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Fired Without Cause

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Scarbarian

Banned
Apr 6, 2013
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I was laid off from a part time office job two weeks ago. I worked for a small charity as a donations solicitor in between school to help pay bills. My job was to call various businesses to solicit donations of gifts and services for an auction that the charity runs. To be honest, the charity is a bit shady as they sometimes can be. Some of the money raised does not go towards the cause despite claiming 100% of it does.

Anyway, this operation is so ghetto, employees were expected to use their own laptops to work. I used my own laptop to track the donations from the businesses I called. I did this for 3 days a week for three months so I had a decent sized list with some fairly good donations.

December is a busy time for this charity but it's also my exam times so I asked to take a few weeks off to study. Not long after the request, I was fired without cause. I was given termination pay and was told not to come back for my next shift. Since I wanted to study and the gig wasn't the exactly the be all of end all, I didn't really care to press the issue since I got termination pay.

I received an email today asking that I give them all the work I did for the charity on my personal computer.

So question is - am I obligated to answer them or give anything back? Is there any legal repercussions for ignoring them? The computer is my personal computer and was never connected to any work drives. I know some employment agreements have a clause along the lines of "company owns any idea or thing you produce at work" but I didn't see if mine had that. I didn't feel like reading a 15 page document for a part time gig though I guess I should've read it in hindsight.
 
Tell them you have deleted it, as the presence of their unauthorized materials on your personal computer was a security risk.
 
I wouldn't worry about an email and either don't respond or go with the suggestion above and reply with a "I don't have anything" email.

Only if they press the issue involving lawyers should you pay any mind to it.
 
+1 .... I wouldn't bother giving them the time of day. They let you go, had you using personal devices for work related job function .... too bad so sad. If you're worried about ignoring them, just say you deleted it all as you didn't see the point of keeping it since you were let go!
 
If they are small enough, they may not have had you sign or acknowledge an agreement laying out the deal with using your personal device. Larger corporations do. If not, ignore them.

The risks of bring your own device to the business owner....
 
Now might be a good time to read through those 15 pages to see what conditions you agreed to.

As for the data, I'd get a cheap jump drive and transfer the data to it, then I'd delete it from the laptop.

That way, you can honestly tell them you've deleted it from your laptop and you have a copy just in case you actually do have some legal obligation to return it based on the agreement you never read.
 
Just goes to show. A lot of these charities are scams. Even some of the bigger ones. They tug at your heart with all these stories. Then take your money, and lots of it goes into administration and in executive salaries.
 
Scarbarian said:
I was laid off from a part time office job two weeks ago. I worked for a small charity as a donations solicitor in between school to help pay bills. My job was to call various businesses to solicit donations of gifts and services for an auction that the charity runs. To be honest, the charity is a bit shady as they sometimes can be. Some of the money raised does not go towards the cause despite claiming 100% of it does.

Anyway, this operation is so ghetto, employees were expected to use their own laptops to work. I used my own laptop to track the donations from the businesses I called. I did this for 3 days a week for three months so I had a decent sized list with some fairly good donations.

December is a busy time for this charity but it's also my exam times so I asked to take a few weeks off to study. Not long after the request, I was fired without cause. I was given termination pay and was told not to come back for my next shift. Since I wanted to study and the gig wasn't the exactly the be all of end all, I didn't really care to press the issue since I got termination pay.

I received an email today asking that I give them all the work I did for the charity on my personal computer.

So question is - am I obligated to answer them or give anything back? Is there any legal repercussions for ignoring them? The computer is my personal computer and was never connected to any work drives. I know some employment agreements have a clause along the lines of "company owns any idea or thing you produce at work" but I didn't see if mine had that. I didn't feel like reading a 15 page document for a part time gig though I guess I should've read it in hindsight.
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I wouldn't worry about it, this information should have been requested the day you were terminated. This is after the fact, and you no longer have any ties with this company.
 
As others have said, I would not worry about. At least not until you get some sort of formal legal notice. Which with this company, it sounds like that won't happen. I don't know if they would have the money to bring such a legal action. Especially knowing that if you have a possible claim for wrongful dismissal. Besides, by that time you say you deleted it. They can not search your computer for it.

It sounds like they got ticked about your time off, fired you and found someone else and then said "Shit! we didn't get all the contacts" Which is what they want because it is money to them.
 
