Notes on a sacking

My brother recently quit his job in order to take a trip to Spain, that he’s been planning for a long time. Good on him.

Back in 2006, he got me a job at V/Line (or Pacific National, as it was then). I was fired in June 2007.

Why was I fired? Because of this blog! You see, in June 2007, there was a rail disaster at Kerang that killed 11 people - while I was on shift. Like most rail employees, this made an impact on me, so naturally I blogged about it. My mistake was mentioning that I worked at V/Line.

The day after publishing the post, I was pulled aside by management and asked to delete it. I complied immediately, and thought that would be the end of the matter. I was wrong.

The day after, at the start of my shift, I was pulled aside again. This time, I was asked to hand in my security pass. I was told that a decision had not yet been made on my continued employment, but that they would call me later. This was a transparent lie, but I didn’t call them on it. I also didn’t feel the need to tell them about the other pass I had that they didn’t know about. (I arranged to have this returned at a later date.)

All in all, it was a rather shabby affair.

The agency I had worked through refused to give me documentation that they were required by law to provide.

Fortunately I was able to find employment shortly afterwards at another company, where I remain today. They shall remain nameless.