this is a bit over the edge don't you think?

[Randall Twede]

i met this guy recently and he was telling me about a job he had at a fast food joint when he was younger.
this guy came in and he had a smudge on his forehead, so my friend discreetly mentioned it to him.
"hey, you know you got this smudge of dirt in the middle of your forehead?"
next thing he knew the manager called him into the office and fired him.
how was he to know it was ash wednesday and some catholics put that smudge on their foreheads?
i am 60 years old and i didn't know that. heck i dont even know what day of the year ash wednesday is.

[Bear Bibeault]

Randall Twede wrote:heck i dont even know what day of the year ash wednesday is.

Duh. It's on Wednesday.

I assume that employees that don't know when Ramadan is were also fired? Diwali? Rosh Hashanah?

[fred rosenberger]

I think firing him was over the top. They could have taken the opportunity to educate and share traditions, but instead, took the easy/quick/safe route.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Most people who get fired like this don't tell you about all the other things they did before they got fired. It's like they will make the company lose money, insult a customer, act insensitively towards a co-worker, and then get fired. Then they go around telling everyone that their employer fired you for doing something insensitive to your co-worker

I've never seen someone fired for one infraction. It's much costlier to train someone new than to fix someone whom you have already hired. Usually, for the first mistake, the boss will come and talk to you. For the second mistake, there is some sort of formal reprimand. It's usually when you keep making mistakes that your boss thinks that you are not worth keeping that you get fired. Generally, an incident like this is the last straw

[Bear Bibeault]

And unfortunately, as most states are "at will", not illegal. Being a non-Christian isn't a protected class.

And while the sharing of traditions is good (very good -- makes for a lot less ignorance) the workplace has no responsibility to do so. The manager should have just told the complaining employee to get over it and get back to work.

Let me guess... Chick-fil-a?

[Bear Bibeault]

Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:I've never seen someone fired for one infraction.

This is a fast-food franchise. Not a professional workplace. I've known people who got fired from such places for how they wore their hair that day, or because they wore the wrong shirt because the right one was in the laundry, or because a new manager wanted to hire his cronies.

[fred rosenberger]

Bear Bibeault wrote:The manager should have just told the complaining employee to get over it and get back to work.

we don't know it was another employee...the OP just said "This guy came in..." It could have been a customer who then complained to management that the employees were making fun of him...

not saying it is right...don't disagree about it being legal...

as with all stories, there probably is a lot more to it that we will never know.

[Bear Bibeault]

Ah yes, I had the impression it was another employee. Doesn't matter though. It's still over the top (unless, of course, there's more to the story,as you say).

[Randall Twede]

no, it was a customer who complained. but like you said it is just a story i heard. but i think it is true.

[Randall Twede]

Bear wrote
Being a non-Christian isn't a protected class.
it is not about non christian, but about non catholic.
are they even christians?

[fred rosenberger]

Actually, many non-catholic-but-still-christian religions follow the practice, according to the wikipedia.

[Randall Twede]

well, you learn something new everyday. i thought it was only catholics