Modern Vespa

Wow, I really am amazed by this.

As a spotty young lout years ago I went for my first job interview. I paused when getting off my suzuki, do I take my helmet with me or not?
I took the helmet, got the job. Boss rode a ducati

just read your slate excerpt .. no struggle believing what really happens out there. but in court, there's going to be another reason for why you got the ax.

In the United States, if it's "not illegal," then they have 'the right' to do it. This is a distinction without a difference.

well. i'd like an expert's take on this - maybe you are one.

the slate stuff - anecdotal. getting fired for having political beliefs, i'd hazard a guess, is illegal. hence my statement that when that dust settled, it was for some other "reason" that the poor slobs involved were fired.. not for their bumper stickers.. such an act would be discriminatory and hence illegal. as would be getting canned for your choice of vehicle - at least in any more or less ordinary situation, where one's choice of vehicle clearly had no bearing on the job itself.

our friend here could be fired for any trumped up reason, or more likely for none at all. were she fired for choosing to ride a scooter to work - my contention - such an act would be illegal.

i freely admit i don't know squat .. willing to be wrong.

i know the feeling here on this. my boss tryed to do that too me. but what he did not know i have been scooting longer then he thinks. it is none of his bussiness in what you do after work or what you ride or dive. he has no right to do that at all.

buy the scoot and have fun with it. if he fires you goto the labor board about it with a lawyer.

people who drive a cage have small mines

Put that Boss in his place.

Yes, we scooterists have big Mines.

How does your boss feel about tattoo's. Seems that if he makes your personal transportation his business then you would think he would forbid you to stick needles into your skin also.

No, he can't. Indiana is an "at will" State, and if I could prove my boss did something like that, I'd own the company.
Get a shirt pocket voice recorder and ask him why he objects to your choice of transportation. Play that for your lawyer. One letter from the attorney will stop that crap.

Is there a factual basis for saying this? The employment-at-will doctrine is pretty clear in theory: with a few statutory and constitutional exceptions, an employer can fire an employee for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all. It is true that getting an attorney involved might dissuade the employer from following through on his threats, if only to avoid litigation, but I don't see how the original poster could ultimately prevail on a wrongful termination claim. In any event, getting attorneys involved would probably make for an uncomfortable work environment.

It seems the original poster is stuck with an employer who feels pretty strongly about this. The best approach would be to try, gradually, to educate the employer about the steps you are taking, even before purchasing the bike, to be a safe and responsible rider. Point to stories and statistics about how scooters are becoming much more common these days. If the employer won't budge, then you have to decide which is more important, the scooter or that particular job.

Brendan

If you get fired, he probably would find an alternate reason that was within his rights as an employer. Riding a scooter wouldn't enter into his reasons...on paper.

Good health insurance is not something to cast off lightly, either. It is your choice, after all, what you do. You're the one who has to live with that decision.

Maybe, just maybe, he has a genuine concern for your well-being.
He probably also thinks that your an important asset which he can't afford to lose.

Take that knowledge into his office and ask for a raise.

Ignore all the asswipes who suggest you get a lawyer and sue.

I haven't seen anyone on this thread suggest that maybe you try to win over your boss. Perhaps (if you've not already done so) taking the Motorcycle/Scooter Basic Safety Course first will show your boss that you're serious about this, and that you're being responsible about this decision. Maybe even see if your boss might take the course with you. That doesn't mean that your boss has to get out in traffic on one afterwards, but they might enjoy it enough to rent a scooter or motorcycle sometime while vacationing or something. Just a thought.

I'm sure he's placing his own experiences and concerns regarding safety on you. When I bought my first scooter several of my friends told me that riding a scooter or motorcycle is the most selfish thing you can do; especially if you have a family that is dependent on you. What they were doing was placing their personal experiences with motorized bikes on me. Several of them were involved in accidents and had given up riding. My response was to thank them for their concern and be appreciative that they would consider my life valuable enough to speak up. I believe that life is meant to be lived and you can get injured walking across the street, riding a bicycle, driving a car, flying in an airplane, riding on a train or even staying home. If you are going to live your life in fear of things happening to you then you'll never experience anything in life. If I am safe, cautious and don't take unnecessary risks, then I am at no increased risk of having a scooter accident than I would be in a car. If I drive like an idiot, no matter what I drive, I'll be in trouble. Bottom line is that it's your life and you make the decisions for your life.

