San Francisco, CAFirst there was the Twinkie defense and now cupcakes for the wrongfully terminated - only in San Francisco! While Maryann’s employer thought the gesture would soften the blow, she believes there is no room for cupcakes in the California labor laws.
Maryann, a paralegal, was given less than 24 hours termination notice. “I was called into the conference room just before 5 p.m.,” says Maryann. “First of all, my boss explained that my position was being eliminated due to financial difficulties and then he asked if I wanted a cupcake to celebrate a new change and transition.”
She didn’t quite have the appetite for a cupcake - chalk it up to bad timing and bad taste - her employer usually brought cupcakes to celebrate an employee’s birthday.
“I was the operations manager for a small immigration law firm that comprised 15 or so staff,” says Maryann. “My title was operations manager so I wore many hats for the attorneys, from handling HR to working with the tech guy. I couldn’t see how they could manage without someone working in this capacity. ‘Who is going to do my job?’ I asked the boss when he gave me the news that I was fired. ‘We’d like you to help us figure it out,’ he replied. ‘And when would you like me to do that?’ I asked.
“He wanted me to help him out the very next day. I was in a state of shock. The controller of the firm had recently left without notice so I was also doing some of her duties, including payroll.
“He could tell this news wasn’t sitting well with me. ‘Would you like to have an exit interview?’ he asked, and then had the nerve to ask what I liked about working here and what could they do better next time around. This really floored me: did he want me to help find a replacement?”
Maryann went to work the next day to ensure that she would be paid for vacation and sick leave. After all, there was no one else in charge of payroll. And she had the “exit interview” that more or less consisted of describing her job description.
“I knew the point of this interview was so that someone taking my place would be prepared, and that my employer would be better equipped to pick up the pieces,” she explains. “Then I simply left. I didn’t get paid for doing the payroll that day, nor did I get my last paycheck, which is another violation of the California labor code. In fact, I didn’t get my paycheck until two weeks later.
“There was more to being terminated than their excuse of financial difficulties. My boss told me that I wasn’t a good manager because I treated people like adults. ‘If you treat people like children they will act like children,’ I replied. (The firm consisted of three middle-aged lawyers and the rest of the employees were in their early 20s.) I took unpaid personal time when my father died and I think that is another reason why I was fired.”
Maryann asked her boss if she was getting severance pay - she thought one month’s salary would be fair for both employee and employer. He hadn’t thought about that. She followed up a week later via e-mail. He replied that the company was “broke” so she wouldn’t be receiving any severance pay.
“I had asked for a month but figured I would get two weeks’ pay; I had worked here for two years,” Maryann says. “I wasn’t expecting nothing - it was like a slap in the face. I believe they have money but I should focus on moving forward and not deal with a crappy past.”
Maryann is now collecting unemployment but she expects to be employed before it runs out. Adding insult to injury, she recently got a call from the accounting coordinator, asking Maryann if she could walk her through the payroll process - with no mention of compensation. “I helped her because it was important to me that people got paid,” she says.
“Before I got my first unemployment check, I consulted with two attorney friends: they recommended that I contact LawyersandSettlements because I wasn’t sure if I had a leg to stand on or not regarding wrongful termination. Then I found out that California is an at-will state. If I didn’t qualify for unemployment, I would definitely have filed a California labor lawsuit, but in the end, I am glad to be gone from that toxic environment with their cupcakes and moving on…”
(In 1978, Dan White gunned down mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. White’s defense team argued that consuming Twinkies had diminished his mental capacity and therefore White was not capable of premeditation required to be charged with first degree murder: he got off with voluntary manslaughter.)