I worked for an online money exchange company. On one occasion I made a wrong operation: I chose the wrong bank and although the account did belong to the client, it was blocked and there was no possibility (supposedly) of reactivating it. I ended up making the company lose the equivalent of 3 times my salary (the equivalent in, say, Dollars is not much, but here in Venezuela it was more money than I ever had in my whole life). After paying half of the debt (since the other half was charged to my supervisor, even though I proposed that I would assume the entire debt) I resigned immediately, I did not want to deal with the stress of making such a mistake again and that it would get worse.
We were told from the beginning that any mistakes we made would have to be paid for, and that the work was “informal” (unregistered), so my ex-employers, in their words, “could do whatever they wanted with us”. That and the fact that in general the whole business was poorly run from the beginning were among the reasons for my resignation.
“But why did you take such a job in the first place?” Simple, I “needed” the money.
In most western countries any unintentional mistake made by the employee is considered a cost of doing business… after all, if such a mistake is doable, there is a problem in the business processes that needs correction.
Now don’t get me wrong, many shady business owners will still try to pin things on employees and take it out of their pay. But that is illegal here.
I worked for an online money exchange company. On one occasion I made a wrong operation: I chose the wrong bank and although the account did belong to the client, it was blocked and there was no possibility (supposedly) of reactivating it. I ended up making the company lose the equivalent of 3 times my salary (the equivalent in, say, Dollars is not much, but here in Venezuela it was more money than I ever had in my whole life). After paying half of the debt (since the other half was charged to my supervisor, even though I proposed that I would assume the entire debt) I resigned immediately, I did not want to deal with the stress of making such a mistake again and that it would get worse.
Wait, you were personally liable for a fuckup at work like that?
We were told from the beginning that any mistakes we made would have to be paid for, and that the work was “informal” (unregistered), so my ex-employers, in their words, “could do whatever they wanted with us”. That and the fact that in general the whole business was poorly run from the beginning were among the reasons for my resignation.
“But why did you take such a job in the first place?” Simple, I “needed” the money.
I hope you are in a better place now. I don’t think that policy would be legal here in Norway.
In most western countries any unintentional mistake made by the employee is considered a cost of doing business… after all, if such a mistake is doable, there is a problem in the business processes that needs correction.
Now don’t get me wrong, many shady business owners will still try to pin things on employees and take it out of their pay. But that is illegal here.
Pretty weird that you have to pay anything at all. In my country my boss would not be happy, but he cannot make me pay for that.