I own my own business and am constantly educating my employees on the amount of money they are wasting by driving cars around! Funny thing is that they give me a hard time for riding the scooter most days, but I have discovered that with the money that I save in gas between riding a scooter vs. a car allows me to take my wife out to a fabulous dinner every week, receive some fantastic fringe benefits and still have money in my pocket!

in employment at will states, an employer can terminate an employee for any reason or no reason at all and the employee can quit with no notice given to the employer. it's the highlight of free movement of labor, but often hurts the little guy. that said about the only way you could sue the boss is if the boss discriminated against you b/c of a protected class (race, religion, sex, age, ethnicity, national origin, sexual harassment etc.) Furthermore, I am sure the boss could show that the increased risk of riding a scooter statistically speaking increases the risk of a insurance claim which in the long run may raise the company's insurance premiums. But as said, the boss does not need justify the reason for terminating your employment. Next time, enter an employment contract, which provides skilled workers such as yourself with a viable safeguard against whimsical employment actions such as these.

Wouldn't it be easiest to buy the scoot, ride it on weekends and after work with a full face helmet (to hide your identity), close your mouth, and he'll be none the wiser? Why get into his face about it when he holds most of the power in the relationship?

C

This reminds me of some older military days. ( My dads that is)
The military had a set of guidelines of what you were not allowed to do during off hours.
In their view you are never off, always on duty. Your actions or lack of actions directly reflected on the military.
If you got hurt doing some thing stupid and reckless you just damaged Government property and got reprimanded for it.
I once had an ex-boss tell me what messages I was allowed to leave on my home answering machine.... I got a new job within the year...

I'm an attorney who negotiates collective bargaining agreements for a union. Disclaimer -- I'm not giving legal advice, I'm just commenting.

All this talk of bring suit against the employer is nice, but the typical misinformation people have about employment. Absent a contract of employment -- usually a collective bargaining agreement negotiated by the union -- an employee is "at will." As someone pointed out, that means the employee can quit for any reason at anytime and can be terminated for any reason at any time. Now there are a few exceptions.

First, the termination cannot violate federal or state laws concerning discrimination on the basis of age, gender or race. Usually, those cases must be processed first at an administrative agency and then, after a period of time if the agency has done nothing, the employee can bring an action on his/her behalf in court -- and pay the lawyer for his/her time bringing the case, either on an hourly basis or by agreeing to give the lawyer a percentage of any recovery. A desire to own and operate a motor scooter is not a "protected class" under any law that I know of, so that option is out.

Second, in some cases the existence of a published employee handbook, coupled with behavior by the company indicating that it considers itself "bound" by the rules of the handbook, an employee can make a "quasi contractual" argument that the discharge violated the rules in the handbook. That case must be handled by an attorney and you are in the same payment options as I put forward earlier.

The bottom line -- unless you are subject to a contract of employment that provides that dimissal only can be for "cause" -- and is subject to a hearing and review in arbitration, you are pretty much sh*t out of luck if your boss is a knucklehead.

It does sound like your boss in concerned for your well being. Maybe he has seen you trip a few times and thinks or coordination is bad and wants you to stay off 2 wheels. Like above, hopefully you can educate him which will help change his tune. If this new restriction is another issue on a whole list of things, maybe it's time to think about new employment?

Sadly businesses are being allowed to intrude in every facet of your life - many companies and, in particular, police forces are banning smoking cigarettes on your own time for example.

Personally I think that is pure BS my time is my time, unless it directly interferes with work I should be able to do what I want.

That's a politcal rant I guess so let's not go there.

I now work essentially for myself, I used to work in IT for big Fortune 500 type corporates. Now I am free to do mostly what I want as long as I feel my clients won't be upset. What I find funny is most of my clients (I'm a Realtor now btw) think it is fine I ride a scooter but always insist on giving me a ride to our next location. Not sure if they are worried about my safety or what? I wonder if I had a "real" MC if that would still be the case.


One last thing - I really want a Vespa GTS to replac e my POS scooter and plan on doing a Rally-style stripe with my website as the text, I think it will give me a cool angle.

There has been far more incidents of pedestrians getting injured by cars plowing through a bus shelter or mounting a side walk in Toronto than incidents on a Scooter

You beat me to it and I believe this is the core of the issue.

Also, his comment about your health insurance cost--could it be that his premiums go up if he has above-average health cost (due to an accident)?

I think he is mainly protecting himself and his wallet.

Bottom line, I would thank him for being so concerned about your well-being and that he obviously values your business contribution so much that he is afraid of not having you appear to work to do your job. Then I would continue to ask him for gas money to cover the extra cost of communting in a car vs. a fuel efficient scooter. See what he says to that (and run the risk that he agrees). Then, look for a new job.

+1

I left DC in 1969; back when the traffic backed up from the mixing bowl to Seminary Rd. I was just soooo tired of the rat race there.

