What was "The Incident" at work that caused an exodus in the work force?

LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 335 points –
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Worked for a shoe retailer where the head office was attached to the distribution center (DC) for the US.

The CFO fired the long-time and very popular DC manager. The rounded up the DC staff in our large meeting room with the CFO and the director of HR to discuss the change in management in the DC. The DC staff were already unhappy because they all liked the manager very much. After the spiel from CFO and HR, one of the DC staff asked if they would still be getting double time for all overtime. HR director, confused, asked what he meant. He explained the DC director would go and modify their timecards so they would get paid double for overtime instead of time and a half.

The HR director, without putting any thought into their answer or the consequences, immediately stated that would be ending immediately.

The DC damn near went on strike right there. Several of them left over the next few weeks, and the ones who didn't leave worked much slower and were unavailable for overtime work. They ended up requiring all of us office staff to work 4-8 hours a week in the DC for a few months while they unfucked everything.

That employee mentioning the time card modification sure did the fired manager dirty, hope they didn't face serious legal consequences for that.

Based on the earnest way in which it was asked, I don't think the employee asking knew that the manager wasn't supposed to be doing that - they thought it was a legitimate incentive approved by the company.

As far as I know the company didn't try going after the manager about it, but it's possible I wouldn't have known about that. I only know the above because I was working in that room re-configuring some tech stuff that needed to be fixed ASAP, while the meeting was happening.