| Author | Message | ||
     Rick_a |
...and it ends up confiscated by the GM and I get sent home with no pay for a week. To make a long story short, a guy bought a used bike with a bad clutch. The service manager and I figured the best compromise is that he buys the parts and we take care of the labor (the sales department will rarely, if ever, contribute to such repairs). As soon as the parts came in I got him in and taken care of. He handed me a $100 bill (in front of our cashier, unfortunately) for getting him taken care of in a timely manner. She tells the GM that something shady is going on. The GM gets with my manager who explains the situation, and I get word that I'm going to be terminated. My manager fights for me...but as punishment for accepting the $100 gratuity I had to give the GM the money and take a week off without pay. I'm pretty pissed. The policy was that if we get tipped it's fine as long as the management knows about it. I don't see how this is any different. It's one thing to take MY tip, but to also take a week away from me is just over the top  . My family has to suffer over this bull. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Tell 'em to give the money back to the customer. I'm sure something could be worked out off-premises after that  | ||
| Hybridmomentspass |
its BS man Im wondering what the GM did with that Franklin Sorry to hear that man | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
I would WRITE to the owners laying out the whole thing & ask them for an explanation, & to know where the money went. I can't speak to the employment laws where you live, but that sort of thing can't go unpunished in Europe, as there are rights protecting employees from such abuse. If you have a citizens advice office or suchlike nearby, it might be worth seeing what they say. Your GM is stupid to react in such a way as all he's done is to show the rest of the staff that he's untrustworthy. Time to start looking for another gig I reckon. | ||
| Ourdee |
Make sure to file for unemployment and explain it to them. | ||
| Cowboy |
Looks like a good ass whoping is in order. | ||
| Gunut75 |
Yeah, thats grounds for a foot in the azz. It is BS that you and your family suffer for nothing. I have good names for people like your GM. | ||
| Brumbear |
Whats the Dealership I aint going there maybe we should start emailing them and letting them know how F'd up the GM is | ||
| Spikey |
Getting punished for making a customer happy? what was he thinking? I'll bet when the customer finds out he goes elsewhere to do business, I know I would! Maybe contact the better business bearu and see what they say. | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
I don't get it. If I buy a used bike from a dealer and it has a bad clutch, I would expect the dealer to fix it under warranty if I discovered it with 30 days or so. I certainly wouldn't be giving anybody a tip for making me pay for the parts. Perhaps the GM thought of the $100 as a "bribe" for giving the customer "too good of a deal". Are we missing some details here? | ||
| Teeps |
This episode illustrates the age old mechanic's adage: "every time I try to be a nice guy and save a person some money; it ends up costing ME! money." | ||
| Teeps |
Seriously find another place to work... | ||
| Jssport |
that's messed up Who's worse, the cashier or the GM ? | ||
| Slaughter |
If your contract specifically states that "ANY" gratuity must be reported, handed over - or words to that effect then this might be a sticky one. Otherwise, you really should take this up with your state labor relations board. Don't waste time on a sportbike board. Doug Darling Executive Director Department of Economic Opportunity The Caldwell Building 107 East Madison St. Suite 100 Tallahassee, Florida 32399-4120 (850) 245-7105 http://www.floridajobs.org/ | ||
| Etennuly |
Uh, I had a similar thing happen several years ago. A potential customer came frantically into the office of the body shop I was managing, needing to fix the deck lid hinges on her husband new car, that she just bent trying to close it on too much stuff. She was terrified of what he might do because she was not supposed to be using his car while he was at work. Anyhow it was a simple thing to grab the deck lid and bend the hinges back into place by hand. I did it as a goodwill gesture to help a potential future customer. The dumber the mistakes they make, the more often they will be coming back for paid work. Well, in front of the owner and secretary, I refused to take any money for the repair that took me literally three minutes to do, when it would have taken twenty minutes to write an estimate and a week to get it in the shop. The lady ran up behind me as I stepped back in the office and stuffed a $20 in my back pocket. I handed it over to the owner asking if I could use it to buy something for the guys in the shop at break time. You would have thought the World had come to an end over the next couple of hours in that office. I got questioned about every transaction that happened out of sight of the owner, my trust and loyalty was hammered on. It actually was the key element that had me eventually quit that job a couple of months later. Life can suck being a nice guy. | ||
