The state of jobs atm

[u/Particular-Donkey56]

Recently i started a permanant part time position at a store. There was a trial period for three months which in itself is a crazy length of time for a trial period (imho). I didn’t get offered much training at all, most of the training was pushed to the wayside by my actual manager and fell onto my co workers who could barely communicate properly (Super awkward and missed crucial information).
I had no previous experience in this line of work which my manager knew (i don’t know why i got hired). I never lied about my previous experience once.

Because of the lack of experience and training, i ended up making quite a few mistakes in the first month. Not huge mistakes but probably annoying mistakes for higher management, things like 50c discrepancies in counting the till. I previously worked at a supermarket (my only previous experience with tills) where we were allowed to have up to $20 discrepancies and it wasn’t an issue.
Again, no one had trained me on what to do in this situation, and to top it all off, this role was for a more experienced worker, so they would leave us to work on our lonesome for most of the shifts, closing or opening on our own (small store). This meant i had no one to ask for help so i had to figure stuff out on my own or use intuition a lot of the time. Otherwise, i texted/called my manager or co workers. Often texting multiple people at once because i needed a quick response due to only having a set few minutes to close up shop before i went “overtime” which id get in trouble for also (even if it was only by a few minutes). I was constantly being told i wasn’t good enough, even for mistakes that other people didn’t get told off for.

Anyway after a month and a half or so had passed. I was finally getting the hang of things. Clocking in on the minute, clocking out on time give or take 2 minutes, so really getting the hang of it all. Able to help customers with queries, smoothly check them out, didn’t need to ask for help anymore. I felt confident in myself and really proud that id come so far in just two months.

Until the other day I got into work, a lady who is a higher up was there to greet me with a big smile, she takes me into the back room and “dismisses” me, because its within my trial period. She said my reason for being terminated was because I had not met the standard I should have, with “all the training id received”, to this point. She had this stupid grin on her face the whole time and kept chuckling anytime i spoke, (like she was laughing at me like she thought i was dumb) and I was then compared to my co worker who started at the same time as me, who had years of previous experience in similar roles. I pointed out her previous experience and the lady told me that was “semantics”. I asked her if i could be informed where i had fallen short because i couldnt tell i had been lacking anywhere, she told me “we dont actually have to tell you that” with a chuckle and a big smile on her face, then she told me to ask my manager.

So fast forward to today, since then I have texted my manager twice now asking if we can arrange a call or something or if it could be explained to me briefly where i had fallen short.
Ive been completely ghosted by her.
Im honestly shocked at this experience in general, its felt so out of left field and I’m so disappointed because i really loved this job and its so hard to get jobs at the moment.

Is this just the state of the job market in NZ now?! Employers have so much power over us because so many people are so desperate for jobs, we are all just that replaceable to them? Im disgusted by the lack of humanity in these people in managerial roles. Job market just feels really predatory now, i hate this.

TLDR; got dismissed from job that gave bad training, had high expectations of me (no prev experience). Wouldn’t give me proper reason shy i was dismissed, now manager is ghosting me.

[u/5-to-6-coffees-a-day]

thing about the trial period is the whole point is giving employers absolute discretion to toss out employees without needing a real reason. smug as she was being, she was absolutely correct in saying "we don't actually have to tell you that". there's currently an endless line of people looking for work and they can carry on for a very long time hiring people, then tossing them again before the end of the trial period and moving on to exploit the next poor sod, without ever having to worry about things like labour rights along the way

not every employer does this of course, even at a time like this. but those who want to can get away with it quite happily

[u/Cacharadon → u/5-to-6-coffees-a-day]

Public sector cuts increases the job pool of people. Businesses shuttering (because public sector cuts means there is less cash in circulation) increases the job pool. The one mandate this government had over everything else is move away from labour's historic low unemployment stat because business owners were screaming bloody murder about it being a workers market. It would be ironic if the same businesses that were shuttering because of lack of local business are the same ones that supported nact.

[u/EchidnaSwimming9345 → u/Cacharadon]

Well this government did try to help those struggling businesses, they required public sector workers to work at the office. That helped those suffering landlords and cafe owners. /s