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Sometimes employees too easily confuse who gets to call the legal shots. Believing that their job is an entitlement, some workers try to take the law into their own hands. They are often mistaken. This is the story of one employee who learned this lesson the hard way.
Read MoreFollowing a bad day at work and thinking that he would be fired, Philip Chan elected to resign instead. However, in another tale from the workplace trenches with an ending you would not expect, a court found that Chan’s resignation was actually a termination.
Read MoreFor company veteran Bryan Reichard, the Garden of Eden simply had too many forbidden fruits. Reichard, a senior manager at Kitchener, Ontario’s Kuntz Electroplating Inc., was a model employee for nearly 25 years, until he laid eyes on Ms. Thompson, one of the administrative assistants who he would eventually date as part of an extra-marital affair. It was a fatal attraction that later cost him his job.
Read MoreLying on your resume can get you fired – or at least land you in very hot water. That is what Yahoo and its current CEO Scott Thompson learned last week when it was widely reported that he did not earn the computer science degree that his resume claimed. According to Thompson an executive search firm added the degree to his resume years ago and when it wrote his public biography, the story just stuck there.
Read MoreWhen Rashid Balogun announced that he was “out of here” and then swiftly left the Prince George offices of Deloitte & Touche after a confrontational meeting with two of his bosses, they figured that he had just resigned. But in a legal twist that can only happen in workplace law, the court decided otherwise.
Read MoreWhat happens when an employee is told to perform more work for the same pay? Do employers have the right to expect the same level of performance or do employees have the right to refuse the additional work or demand more compensation? According to a recent Ontario case, courts will be sympathetic to employees performing two jobs for the price of one.
Read MoreAn individual’s experience, related below, provides an example of why you must be careful when you call a provincial Ministry of Labour.
Following her termination, an individual contacted the Ontario Ministry of Labour, seeking some advice about her situation. She had not yet contacted a lawyer and the ministry representative who was randomly assigned to pick up the phone did not immediately encourage her to do so.
Read MoreHe is the human resources department’s biggest nightmare and he works at just about every large company across the country. He is the sick employee that may never return to his job. And his workplace legacy just got a lot larger.
Paul Pereira earned a position as a senior employee. But he had a problem that ultimately cost him that job. Pereira, the general manager at a Staples Business Depot in Nanaimo, B.C. suffered from depression and a drug addiction. After stints on the company’s disability insurance plans, Pereira entered a treatment facility for his addiction hoping to return to work once he finished the program.
Read MoreShortly after obtaining her real estate license, Marilyn Patterson found herself in a pickle. Patterson, a Customer Service Supervisor for the Bank of Nova Scotia in Pitt Meadows, BC, was summoned to a meeting and told that her work as a realtor may conflict with her employment at the Bank.
Patterson saw matters differently. She had previously performed other part-time work outside of the Bank and without any objection. Further, other employees at her branch had second or third jobs, which the Bank did not oppose.
When it came to her work as a part-time realtor, however, the Bank decided to take a stand arguing that by recommending financial services and products at the Bank, Patterson could be in a “potential” conflict with her work in real estate. Patterson was told to abandon her work as a realtor otherwise she would be fired.
Read MoreWhat happens to the workplace bully when he or she is fired for bullying?
Sharon Lynn Rodrigues, a manager at a Dairy Queen in Castlegar, B.C., was a very competent employee. But she was also a bully.
Rodrigues openly swore at work, referred to her staff as “stupid,” arrived late, took long breaks and did not hesitate to criticize other employees for their performance. When she was in a foul mood, she was miserable to be around, and co-workers accused her of being aggressive and verbally abusive. Even the restaurant’s owner was afraid to confront her.
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