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tell them you will give them the list if they give you a reference letter
 
destillat said:
Then he's admitting that he has it, and is holding it hostage.
Can't he get in trouble for blackmail of some sort?
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unsure who owns the list

Also, a reference letter is a legal obligation on their part, so it seems a reasonable trade and the list is of no value to the OP so might as well barter for the reference

Why is the OP asking the question

give them the list back

what does he gain in not doing so, unless the list is legally his then he charge for it as he owns it

he could lose a reference by holding back and gain nothing
 
Yoga Face said:
unsure who owns the list

Also, a reference letter is a legal obligation on their part, so it seems a reasonable trade and the list is of no value to the OP so might as well barter for the reference

Why is the OP asking the question

give them the list back

what does he gain in not doing so, unless the list is legally his then he charge for it as he owns it

he could lose a reference by holding back and gain nothing
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Is a reference letter a legal obligation, or is a 'confirmation of employment letter' a legal obligation?
 
Fuck them. They paid you termination pay, and the relationship ended right then and there. tell them that you deleted the list.

If they wanted the data, they were obligated to ask for the list at the time of your employment termination. You owe them absolutely nothing at all. Their request is a request to help them, and you stand on firm legal grounds to refuse to have anything to do with their requests for helping them after you were terminated without cause. I was in a similar situation many, many years ago.
 
Yoga Face said:
tell them you will give them the list if they give you a reference letter
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The OP owes nothing to them, and they owe nothing to him. Letters of reference should have been negotiated at the time of termination. If, however, they try to block him from getting employment with future employers, they can be sued, big time. I did this with my first employer who ran a sweatshop, and they let me go when they found out i was looking for a better job and was just engaged to be married. It cost them tons of money in legal fees and severance pay, especially when they tried to reneg on the out-of-court agreement and my lawyer had a judge enforce the agreement as a court decision.
 
My opinion is the opposite from the majority. I'd make a copy of all the company's files and give it to them. It's the "right" thing to do and you never know what good will become of it in the future. Never burn bridges. Besides, shady or not, it's a charity and needy people may still benefit.

Unfortunately donation inefficient charities are more common than most people realize:
http://www.moneysense.ca/planning/canadas-top-rated-charities/
http://www.charityintelligence.ca/
 
destillat said:
Is a reference letter a legal obligation, or is a 'confirmation of employment letter' a legal obligation?
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A Record of Employment is a legal requirement set by HRDC, for employment insurance purposes. It is required if the OP was paid by the hour and had an established employee relationship with the employer, and not as a contractor, I believe.
 
Love the attitude in this thread.

The correct answer is that he should do the right thing and give back the information. As another poster pointed out, there's no down side to doing this. In theory they could pursue legal action as they "own" the material on the laptop but it's not worth their time to fight over it. They're doing the right thing and asking that the OP give it back (heck, they could have sent a nasty legal-gram demanding it back or face the consequences but they didn't even do that).

From what I can see the company has done nothing wrong to the OP. He took more time off than they were prepared to accept and they ended the employment relationship. They even paid termination pay (really pay-in-lieu of notice of termination), which a lot of shady companies wouldn't have done.

Saying now that he shouldn't have had to use his personal computer; he didn't have to. He could have told them he didn't have one or he could have turned down the job if he didn't like the conditions.

Withholding the information, or deleting it, is just sour grapes and says a lot more about who you are than about who the company is.

And it's a charity to boot! Scumbag move.

p.s., no charity gives 100% of the money they take in to their cause. There are always administration costs. IIRC, there is a website/organization that tracks which charities spend the least on internal administration and the ones that spend the most usually aren't charities for long.
 
Promo said:
My opinion is the opposite from the majority. I'd make a copy of all the company's files and give it to them. It's the "right" thing to do and you never know what good will become of it in the future. Never burn bridges. Besides, shady or not, it's a charity and needy people may still benefit.

Unfortunately donation inefficient charities are more common than most people realize:
http://www.moneysense.ca/planning/canadas-top-rated-charities/
http://www.charityintelligence.ca/
Click to expand...
What were the terms of employment? If there was a clause that stated the list belonged to the employer, then he would have t give it to them, but keep a copy for himself, as you suggest. No Employment agreement, nothing to give to them.
 
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