| Reepicheep |
If the shop wants a policy on deciding on if they should or shouldn't do goodwill work, they should have one. Sounds like they did, and you followed it. If the shop wants a policy on mechanics accepting gratuities, they should have one. Sounds like they did, and you followed it. I can understand why combining the two could suddenly make an owner nervous. If somebody were to work out an under the table gratuity deal to influence the goodwill decision, that would be unethical. But the owners response was wrong. He should have either decided his goodwill decision policy had a hole that allowed this to happen, or he should have decided he needs yet another policy to govern when goodwill repairs and gratuities could intersect (a no gratuities for goodwill work clause). Otherwise, you operated in the policies they asked you to follow. Good tip to know though. If I ever want to tip my mechanic, I'll try and do it when nobody else can see, so they have all options on what to do with it. | ||
| Rick_a |
Yeah. Well, it gets worse, and I understand it all now. Turns out the manager that acted like he had my back (I was curious as to why a big deal was made of it) was actually looking out for his. He apparently told them that he didn't know about the tip, when he was the first person I told, and the first person to want a percentage of it. Nice guy. He's been there for some 15 years. He can stay there. The policy was that a member of management needs to know the reason for the gratuity. | ||
| Rick_a |
BTW, our used bike policy is "as is." So, most guys are happy if we meet them halfway. The problem is that the sales department will often not fix everything wrong with a bike, then the service department is left with the burden when they come back. | ||
| Tbolt_pilot |
I won't say you should tell them to go pi55 up a rope, as I don't know if you can land other employment quickly. But it sounds like a very greedy and un-ethical place to work. The GM, your manager, and any other management should have patted you on the back for an obviously very satisfied customer. Instead, they chose the immature child path. Have you contacted that customer about what happened to his gesture of appreciation? I'm sure he and everybody he knows would never take their business there again, along with anybody who reads this post. Good on you, PI55 on them! | ||
| Harleyelf |
+1 on the tell the customer and let him tell the GM what he thinks of their policy of punishing the best staff. | ||
| Slaughter |
I'd take it up with authorities if it is as you represented (previous post with Florida's labor commission contact) Otherwise the "BIG TIP" sounds like it's your GM's big tip being shoved up you know where. | ||
| Thumper74 |
I got fired when working as a technician when a nice guy tipped me for getting him back on the road in a hurry... I told him I couldn't accept it and he stuck it in my back pocket. I told my boss and next thing you knew, I had HR, loss prevention, etc. all at the shop wanting to know how much I've made under the table, in tips, if I had ever stolen anything, etc. Twenty minutes later, without any warning or previous disciplinary problems, I was out on my ass. After that, I never said a thing about any tips at any other job, ever. Management makes these policies being disconnected from the real world. Some people will just not take 'no' for an answer. | ||
| Rick_a |
Oh yeah, I did get fired today. | ||
| Thumper74 |
Sounds like politics... They give the $100.00 as a parting gift? We're hiring techs up here in Cleveland... It's right at freezing, but the pay is good! | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Back in the day when I was a mechanic at the Ford Garage,the boss was happy when we got tips or gifts..... What changed? Today,I could be fired if I accepted and kept a company ball cap from a delivery truck driver. | ||
| Littlebuggles |
Sorry to hear about this bs Rick. Long way from FL but the county is hiring (my employer) and the transit office is hiring too (wife's work) you any good with electromechanics? | ||
| Reepicheep |
Oh well. Sounds like if it wasn't this, it would have been something else. Good luck Rick! | ||
| Rsh |
Hard to believe accepting tips is a management approved practice, does that mean customers that do not tip receive poor service. I think your behavior for accepting the gratuity was unethical, you should have just thanked the customer and explained you were just doing your job. If the GM did not return the tip to the customer, he is unethical as well, and should have also been fired. Kind of an expensive lesson. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
So.............tip you waitress,but don't tip your mechanic! (?) | ||
| Damnut |
I think now we should know the name of the douche canoe dealership you used to work for is? |
