I'm asking advice for my daughter who is 16yrs & works for Sonic burger, she got written up Friday night for not trying hard enough to sell extra items to customers at the drive through/car hop when taking their orders, she was written up by the general manager & he not only wrote her up but told her she had to write 100x " I will try harder on my sales" & bring it back to him on her next work day, so 1) is this right to make her do this off the clock without being paid & 2) Is this even legal for him to make her write a statement like this 100x ( he made another employee who is 15yrs do the same thing & she complyed) or is this some kind of harassment or disscrinination because their young?
Through fmaily advice she's not going to write it at home but rather tell him when she goes back to work that if he wants her to write it then she will do it at work while she's on the clock & if she gets fired or something over this can she call the labor board & complain
and /or have a law suit over this?
I forgot to mention we live in Colorado, thank you!

:confused:

If you have time I would call the higher ups and tell them what he is up to. Call the main office, call the owner of that store. There are labor laws for school students her age so reporting it to the labor board may be something you should do. I wouldn't wait the sooner the better.

It's a job and its hourly to boot. The manager has no right to ask for anything be done off the clock and reasonably expect it to be done.

Have your daughter ask the manager to put his "punishment" in writing and sign it.

And after she tells him all of this, expect her to be fired for some other totally different reason in a week or two.

I am being direct, is it right, no, is it fair no,
But she is 16 and should be thankful to have a job, he is trying to teach her rules to follow and obviously she was not asking them on the intercom to buy other products,
She could have just been fired for it if they had wanted to.

I agree, the punishment is not legal. But the writeup is. Many retail stores have rules about "attachments" to sales. If she is not meeting sales quotas, then she could be fired. So it would not be hard for the manager to justify letting her go.

I know you want to teach your daughter fairness, legality etc. but sometimes you can win the battle and lose the war. You and your daughter need to ask yourself how important this job is to her. Then you can decide how to proceed.

Thank you! She is going to look for another job, we just thought the writing out 100x
" Iwill do better on my sales" was kind of grade school & weird.

It may be weird or grade school to your way of thinking but possibly he was actually being nice to her by not firing her outright for this. Employers nowadays are making up stuff as they go along. If your daughter likes her job, I would tell her to write out whatever manager wants her to write out and try to do better. Why does everyone think they have a reason to sue about technicalities now? Do they put something in the water out there? Don't know. How long would it take her to write this out? Probably not longer than 15 minutes tops. And you're getting bent out of shape about not being paid for 15 minutes of work? Please rethink this, OK? She will have to learn her lessons in the real world soon enough. At 16 she has a lot to learn.

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Originally Posted by twinkiedooter

It may be weird or grade school to your way of thinking but possibly he was actually being nice to her by not firing her outright for this. Employers nowadays are making up stuff as they go along. If your daughter likes her job, I would tell her to go ahead and write out whatever manager wants her to write out and try to do better. Why does everyone think they have a reason to sue about technicalities now? Do they put something in the water out there? Don't know. How long would it take her to write this out? Probably not longer than 15 minutes tops. And you're getting bent out of shape about not being paid for 15 minutes of work? Please rethink this, ok? She will have to learn her lessons in the real world soon enough. At 16 she has a lot to learn.

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Its not the writing of the sentences or the money - it's the principal of the matter. Its grade school punishment and has no place in business. She should get written up in accordance with company policy and fired if that's the case. It sounds to me like the manager has control issues and is taking it out on kids.

I suggested getting it in writing because it would force the manager to think about and/or review if what he is doing is appropriate in a business environment. Suing is silly - but the threat of exposure to upper management might readjust the manager's poor leadership.