If you buy a scooter/motorcycle/sports car or whatever, and you don't park it on company property, it's not the company's concern. You havn't said, but are you hourly or salery?

wow...is the name calling really necessary????

post deleted by Salima

In some areas a salaried position would imply an 'assumed contract' even if an individual one wasn't signed. Might make a huge difference to his job security.

Might not where he works, but it would certainly do so here.

Wonderful, to see you out and about again. Glad you're feeling better.

Oops, I obviously don't have much to do at work

Alright, response has been awesome on this and I appreciate it a lot. I was hired as hourly but it turned out to be salaried. It's the good kind of salaried where I don't work extra hours and we often knock off early.

I feel that he could easily cite "other reasons" for firing me that would be far more damaging to my professional reputation, like not getting along with other employees and or even worse "dishonesty". Not true of course, but that's a black stain. I would much rather find somewhere else to work and leave on my own terms.

I am one of two jewelers there and while I am the one in charge of anything innovative or unusually creative, the other guy is a Korean workhorse who doesn't speak english and has been working for 35 years. He isn't creative and does not want to do all the pet projects the boss has me do (new tecnology, production work and such), but he'll never leave because he can't find better and he is consistently good at producing the kind of work he needs to do. So, I think I am somewhat expendable. He won't get anyone else to do the things he wants to do to improve the company, but he won't die because of it. The korean guy actually has created problems for me, because he has a different cultural viewpoint and I am young and female. We used to get along when i did everything his way and did all the grunt apprentice stuff for him, but when my boss wanted me to actually do the kind of work i am qualified to do, he had a hissy fit and decided he would no longer interact with me. I am not the first person he did this prima donna act to, either, and I won't be the last.

My boss knew I was taking MSF and didn't care.

Health insurance is important for me because I take medication, but we have a freakin 1200 dollar deductible and i am hurting because of it.

Legal action wouldn't be worth it to me. It would be too expensive and i don't want to drag him into the mud. I would rather cut my losses and leave. I already learned everything I could from the job anyway.

Oddly enough in the Las Vegas casino world (NV is a right to work state) salaried employees generally have even less protection. Management tries extra hard to keep protections up for hourly workers to prevent interest in unions. We live in distinctly different worlds....

That doesn't necessarily make it not valid....

Do you share your personal life on all the internet forums you visit ?

i don't get it you don't have a scooter OR know anyone here
wWhy would it matter what any of us think or suggest ?



Is this some sort of internet joke ?
i really like jokes but i cant figure out the punch-line with this on

My initial question had been if it had happened to anyone else. I didn't expect everyone to get so friendly about it, but it was nice to know people cared about a stranger on the internet.

Ouch. Sounds like letting this drop with the boss so he doesn't get pissed off but still finding another job with some HI is the way to go. At least that way you might get a half-decent reference.

Whatever, best of luck, and apols for assuming a 'he' above. I actually did assume that, not just using it as a generic pronoun, hands up.

ATB, and find a good scooter.

post deleted by Salima

Awesome article! I think I've finally found a quote I like for my sig...

But back on topic, to the OP: if your boss is really worried about your safety, I'd recommend signing up for the MSF course if you haven't done so yet. Hopefully that will assure him that you're serious about your own safety. (oops, missed your previous post where you said you already told him about MSF) Also buy good gear, like an armored jacket, full face helmet, riding gloves and boots. However, I suspect the motivation behind his heavy-handed tactics aren't altruistic, I'd be willing to bet they're financial. More than likely, he doesn't want to face the prospect of higher health insurance premiums, paying for disability, etc, in the event that something happens while you're riding.

My advice is to start looking for another job, one where the boss will be more respectful of your personal choices and less interested in telling you how to live your life. Good luck!

I appreciate you looking out for me Salima. I was not offended by the question.

Thanks for the good advice and support. We can let the thread die now, since I wouldn't want to offend anyone.

He is very likely worried that the accident he is assuming will happen is going to put his health insurance rates through the roof. All types of business insurance have been going up - that is no secret. Everything looks like a future "cost" to some owners. From the way the comment was made, not as a concern for your safety but as a bit of a threat, I'd suggest regularly reading the classifieds. And go get that scooter.

Some fellow employees at the small business I work for were not pleased to see me show up on a scooter. It was ok for the young guys to get motorcycles but not ok for this old mom. The entire month of May I heard story after story about people that had been in crashes that will never be the same again. They are all getting used to it now. I don't come screaming down the 35 MPH road 70 MPH.

Buy the scooter, ride it to work, park it a couple blocks away, lock it up, walk the couple blocks to work and tell the boss "you prompted me to ride the bus"...while you keep looking for another job!

No matter what you do, you will offend someone. I've learned that here, not from other places. It's strange.