I wasn't unfortunate to be caught on camera, my employer looked specifically to find evidence to get me gone as he doesn't like me. The 2 guys that run our store (and this part of the company) and so immature and really pathetic. It is nice not to have to deal with them anymore, just would like another job to fall straight into.
Well dependant where you live, the tourist season's coming back in so there might be jobs going pretty soon?
Hmm, no tourism in Northamptonshire sadly, we don't have many attractions Got a few things up my sleeve though!
Surely the product storage area temp messurement should be automatic, sensors are pennys, this is pretty pathetic, It means that subways which is a franchises is not correctly supporting its agents or otherwise establishing a suitable real world safe food enviroment. Ive got a question.... Do you think your the only person or only chain that has had or does have this "issue", of course not, most likely this is true of a large proportion of shops and subways by its nature is a low staff responsive environment. Ie: Food temps checks are most likely very often flouted because the staff have got actual work to do. Are the actual main compartments temp measured? There should be some kind of term made for this, situations were "real world", and human nature bind to generate undesired results in desired work or processes.. I guess thats called documentation and instruction but you should have had to reset a temp messure device, or tap a bar code reader against a food container so it was not possible to circumnavigate this.
I can understand your frustration that they've pounced on you breaking procedures when other staff do the same, but you have to remember you've broken the terms of your contract by committing gross misconduct. Temperature checks are done for a reason and must be done regulary throughout the day as there are many factors that could cause a change in temperature. Saying you falsified the checks just because other staff do so is just an excuse, and I can see why they are taking it seriously. They more than likely don't know the other staff have been doing this. I can't see them firing you straight away unless you have been given a verbal or written disciplinary before. If they do fire you, then I'd expect them to also investigate the other staff and act accordingly.
Temperature checks are taken at various times of the day using hand-held temperature probes. Built-in temperature gages cannot always be guaranteed but are read and compared against the probe readings. This is how every sandwich bar, burger place etc take temperature readings.
The thing is, I'm not complaining that I'm being fired for breaking the rules; I know what I've done is wrong and can face the music. What I had is the way they have gone about it. My 2 "bosses" have been malicious and acted on a more personal level to remove 2 members of staff they dislike for something they know goes on within their stores. They know about the verbal warning of the other staff as they were the ones who told the manager to give said warning. My only excuse is that the sheer number of temp checks we do are a waste of time when both cold-holding baines are temperature regulated and display their temperature as are the fridges and freezers; one temp check of a few products in each baine would be ample. I'm the only member of staff there now who has been since the day we opened so know the place and procedures pretty well, it was just this time, the "boss" wanted me gone and knew how to do it. Simple really. At the end of the day, I've left now and feel better for it, I wont go back and I wont give any of my my money to that company (I don't eat Subway anyway so I'm not going out of my way). PS. @ flibblesan, the same company own a Subway store in Nottingham (many, I believe)
Dave, Is it possible that the temp checks are mandated by the govt. and that if Subway did not enforce complaince they might be liable to heavy penalties if there happened to be a random inspection? Back when I worked in the student food court in college, we were required to do something like hourly temp checks or something of the sort. I'd check the temps and find that the hot food was too cold and the cold food too warm. I'd being this to the attention of the management each and every time. After having to put hot food back in the warmers a few times and cold food in the trash, management had others do the temp checks instead of me, and I noticed that a LOT of them habitually wrote down bogus values. Your one-time offense wasn't horrendous or earth-shattering, but I can understand why they're disciplining you in this manner. I wouldn't work somewhere where the bosses were out to get me. Good luck finding a new job.
I used to know a guy that was the area manager for your franchise. I, thankfully, don't work for Subway.
Seems a bit suss to me. Sorry, but if they went looking for evidence to get rid of you, then you've led them to get to that stage. People don't go out of their way to sack a good employee without reason. Cause and effect. If the Subway Group company policy is to do numerous temperature checks then you do them without question. If you fail to do them then you are putting peoples lives at risk. What happens if a colleague did exactly the same when the next check was due? Then you both would have contributed to two missed checks at which point the temps may encourage bacteria growth. You did something for them to do this to you. Maybe a flippant response, a relaxed attitude? I'm not suggesting these are the reasons, I'm just saying there has to be something you did. Repeated missed temp checks? Would I sack you for faking temp readings? No. But I would certainly put you on a warning and expect you to never do that again. As for the 5 staff members trying to cover 7 days per week - if a company takes the **** out of you - then you leave, and you find a job where you are appreciated for working hard and health & safety isn't a concern.
Dude! You should make sure your next job is 'slob who watches people on cctv.' -Seriously! We haven't got to the point where THEY get observed... yet.
That's rather extreme due diligence there, we have similar rules where I work, but only certain high risk products. Things that contain pasteurised egg, and chicken. That's about it, and with the pasteurised egg stuff we only have to take the temperature of only 2 or 3 of those. I'm not going to say where I work, but we do exactly the same thing as you do, we serve hundreds of meals a day and the two years I've been there we've never had a case of food poisoning, and I don't think we have for a very long time before I worked there.
