Notice handed in getting nasty

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Let me step back a bit from the blow-by-blow discussion.

I'm not sure that when the average Joe/Jane signs an employment contract with an unusual condition, it is always a fair agreement. Joe or Jane may have a very particular or specific need to get a job, or get a better job. This need may be similar enough to the needs stated elsewhere in relation to those facing mortgage difficulties. Joe/Jane probably won't get legal advice, or may not be able to afford legal advice before signing.

Where a condition like three months notice is way out of whack with industry norms, there is a good case for avoiding or evading it.

I'm not sure that 3 months notice does a whole lot of good for most employers anyway. For any kind of senior position, you are unlikely to get a replacement in 3 months anyway, between time for advertising, interviews, contracts and notice periods. Does an employer really want a very disgruntled employee hanging around for the further two months?

We've seen cases where people entered into mortgage contracts with unfair terms, perhaps with some of the lenders of last resort, or even worse, Irish Nationwide. Is it reasonable for borrowers to stick to every single term of these contracts in those circumstances?
 
Does an employer really want a very disgruntled employee hanging around for the further two months?
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Hence why most low level minion position holders are escorted form the premises and paid their notice. It would only be senior management that would really work such a long notice period. Keeping on a low level employee for 3 months where he/she can do mischief is just silly and does not happen in the real world.
 

I disagree with you Time, in my experience it was the high level workers who were escorted out, they have the knowledge and experience to do real damage, so the company wants them out before they get up to anything. Where I am the notice period would be exceedingly well paid and long.
 
“Seanabhean is ea mise anois go bhfuil cos léi insan uaigh is an chos eile ar a bruach"

Those of you of a certain vintage will recall these opening words from Peig Sayers' autobiography. Fado, fado, I used to find her musings tedious but now that I am retired and am of advanced years, I actually find much of what she wrote to be remarkably perceptive.

I write this because over time our views are influenced by the prism with which we see life. Not everything is black in white as many of the posters have correctly opined. I now have the luxury of time to reflect on things but because of my age and health I also see time as such an incredibly precious commodity. I am possibly straying off topic but sometimes we learn that it is by indirections that we find directions out. I smile as I write “it is” – I used to have the same problem as Sunny but now I’ve learned the correct usage of “its” and “it’s”. I ramble. I think there is another thread for this stuff.

Many of the aspects in this thread make me smile. I am reminded of that classic poem about those Blind Men of Indostan. What I’m most reminded about though is the genius that is Robert Frost. Once when he was asked whether he considered ever going into business. "Nope" he said "I value my time too much. I like to listen to my hair grow. I like too much spending time in nature and with my wife and with my children and with my friends. Business, it seems to me, is about working faithfully for eight hours a day to become the boss where you get to work 12 hours a day."

I was that slave and like some of my pals now wonder whether we spent our time well. Naturally, there were good times and we do miss certain aspects about the working life but we really don't, as the saying goes, wish we had spent more time at the office and mostly we regret the extent of our commitment and some of our actions – ref. B&L. With time we realise that if you spend excessive amount of time on one aspect of your life, there is a good chance the insufficient time is being spent on another. For me, the biggest casualties were the health of my body and of my marriage. The car and the status are insufficient, in ways false, compensation.

All this is by way of introduction that I have much more sympathy for the viewpoint expressed by elacsaplau than most of the posters on this site. It was Bronte's comments this morning that prompted me to write. I generally really like her posts very much. They are usually so well balanced. But her shock, shocked me. (I apologise I don’t know how to work the quotation function). What was interesting was that a few minutes earlier, she had written about the way large corporations suck you in. It seems that all elacsaplau is trying to do is avoid such sucking in. I thought it best to finish the last sentence with a preposition.

Perhaps time for me to wrap up. I’m not the most adept at the keyboard – one good thing about the old days was the dictaphone. I’d really appreciate Brendan’s confirmation on one specific point – am I correct in my understanding that Brendan agrees with elacsaplau’s right to assert the contractual hours' terms of his contract? (let’s take it that he is not agreeing that the extra hours should be the norm – i.e. additional hours should genuinely be the exception and he does not want to quit. Let’s take it also that he simply wants adherence the terms of the contract as drafted and agreed by the employer in question.)

My request has no attaching ultimata. Keep up the excellent work that this site does – whilst I don’t contribute that much, I find the site very entertaining and informative. It has even saved me quite a few bob down the years. It’s great to live in a country of free speech – we shall often disagree with others but isn’t it great to be able to interchange views – when Peig was a lass and even when I was a boy, there was so much censure in our little land.

Slan agus buiochas mor.
 
Bronte said:
In my experience of the corporate world, the CEO of B&L will be in line for a large bonus and pay rise if he pulls off the cost cutting. Bottom line is all that matters.
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I'd agree, thus proving my point that business, law and morality are often strange bedfellows.

That's not to condemn all business, by the way: there are plenty of examples especially in recent years of owner/managers paying themselves literally nothing in preference to imposing cuts or redundancies on their staff.

I guess it comes down to what you can live with, and that's probably related to the size of the business. Very easy to take a decision at corporate HQ about a site you may never even have seen, a bit different if the decision impacts directly on people you know and see every day.

Similarly, very easy to perch yourself on the high moral ground on the basis of a hypothetical or a few lines of a post, not so easy to assume that position if you're in the middle of it yourself. To be completely honest, for most of these hypotheticals I'd like to think I'd do the right thing, but in a real situation I'm not so sure what I'd do.
 

Would this be a nice note to end all of this? There has been, on occasion, a little too much over zealous/robust commentation! Let's play nice, folks.

Everyone is entitled to a point of view but everyone won't be able to change (influence perhaps) the OP's fiance's approach.

Ultimately, people make their own mind's up - and often time, what they do, is done without thought or deliberation.

mf
 

Don't be crazy. We now have a Peig Sayers and Robert Frost twist. Who knows where it will end up!!!!
 
Time said:
With only the lawyers winning.
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You mention lawyers in the same context as morality.

But more seriously, I'm with mf1: I for one have had more than enough of this. I find myself repeating the same points over and over, so shall cease...
 
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