About 20 minutes ago I got off the phone with my department manager and was told my services are no longer needed. My department head said he wasn’t at liberty to discuss the reason why. I’m an at-will part-time employee for a university and do it as part of my classes. I’ve been working here for about 5 months and my relationships with everyone has been mostly positive, not super outspoken either.
This week I did some brief work in the PD office and must’ve been recognized by someone there. That person likely told the department manager what my past was and a few days later they decided to fire me. This comes only *three days after that, after many months without problems. So: I was suspended from school a few years ago due to legal charges against me, but it was ultimately stripped from my academic record and since I was a youthful offender it was also stripped from the legal record. My parents made sure of it. In court the charges were dropped to an offense (jaywalking) due to plea deal. I was never convicted. However, NONE of this should have been brought up since it is under a sealed record.
I genuinely doubt this is due to my performance at work. We’re somewhat overstaffed and a lot of my tickets are completed in a timely manner. Most of my coworkers like me and it’s not like I’ve stolen anything at work or crashed any company vehicles.
I fucking regret thinking a few years would separate me from my past actions. I thought I was able to move on and grow as a person but it finally caught up. I also wish this was because of funding or whatnot but I kept getting the “I’m not at liberty to say.” So I have to assume it’s because of my past.
Sorry for the paragraphs but I just needed to vent. This is the second time this has happened to me (first being the suspension) and I was actually relying on this job for the summer —i have no summer job lined up.
The people who made that decision arent worth working for. If they’re not going to communicate with you like adults then youre better off.
Depending on where you are, you may have a legal right to receive your personnel file, even from an employer who terminated you.
I was suspended from school a few years ago due to legal charges against me, but it was ultimately stripped from my academic record and since I was a youthful offender it was also stripped from the legal record. My parents made sure of it. In court the charges were dropped to an offense (jaywalking) due to plea deal. I was never convicted.
Fun fact: Did you know, in the US, if a non-citizen gets involved in the legal system, USCIS can see all their records, including juvenile records, seal, expunged, or even pardoned records, or even overturned records, and they can make decisions based on that.
Like, they don’t even need a conviction, if you get repeatedly investigated for suspicion of drug use, they could use that as a reason to deny you citizenship…
The reality of these legal stuff is that, it doesnt matter if they legally ignore it, like even if they “throw out” evidence, if there was ever a record, its never truely gone…
I got into a fight at high school when I was 17 and got arrested for it and I worried a lot…
but luckily I had citizenship under the Child Citizenship Act so I had a layer of safety blanket, at least they couldn’t deport me for fucking self defence.
Go back in one day and exclaim loudly, is this something to do with all the Asbestos we’ve all been exposed to that I warned you about?
Seriously though you will find a better job you enjoy more, and one that does not expose you to nasty minerals.
Haha yeah the asbestos thing was stupid. My direct supervisor probably thought I was a loony.
One of my best friends works for a language program at one of our large colleges/universities… The money and funding situations our educational institutions are under right now is abysmal. They’ve almost lost their job multiple times the last two years due to lack of money for programs like theirs. Each time they were briefly saved by their program being absorbed into another department or shuffling them around… And it’s pretty much happened again - unless there’s any big changes, their program is going to be cut and the few remaining people are going to be unemployed. The thing that has been most frustrating is the giant disconnect between leadership and what these various programs actually do. Old information is being handed around as current, people who aren’t even part of these programs are the ones representing them, and everyone at every level seems incredibly disorganized… All that said, your past may have nothing to do with your removal.
I’m sorry you weren’t provided any closure as to why you were let go :( and I’m even more sorry you’re now in a situation with so much financial burden. I would try not making assumptions… creating narratives that you can’t verify will cause you to spiral 🩷
That’s a bummer dude, and I can understand if you feel down about it, but these things happen. You simply have to accept it, act like a pro and an adult and move on. There are other jobs out there, and you’ll land one of them.
It certainly would have been nice if they would have told you why they were letting you go, even as a basic courtesy, but it doesn’t really do you any good to assume what the reason is, because you’ll just end up assuming the worst. It could have been your criminal record, sure, but it could have been any number of things.
As long as it wasn’t due to your performance, your attitude, or your ethics on the job, then it’s out of your control. Brush yourself off and start the process over again.
Thanks for your words. This isn’t my first time getting reprimanded so I’m trying to be a bit stronger when it comes to getting back on my feet. I’m certainly going to ask for a reference from my supervisor (he liked me). At the end of the day, I still got something out of these last 5 months. I just wish it could’ve been in better graces.
As for my speculation, I don’t think anyone has ever actually been “fired” at my job, most are told they can take a rec credit over the summer to keep working. So—that is why I am assuming the reason to be so. It is also just really hard to not land on that assumption when I’ve heard those same heavy words been said before in the same mellow and frail tone.
Or maybe not. You’re right that I shouldn’t think about it too much, but thats kinda why I wrote this whole post.
At will doesn’t mean you can be sacked for illegal or discriminatory reasons though? Like as cooked as US labour laws are this still sounds like a no no. Sacking someone because they have a sealed criminal past you shouldn’t even know about. Sounds like ol mate fucked up. He could have said, budget cuts, personnel changes or any wish washy bullshit but instead says “he wasn’t at liberty to say” which beyond being a pretentious as fuck thing to say to someone when terminating their source of income, sounds like he knows it wasn’t for above board reasons.
You presumably didn’t have a contract due to being at will, didn’t have to pass a police check, so what’s the problem? I don’t know, might be pointless but I’d be inclined to file a complaint with his bosses boss. Drawing potential legal heat to the uni for sacking someone for reasons you legally shouldn’t know about seems like a great way to increase liability to the university for 0 reason. I would suggest getting legal advice but shit is expensive.
Sometimes when they say they are not at liberty to say it’s because they don’t want to give any reason. Even at will employees have some protections. If they give a reason, you can argue on some cases that it was not legal. If they give no reason, you’ve no case to make.
So I’d suspect it’s that more than any sealed past.
You could still make a case, but you’d need other evidence that it was likely the cause, like if you brought up a violation and they were like nah its okay, and you pressed them on it, and the next day you were fired, you could potentially make some sort of case of wrongful dismissal.
If the manager just wanted to sack him for no reason again, he would have said something that amounted to that. “I’m not at liberty to say” is the worst possible phrase he could have used if it was actually nothing, and I would expect a department manager to have some go-to throw away phrase he’d use if it was actually nothing. I agree it’s not really much to go on from the outside looking in, but taking OP at his words, it does feel kinda off.
Sorry to read. Lost mine back in August and I’m still searching, it’s tough right now. I certainly empathize.
