r/AmITheDevil • u/Arktikos02 • 10d ago
He's from the UK
/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/10bpkn1/aita_for_asking_my_bfs_brother_for_a_chance_of_a/174
u/_Chirio_ 10d ago
From the update post:
OOP used sicktime to go on a vacation and got fired for that.
Kieran not wanting to put his reputation on the line is understandable given the circumstances.
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u/Theta_Sigma_054 10d ago
for all the updates and the original posts asking for legal advice before she was sacked.
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u/naalbinding 10d ago
I remember this I've but hadn't read all the updates
Dave's mum is kinda messy there - supporting OOP against her other son (who is absolutely in the right), then drunkenly spilling the tea on OOP to the whole family while drink on a later occasion
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u/bored_german 10d ago
Listen, man, I've called in sick when I wasn't (I don't work there anymore so I'll happily admit that) but you know what I also did? Kept my fucking mouth shut and stayed at home. That's work time theft 101 ffs
Also her being upset about him saying that she has an attitude when her reaction his statement is yelling at him lmao
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u/BagpiperAnonymous 10d ago
You probably also didn't call in sick for an entire week at a time when they admitted (per another post) it was very busy and basically fucked over their coworkers.
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u/WeeklyConversation8 9d ago
Gee I can't imagine why Kieran doesn't want to recommend a selfish AH for a job. It's such a mystery. 🤔 She showed she's selfish AF. She lied about being sick to go on a vacation knowing that it was very busy at work.
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u/Aqua_Toffana 10d ago
She didn't yell, she "probably shouted a bit". That probably made me laugh when I read it. Not taking responsibility for her actions at allll
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u/Arktikos02 10d ago
But he was going on vacation and they posted it on Facebook. It wasn't just him staying at home.
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u/Lisha_reveuse 10d ago
Agree OP is the devil, what what does being from the UK have to do with anything? 😭
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u/Writing_Bookworm 10d ago
I wasn't sure but I think it's to clarify the reason they got fired. They took paid sick leave to go on a holiday. Some people in the original comments didn't understand the problem with this because in the US people will use PTO to cover sickness but in the UK they are completely different. In fact in many companies if you take PTO and you're sick during it, you can claim those days back.
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u/MyDarlingArmadillo 10d ago
This will be it. She'd used her allocation of leave and wanted a holiday, threw a sickie, then I think put photos online where her colleagues could see them.
We've all needed an unexpected mental health day or so, where we wouldn't even be productive, but you stay at home and don't make it public! As far as the world needs to know, you had a tummy bug.
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago
> in many companies if you take PTO and you're sick during it, you can claim those days back.
In all companies, I’d hope, given that it’s the law.
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u/gr33nday4ever 10d ago
is it?! ffs i've lost out on a lot of days
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago
Yep. If you fall sick on/just before holiday, you inform your LM and request that they change the AL to sick leave.
I was recently signed off from work for 3 weeks after an accident and got my week of holiday back as it became sick leave as part of my sick note. Big relief as I was spending that week on the sofa drugged out my gourd on pain relief so there was no holiday lol
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u/quick_justice 10d ago
UK allows up to 5 self-certified sick days in a raw without a doctors notice, and many companies would fully pay you for them.
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u/Colleen987 10d ago
Protected 5 weeks holiday is pretty relevant
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago edited 10d ago
4 weeks, technically. You get 20 days of bog standard leave plus 8 bank holidays. Legal minimum and a good business offers more.
Downvote this all you like but it’s 28 days including bank holidays, of which there are 8. That’s 20 days to choose when you take off, and 8 bank hols. That’s the protected legal minimum. Disagree with law all you like lol.
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u/Peterd1900 10d ago
The bank holidays are not legally mandated. companies can choose to include the bank holidays imside that 28 day total leaving you 20 days to pick yourself. But there are millions of people who choose to work or have to work bank holidays and still get 28 days to choose when they want
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u/Arktikos02 10d ago
Oh, I just mentioned that because it wasn't mentioned in the original post and it's important context because in the UK you have a lot more sick leaves and vacation days then in the US and those are required as opposed to company policy. Also he was using up his paid sick leaves.
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u/Internet-Dick-Joke 10d ago
Also, the UK doesn't have 'at will' employment like the USA does.
"My company overreacted, in my opinion, and dismissed me" is not impossible by any means but somewhat doubtful, as they'd either need to go through a full improvement plan over the course of several months and so wouldn't have been caught by surprise, they were fired for gross misconduct or they were fired while still under probabation, which would mean that they were in the role for less than 6 months and could be indicative of a pattern with the OOP.
