I worked for my previous employer for more than 12 years. I worked as a clerk, graphic artist and page designer. In August 2011 I was given the assignment to begin writing Obituaries. I was not allowed to train with the obit clerk that was leaving the company. She was very good at her job but had some problems with the Copy Desk Chief. The Thursday before I was to begin my new assignment on Tuesday, my mother passed away. Her funeral was on Monday and I went back to work on Tuesday because I felt it was necessary for me to begin learning my new job. I had never writen obits before and more or less went in as a new hire. I was given two days training by the backup obit clerk, then left on my own. It was at the end of a long hot summer and many elderly people began dying. I was doing quite a few obits a day and it was very stressful. I had just lost my mother and felt like I was grieving for her again as I wrote each obit. During the time I was typing the obits I made errors on 15 obits costing the company around $1900 in revenue. I wrote approximately 520 obits and brought in an estimated $51,000 in revenue. They hired a new obit clerk who I trained and the backup obit clerk quite. I was terminated two weeks after the new clerk was hired. The reasons for termination were given as excessive errors and unauthorised overtime. During the time I was doing obits, which is a fulltime job, I was expected to also do my clerk work and design pages for the newspaper (it was a daily newspaper) What is a reasonable time for an employee who has never done a job before to learn a new job? I am 58 years old and have been told that there were "ulterior motives" to my being fired. |