couple of those illegals to sabatouge all the machines in the joint to the point of putting the jerk out of business...cost—about $500...but worth it.”
I find the above comment made by you evil, illegal and mean spirited. But it sure does strike a chord of what I would like to do to people who I’ve met like Ol Mac.
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