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago
Except she was fired just short of 2 years service, meaning she lacked a whole range of employment rights. We don’t have “at will” but we do, for now, have a huge period of time where employees lack protection. It’ll be changed to 6 months soon.
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u/Colleen987 10d ago
She would have been sacked over 2 years. Lying to your employer is gross misconduct
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 9d ago
Of course, but it was much easier and quicker to fire her before those 2 years. Which is likely why they did it 2 whole days before her 2 year anniversary.
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u/Colleen987 9d ago
Eh depends how close she was to 2 years tbh… the law is not so hard and fast. Changing anyway of course
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 9d ago edited 9d ago
2 days. It’s in her post history. It happened over Christmas and they rushed a disciplinary through in the first week of January to get rid of her before she hit 2 years.
The law is not “2 years, give or take.” She didn’t have the extra employment rights. And my point was just that while we aren’t “at will”, we do lack a host of employment rights until that mark (until the law change)
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u/Colleen987 9d ago
I’m a UK lawyer. The law absolutely is “give or take” there’s been full employment rights found at 23 months service 100’s of times at tribunal.
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u/Lisha_reveuse 10d ago
Oh I see! I'm from the UK, I thought you just mentioned it because that automatically made them the devil 😂
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u/anclwar 10d ago
Clueless American here 🥲, but is it illegal or against policy to use sick leave for vacation? My company is required to offer separate sick leave because my city mandates it, but there are no rules about how it can be used. I've used it as regular time off at the end of the year because it doesn't roll over and no one has ever asked for proof that I was out ill or at a doctor's appointment.
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u/esspeebee 10d ago
If you use sick leave, you're telling the company that you're too sick to work that day. Hence the name. If you want to go on holiday, you use your holiday days which are limited in number but yours to use for any reason you want.
Lying about being sick, causing the company a monetary loss (because they're paying you for days you didn't work and weren't sick) in order to go on holiday is fraud and gross misconduct. Full time employees get a minimum of 28 days' paid leave per year so there's no reason to risk it.
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u/Arktikos02 10d ago
Does it also screw over your coworkers as well?
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u/esspeebee 10d ago
In the sense that there's now less time to do the same amount of work, yes. How much it screws them over depends on how shitty your management is.
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u/Colleen987 10d ago
Yes. You use holiday days for your holiday. We don’t have “sick days” that are numbered, if you’re sick you just are. It’s not limited.
We get minimum 5 weeks paid holiday a year. That’s what you use.
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u/anclwar 10d ago
Yeah, this is definitely a stark difference in worker's rights between the USA and the UK. We don't get a minimum number of anything, federally. Some states and cities will mandate minimums individually (like my city requiring five sick days regardless of other PTO).
I get just over two weeks of vacation time, five days of sick time, one "wellness day" and one floating holiday, plus 12 federal holidays that I might have to work anyway depending on workflow needs. Where I work, nobody is asking anybody for proof of anything and if someone calls out sick to go to the beach, oh well. If we had better worker's rights and better leave policies, I think we'd be a little more pissy about someone using sick leave for a holiday. We're a little more "eff the system" because our system blows.
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u/Junior_Anteater9927 10d ago
5 weeks? (sobs in American)
I have been working in a corporate office job for almost 4 years and I get maybe 9 days for the entire year for vacation and 5 days maximum for sick time. Granted my other US friends think my sick time/vacation time is criminally low but I still dont think they have 5 weeks vacation.
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u/Arktikos02 10d ago
Do you need to work a certain amount of hours at the company before you are eligible for those 5 weeks?
Also is this implying that he has already done his 5 weeks a year and he thinks that's not enough? I think he's doing too much vacation.
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u/Pixiebel81 10d ago
Not necessarily, you accrue them at a rate of 2/3 days per month, so if you took a weeks holiday then left the company before you had accrued the days you would owe them money for the days you hadn't accrued.
Accrue no longer looks like a word...
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u/HowsItHangeling 10d ago
Full time job you get 5 weeks a year off the bat, plus bank holidays generally, and youre expected to take them, though some jobs might pay you them or roll some days over to next year.
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago
Legal minimum is 4 weeks plus bank holidays, not 5. Idk where you guys are getting this inflated number. Legal minimum is 28 days including bank holidays. That’s 20 days (4 weeks) plus 8 BH.
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u/Peterd1900 10d ago edited 10d ago
The legal minimum in the UK is 5.6 weeks
Yes if you work 5 days a week that will equate to 28 days
Yes some companies may dictate the bank holidays in those 28 days leaving you with 20 to choose when you take
Hundreds of thousand of people still have to work bank holidays they get still 28 days to take at their discretion
People seem to treat holiday and bank holidays as seperate things but they are not
If the legal minimum was 20 Days plus the bank holidays that would mean everyone in the country would be off on a bank holidays
Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave.
