DISMISSED FOR ABANDONED OF DUTY @ WILLFUL DELAY

[khanki]

HI,

My contract states i finish at 15.00. I am a spare. I came in to work 5.30, 45 minutes early to give myself a head start. I prepared it in full and then line manager said to move on to another duty. I was upset because all my effort was wasted. I did not say anything and i moved to other duty. I most prepared other duty and then line manager told me to move on to another duty. I was shocked and he said this will be your final duty,that was half prepared and i did rest. The thing is last duty was a van duty and i had just got back from work having 1 week of due to bad back. I told line manager you cant put me on this duty and it was you who gave me the work to back interview and you should know better, i was told I had no choice.

I got on with it, then i saw my partner and he said this is too much workload. I told him that i have never done this walk before where he has been doing it for last few months.
He said what do you finish at 14.00, i said no i finish at 15.00. My partner complained to line manager about work load so she took off one road off my partners duty to someone else on overtime.

On my duty, there was a long road. me and partner splitted it. The half i had is where there were about 15 flats together. I could not find this. I looked on google maps and went to area where it was showing and it took me to alleyway of car garages. I queried, they said there are flats above but not too sure if it is part od this as it was part of the main road as well. Anyway, I saw staircase going up so i thought this would lead me up to the flats, when i went up it was blocked with a wall, so i came down again and went outside of alleyway. I swalked further and saw a door that had buttons outside. It was not signposted at all. I pressed buzzers but no answer. I pushed the door it did not open, then I heard a dog in close range, i did not see the dog but decided to carry on with my duty and will come to re attempt to deliver flats at end of duty.

I got a cal from wife to say she needed help, my 2 year old son is heavily teething, she had gone out to get remedy, she was waiting at bus stop and four buses went past as he had double buggy as i have 2 kids, my son was out of control because of pain. I told her that I will come and drop her off.
I told my partner this and he said to me to do one extra road and he would drop me of and he would resume back on delivery. I said to him i am entitled 20 minutes relief and i will use this time to drop my family home and I will keep the second key of van.

When he dropped me, with in 2 minutes, i got call from line manager asking where am i? I gave him my last delivery address as i thought that is what he meant. He put the phone down. Then in 5 minutes he rings me again telling you are not at that address so where are you? i said i am in town, he was upset and i told him that i am on way returning to delivery.
When I went back, line manager was there told me to give him second key and told me that i am not allowed to finish my duty and i have to go back in office.
When i went to office, I had to briefly explain situation and manager called me a liar three times and said he can never trust me! I was shocked.
Nowm the line manager who went out to the duty, he also searched the van and found the mail i left for the flats in which temporarily i wrote time locked on front envelope. He went to the flats and he got access, so he reported me for this as well.

Anyway, had my fact finding and formal interview and i had to work in the office pending investigation.

It has now come to my attention that it was my partner who phoned management to say he was left on his own to complete delivery and i think he wanted claim overtime.

Case then got referred to DOM who has now dismissed me, his reasons were was that I was not going to go back on my delivery which is not true, he said i went back because i knew i was in trouble. as for the flats, he said himself had been there and the door lock is broken so any can go in there. he also got two witness statements to say lock is broken in including duty holder.

I am a part time. I have clean record. DOM said he has no choice but to dismiss as he thinks this would always re occur despite me telling him i would never do this again. He also said I did not tell manager about my situation, my response to that was I was stressed as i needed to get my family home,, and its not as if line manager is supportive.

The partner who i was working was my first time to. We had arrangement, i checked with him 3 times that you are happy with this and he said yes.I,

[TrueBlueTerrier]

For some reason, you posted this multiple times which made for hard reading. I have deleted the duplicate parts, I think.

The only advice I can give you is that you are entitled to an Internal appeal.

However, I think your chances of reinstatement are slim.

The reasons you have given may seem acceptable to you, and for what its worth to me, but even if you explained why to the appeals manager, the assumption made by the manager that you had no intention of returning to the duty, would be seen as a reasonable one and therefore even an ET would probably say there is no case to answer.

Even beyond that, to make it as plain as possible, when your manager contacted you and asked where you were, you lied. Your intention may have been good, but still, you did not tell the truth.

The undelivered letters would be a minor point but with the stuff above it just adds to your woes.

To be honest, as your manager has stated they have lost their trust in you, that's the clincher. That's what links everything together and makes the chances of winning an appeal very slim.

Your first mistake wasn't telling an untruth, that was the second. Your first mistake was in not contacting your manager and explaining you had a family emergency and coming to some arrangement with them, such as returning to the duty and completing later on.

Sorry, if this is not what you wanted to hear, but sometimes it is better, to be honest rather than give you false hope. However, if you are in the Union then I would still go to them and get their advice.

[khanki]

hi, thanks for the reply.
There was a simple misunderstanding about whereabouts and i thought he meant what was my last delivery location. The reason why i did not tell him on phone was because i did not want to waste time, also line manager is a bully and not understanding so i felt very uncomfortable to tell him. i was stressed getting my family home because of my son behaviour who could not control his pain and my wife could not bear it in public. This is human nature you would try to help!
I am with the union and he had said to me that i should not get dismissed but a serious warning, if i get dismissed, he is confident i would win appeal.
When i got dismissed he said the decision was too harsh and now to appeal based on reducing the penalty.

[exphg1961]

Has there been a conclusion to this case?

[grumpypostie75]

Appeal the decision but as already stated I can't see you getting your job back plus I'd find it unlikely that another manager would overturn the initial decision to dismiss you anyway