Work for good olde McDonalds here, and we take a temperature reading of the freezer, and the fridge twice a day....and that's it.... Also, I can see why they're taking disciplinary action, but to this extent? If I were to fake one of the readings, it would be a written warning, a slap on the wrist, and get retrained.... Seriously man, get the hell away from that place...
I may get grilled for saying this but (having not read the whole thread by the way) do you really need the job? If this manager/ director doesn't like you then you are better off out of there. It is a sad but true fact that some people do not like other people, and it is an incontrovertible fact that people who do not get on cannot work with or for each other. If you really want my brutally truthful advice - and I am speaking from experience here - as long as you don't desperately need the job or think you can get one somewhere else, just leave before they have the chance to fire you. Like you, I'm not willing to name names and I'm also not going to tell you where but I worked in a certain business for a certain (long) number of years where the owner was a complete tool. I don't mean he was a kind of unpleasent person, I mean he was the most unpleasent, unfriendly, downright stupid and full of himself person I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. It was his manager who was an awesome and extremely people friendly person who actually hired me, then left a couple of years later when the boss severley insulted him. Anyway, I left that job a while ago for reasons I will not go into detail about but the whole decision for actually leaving after x years of loyal service to this company was that I realized life is too short to take unnecessarily extreme s**t from your boss every time you go to work, or in less severe cases, do the slightest thing wrong. I'm not going to comment on the black, white or grey morality/ correctness/ incorectness or whatever of what you did but the one piece of advice I can give you is do not spend another day working there if you are not happy with it or if your boss (by the sounds of it) is constantly looking for an excuse to fire you or cannot handle disciplinary action in a fair and equal way. We are all too good for people like that and they do not deserve your loyalty to work for them for another day. If I could go back several years, I'd have quit my old job as soon as I sensed things going the way they went and made far more money dealing with far less arrogant people working more hours for myself instead of wasting countless hours working for a douchébag who I didn't like because he didn't like me and was the worst boss he could be in every possible way. The only reason that I stayed in that job so long was because the people who I worked with were so great. I made some friends for life working there which, along with learning a valuable life lesson, I am grateful for. I'd never go back though, even if the owner offered me the place on a silver platter.
I used to work in a supermarket on the fresh foods dept. (think cheese, packaged ham, sausages, ready meals ect). I left for very similar reasons you did, that and I made too many waves. The majority of the bosses/supervisors preached one thing and practiced another! I.e. a delivery arrives, it needs to be in the chillers (we had huge sod off walk in chillers) within 20 minutes of it leaving the lorry. In the 3 years I worked there I don’t think this happened once. In some cases it was left for hours! Yet when I voiced concern I was shot down in flames. (You must understand this is a 4 person job and not all off my colleagues where as eager to work as I was). *Cough* However on the other side of the coin when the stock was being rotated/put on shelves we also have the 20 minute rule. I was forever being shouted at for leaving the trolley out too long. We where forced to pile the trolleys as high as we could safely and 20 minutes to work through a trolley 40 odd boxes a piece (cleaning the spaces before putting new stock in and date checking) . Add to the equation a shop full of customers 20 minutes is not a realistic time frame, in fact it’s impossible. If I where to have followed every rule I had been taught literally NO work would have been done, I’d have spent all my time clock watching and probing food. I know it is important to check such things, and I’m all for it, but once every hour takes the F*****g P**s And don’t even get me started on perfectly good food these kind of places waste because it’s a day out of date/not the right size of shape. I regularly eat out of date stuff…follow the rules “If it looks alright and smells alright…then you can eat it” we are such a wasteful society..Makes me quite angry!
If you broke the contract, you broke the contract and should be punished - especially with something like this. To say that "other people do it" isn't a great, nor valid defence unless you can prove they all do it consistently and that the bosses know about it without taking action. If person A doesn't get fired and person B doesn't then that could be for a number of totally legal reasons, such as the simple fact that Person A has a better attitude, convinced the bosses and is someone the company wants to invest in. I can understand your frustration, especially considering there seems to be a personal motivation for this - but you broke the contract and got caught. If the personal stuff is convincing and strong enough to cause it then you should make that the focus of a defence, not the fact that others do it.
I would reccomend in feedback to them, Instead of firing staff, how about getting a temperature probe and you can track the temperature of those appliances remotely and let the staff increase their productivity. Then call them a ****, and throw **** at them.
I don't know what the general rules are at Subway with regards to food temperature but the one near where I work is absolutely useless. I don't get breakfast there anymore because the sausage (if you could call it that) is alway frozen cold even after a good toasting. Also it's not uncommon for the sliced meat (ham etc) to be frozen so you have no choice but to have you sandwich toasted even if you want a cold salad type sandwich made.