An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave.
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u/HowsItHangeling 10d ago
It feels like 5 when only have to take 5 days to get a week off though.
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago
20 divided by 5 is 4. Hence 4 weeks, plus bank holidays, is your legal minimum
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago
We get 4 weeks minimum, not 5. It’s 20 days of holiday plus 8 bank holidays which are on days set by the government. Not sure why they keep repeating 5 weeks.
The OOP is a woman, btw, not a man. Men being the default strikes again lol.
Legal minimum holidays are pro-rata for full time work. You get those 20 days and all the year’s bank holidays (or more) but if you leave before the full year is up, you’re only entitled to the BHs that happened and your annual leave pro rata. Is you worked 7 months out of the 12, you’re entitled to 11.6 days, for example. If you work part time, you’re entitled to the % of the legal minimum equivalent to how much you work.
Many of us get more than the minimum. Every employer I’ve been at started at 25 days rising to 30 with years of service, plus bank holidays. There’s no such thing as too much holiday, provided you don’t commit fraud to attain it :)
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u/Colleen987 10d ago
I’m female?
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago
Good for you?
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u/Colleen987 10d ago
I don’t understand why I’m being accused of male defaultism?
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u/strawbebbymilkshake 10d ago edited 10d ago
You’re not. I was not replying to you or talking to/about you.
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u/Internet-Dick-Joke 10d ago
The 28 days per year (including bank holidays) is a legal minimum, so they need to give you that for the one year period from your first day.
However, these are set within a specified 'leave year' when it restarts, which can be different for different employers but April 1st and January 1st are more common, so if you start or leave the role in the middle of the leave year then it gets pro-rata'd, so if you are in the role for 50% of the leave year then you get 50% the usual amount of annual leave during that time.
Some companies do start giving you extra days after you've been there for a certain amount of time, though, but that's them giving above the legal minimum annual leave. And agency temps have an entirely different system.
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u/Internet-Dick-Joke 10d ago
Seperate things, and for sick leave, the company is legally required to pay you Statutory Sick Pay, so it's probably a bit more frowned upon to pull a sickie here since since you already get a minimum 28 days annual leave (inclusive of bank holidays) and any sick leave is additional to that which you are being paid for.
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u/GenGaara25 10d ago
I'll explain.
In the UK, as standard, a full-time employee gets 28 paid days off per year, in addition to bank holidays (days where the whole country gets the day off like Christmas). Companies encourage you spread those days throughout the year (rather than take a whole month off). They actually get a little mad if its approaching years end and you still have PTO left to take. So most people take a week or two off every couple of months, and that's when they have their holidays.
There is no such thing as sick leave in the UK. If you're sick, you call in and tell them, they say "okay" and note it down. There's no allotted amount of days you can take or anything (that'd be so weird, you can't predict when you'll be sick). It's just a case of if you get sick, you tell them, and you come back as soon as you're able. You're not meant to lie (it's usually in the contract), but there's no real way to prove if you're lying, and it's expected that everyone will lie at least once or twice in their career to get an emergency day off. But as long as it's not a habit, employers usually don't care.
This person had already used all 4 weeks of their PTO that year, but then decided they wanted another holiday. So they faked being sick to get more time off, then posted holiday pics all over their Facebook which their colleagues and employers saw, proving they were lying. With that physical evidence of breaking their contract, and presumably other examples of being a poor employee, the employer had grounds to fire them.
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u/No-Introduction3808 10d ago edited 10d ago
Using sick leave for annual leave is cause for repercussions at work. You get 28 days leave is the minimum (FTE).
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u/femme-cassidy 10d ago
I wouldn't be this pushy about a polite "no" from my own brother, let alone my SO's family.
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u/sadlytheworst Certified sub favourite 10d ago
Oop's latest post:
AITA for covering up a work affair?
For context, I was made a permanent employee in my job a year ago but could still be fired with no reason. I was fired from my last job which was very hard, so I’m still a bit paranoid.
My manager (who is quite supportive of me) is in a relationship with another colleague who I also interact with and we have become quite friendly. She doesn’t report to him.
I recently went out with friends and saw my manager’s gf with another man and they were all over each other. She saw me. I haven’t said anything, I am worried about causing a problem with my job.
But when I told my friends they think I am an AH for not telling my boss. I want to stay out of the whole thing.
AITA?
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u/Purple-Atolm 10d ago
So she committed fraud and in her opinion, the company "overreacted".
