Wetherspoons ordered to pay autistic pub worker £25,000 after ‘persecuting’ him for using his staff discount for a meal with his family

14 comments

1. [deleted]

2. I know several ppl who work for Wetherspoons, none of them has any positive story’s about how they are treated. It’s as if senior management, and a lot of local management, go out of their way to make the staff miserable, with unreasonable interpretation of minor rules.

   In most place’s the local manager should have taken him aside, explained how the rule was meant to work, tell him they’ll let it go this time, but don’t do it again. But then that would have been a reasonable and proportional approach, which is increasingly rare nowadays.

   From speaking to the people I know who work for them, almost everyone runs afoul of some arbitrary rule interpretation that will be different next week. For example, telling someone to hold off taking their break for 10 minutes because they’re busy, but then expect them to be back at the time the original break was meant to end, because that’s what’s written on a chart, so they lose 10 minutes of their break. If they complain, they are told they should have taken their break when they were meant to, and point at the chart.

3. This has to be the biggest company own goal I’ve ever seen. A £20 quid meal cost them £25k and lawsuit. Jfc

4. Amazing that all that time and money was spent for what must have been less than a fivers discount from the employee discount.

5. Seems like his manager just kept digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself.

   The worker used his discount for a group of 6 instead of a group of 4 because he didn’t know there was a limit.

   During his disciplinary meeting his manager also told him that he wasn’t allowed to share his timetable with his mother because of the “security policy”.

   His mum came in, explained how due to his condition he needs to plan bus times and lifts with her to get to and from work, so she needs to know when his shifts are, and that just telling him to read policies doesn’t work. He needs someone to actually explain it to him too understand.

   Instead of making those accommodations and saying “now you’ve had it all explained, don’t do it again” the manager immediately wrote him up for “gross misconduct”.
   So Wetherspoons have had to pay £25,000 for refusing to make any accommodations for his condition.

6. Worked as a contractor carrying out emergency and planned works in wetherspoons pubs. Dreaded getting certain pubs as the managers and shift leaders would talk to you like they were a teacher reprimanding a student. Had an official complaint about me because I did not have a spare toilet in my van and had to wait for one to be delivered to the merchants. Also, had some “up and coming” shift leader call my work to tell them I couldn’t replace a broken tap that day because I couldn’t be bothered. The guy had signed my job sheet and heard me on the phone trying to source parts that were unavailable. Got asked for £3 before I left one day as I had 2 glasses of Pepsi which the shift manager offered me for free but when the shift manager changed they decided to charge me for them.

7. Sounds like they were taking the piss to be fair

8. They should have just made the rules clear to him and said don’t do it again, and that would have been the end of it.

9. how the hell does Wetherspoons have the time and energy to persecute this one worker??? shouldn’t they be more concerned about serving their piss poor beer?

10. Had a mate who was sacked after 3 years service for forgetting to pay for a can of apple soda at the end of their shift.

    New manager, trying to swing his 21 yo balls around.

    My mate now manages a proper pub.

11. £19.17 discount because the autistic lad didn’t know the staff discount rules now costs Wetherspoons £25,000! Well done Brandon and Mum for taking them to task on this 🙌🏻

12. Nothing new for Wetherspoons, they tried to fire me because the chef was drunk and kept sending uncooked food, so I had to refund a big table. The slightest thing that they don’t like, they’ll do their best to fire you. I got a verbal and written apology, as well as being reinstated to my position

    Fuck Wetherspoons, don’t give them a penny

13. Lad I know said one of staff did something with their discount and they lost their job it was over 50p

14. Someone put this through the till for him and let him pay for it, the tills could have a prompt put on them when using the discount as a reminder to both the server and the person paying, and this rule of 4 people is likely not enforced regularly across the chain I would bet, the manager could have easily looked at it, listened to the employee and then made a reasonable judgement call with the Area Manager eg given them a warning etc – honestly all feels like they just wanted him gone and thought they had a way of doing it without being liable for discrimination.

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