Would you fire an employee who is late to work on the first day?

I'm saying that many people that post here have never had to go to a 3rd shift job 6 days a week. Many of the people here that are saying fire them have worked from their homes all their life. Yes I work a hell of a lot harder and multi task a million times harder working for porn but I don't have to deal with driving to work daily. Things happen when you have to drive or take a bus to get to get to work on a daily basis. No one can tell from a person being late one time if they are or aren't going to be a good worker.


50 Asshole bosses

What if during the interviewing process you warned the person that you take punctuality very seriously and on the first day the person is not only late, but doesn't let you know.

That's what happened in this case. If a person misses a day during the 3 month trial period, especially the first 3 weeks, I take that as a very bad sign.

OMG I didn't know you told them that during the interviewing process. That changes everything! Fire them and send out a memo for anyone that ever sees this person they should throw rocks at them.

Great idea cause the worker with the flu should be required to bring it to work and share it with other employees

Of course not. You give him a chance and see if he respects that and shows up early from there on out. Sometimes people will do a lot when you do them a favor. Now if they show up 1 minute early the next day and had to haul ass across the parking lot to get there you will probably be getting rid of him for some other reason but shit happens and if you can't accept that I would never want to work for someone like that anyway.
You can't help it if there is a wreck on the interstate or a belt breaks on your car.

Late

I worked 12+ years at the post office. Being 1 minute late could get you fired. Happened to a guy who started the same day as me. Sad thing, he'd come to work an hour early and would sleep in the break room. Unfortunately, he kept not hearing the alarm on his watch and would be 30 minutes late.

Another job, the receptionist had a large board you wrote in your starting time. At 8:05, she turned the board around an wrote your time in with a red pen. Such childishness. She looked just like the school secretary in Ferris Buehler's Day Off. All I could do to keep from laughing.

My last job, was flexible hours. They expected 7 3/4 hours, 5 days a week. Several started later as they had to take kids to school and couldn't drop them off, before a certain time. At one point my boss allowed me to start mid-day and work late. I was doing research for a $30,000,000 tax write-off and needed copy machines that weren't clogged with other workers. As long as I got the write-off he didn't care what time I worked.

I'm of two minds...

on the one hand being late on the first day is crazy unprofessional and could be a huge red flag

On the other hand ish happens, and sometimes insanely talented and creative people aren't the best at keeping on the clock but prove their worth in the hours/efforts they do invest. But yeah...sometimes ish just happens.



I don't see being late once as a character issue necessarily, it could be but why cut off something that could be a good thing for both parties involved (assuming there's an upside if the person was hired in the first place)?

I think everyone deserves one chance, costs nothing to grant one and if anything provides notice to pay closer attention, and then axe if issues of (un)professionalism persist.

I would def speak to the person though, and let them know that ish is unacceptable. Reason would matter here, not for the content of the reply but more to see how the person handles it. That is always key

Are they genuinely embarrassed and do they arrive early every day for the next week? if so you know they know they fucked up and are trying to redeem your assessment of them

tl;dr, would def not fire. would speak to and not let the issue persist, but humans are fallible and we miss out on a lot if we cut peeps out too quickly.

This, I think, is the most thorough and well- thought out response.