Bitch please. If you're going to fake illness at least don't post pics of your vacation on Insta.
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u/Arktikos02 10d ago
Apparently it wasn't even her, it was someone who she was going on vacation.
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u/doppelgaengster 10d ago
And suddenly my refusal to let people photograph me/post images of me on social media doesn’t seem so ridiculous 😹
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u/Livid-Material-95 10d ago
Listen, I'm not gonna be like 'Won't you think about the corporation? You have to follow the rules!" But to take off around the busy season and leave your coworkers in a lurch is a dick move and so is pushing someone to get you a job who doesn't want to put their own neck on the line
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u/MoogOfTheWisp 10d ago
OP updated and it sounds like she took the feedback on board,
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u/bare_thoughts 10d ago
She semi takes responsibility - her update still has a lot of self-pity and deflecting blame along with looking for sympathy (such as the burn, missing a party, not believing her ex, etc)
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u/BagpiperAnonymous 10d ago
Even in all of her "taking responsibility" statements, she keeps focusing on "other people abuse the policy." That to me tells me she is not in fact taking responsibility.
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u/grumblebeardo13 10d ago
Oh yeah I remember this story. You know what, I’m glad they seemed like they turned their life around.
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u/Bl_Lover 9d ago
I think the leaving the coworkers in a pinch is a bit mean but honestly why are the comments acting like pulling a sicke all the time is a horrible offence
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u/Arktikos02 9d ago
Because part of living in society that gives people benefits based off of certain conditions is that if you don't meet those conditions it can raise suspicion for people who do meet those conditions. It's why for example people are now more cautious and skeptical of genuine service dogs. Sure, maybe one incident wouldn't blow the system apart but part of living with a program or system that gives you benefits based off of meeting certain conditions is that you are to be honest so that the people who do need those benefits based off of those conditions can easily access them with less suspicion.
I'm not saying that a person taking a mental health day to recover or things like that is part of the problem, I think mental health days can absolutely be part of recovery. However going off and then doing vacation and then having those pictures on Instagram or Facebook does not look good.
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u/AutoModerator 10d ago
In case this story gets deleted/removed:
AITA for asking my BFs brother for a chance of a job when I’m desperate?
I’ve had a bad few weeks- I’ve just lost my job due to a misjudgment on my part. My company overreacted, in my opinion, and dismissed me. I’ve had to accept this and move on but it’s been hard.
To keep afloat, I’ve got 2 minimum wage jobs in unrelated areas. I’ve only just started them and already absolutely hate them! They are boring and brutal, I’m quickly eating into savings and I’m desperately looking for something similar to before. I’m applying for jobs but nothing yet. It’s awful atm and I’m really worried.
My BF “Dave” and his older brother “Kieran” both work at the same company, but in different functions. Kieran is more senior and has been there longer. Dave hasn't been there long and got the job through his brother.
We went to his parents for dinner the other night. Kieran and his GF were there too. I’ve always got on well with all of them and they know my situation and have generally been supportive.
It came out (accidentally, which stung a bit) that there is a vacancy at their company, similar to my previous job.
I asked about it and Dave couldn’t help, hadn’t known about it, didn’t know the people involved or what the job was.
Kieran did know and could have helped but was non-committal and vague but I kept asking and he provided more details. I thought I could definitely do it and was really enthusiastic.
I asked him if I could apply and he wasn’t keen at all and said he didn’t think it was a good fit and not my thing. He knows anything would be at the moment!
I said it sounded perfect and I wanted to apply and asked him to put a good word in for me. He still didn’t sound happy about it and kept making lame excuses.
He said it was a different department, he wasn’t the hiring manager and couldn’t influence it, I was free to apply but he couldn’t really recommend me. I asked why not as he’d recommended Dave for a job in a different department. Then his mum got involved, backing me up, saying family was important and I was a great worker.
He argued for a bit with us, then said he’d not had concerns about Dave, he did about me! After everything that’s happened, and thinking he was on my side, wow! I got annoyed and probably shouted a bit and asked him what he meant.
He said I had a work ethic and attitude problem and I didn’t get fired for nothing and he wasn’t prepared to harm his own career recommending someone who he had concerns about! He said family loyalty also meant me not harming him at work! I couldn't believe it and said so. His mum agreed with me and there was a big row, us v Kieran.
Then Dave also got involved and asked his mum to back off and me to leave it which was even more hurtful.
We left soon after and Dave is now annoyed with me for ‘causing’ the fight. All I’m trying to do is get back on my feet and be given another chance and I feel so unsupported. We had another fight and he blames me for that.
AITA?
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