Hi all,
Very new to this forum, and hoping someone can offer some sound advice. I am looking at whether I have a case to take my agency to the Small Claims Court as they are refusing to pay my notice period.
I started a new contract last week for an IT Consultancy. Day 3 into the new job, I had to attend a Client site for an intro meeting as part of a handover process. Nothing extraordinary happened during the meeting but shortly after I had left the Client site, I received a call from my agency to say the end Client had called my company (the Consultancy) and suggested that I'd fallen asleep during the meeting, was not happy and wanted me off their project. This in turn meant the Consultancy had no option but to cancel my contract. I have been contracting for 10 years and what happened last week has stunned me, and certainly never happened before.
I was categorically not asleep during the meeting. There were 8 other people in the meeting, 3 others from my company and not one mentioned or even suggested such a thing. I spent some time after the meeting with my line manager, who had sat opposite me; a very straight talking, no nonsense character who would have certainly informed me had I even appeared to have fallen asleep. I also walked 20mins back to my office with other colleagues, none of whom mentioned or hinted of their concern of this matter, as you would reasonably expect had such an event occurred.
The agency are saying, they have sufficient grounds to invoke a clause to terminate my contract with immediate effect. The clause of the contract enables them to terminate with immediate effect should they have reasonable grounds to be dissatisfied with my services.
So my question is, does a suggestion or claim that I was asleep by one person from an end Client, even though I wasn't, constitute reasonable grounds to invoke a clause that MY Client (the Consultancy) were dissatisfied with my services? Even though the original claim was not by them.
Is it to be noted that I was not woken by anyone (because I was not asleep at any point), I had not slumped into my chair, was not found under the table snoring. I have admitted I was tired during the meeting, and unfortunately my tiredness may have been noticed. However, yawning is mostly an involuntary process, and maybe I should have excused myself from the room however I did not want to miss any of the meeting. I can't believe that a natural human reaction constitutes a lack of ability or professionalism of services.
Also to note, the Consultancy's relationship with the Client had not been great before I started, of which I was warned about beforehand.
Apologies for the essay, but the context around events was important.
Thanks in advance.
(I'll be amazed if this has happened before).
Very new to this forum, and hoping someone can offer some sound advice. I am looking at whether I have a case to take my agency to the Small Claims Court as they are refusing to pay my notice period.
I started a new contract last week for an IT Consultancy. Day 3 into the new job, I had to attend a Client site for an intro meeting as part of a handover process. Nothing extraordinary happened during the meeting but shortly after I had left the Client site, I received a call from my agency to say the end Client had called my company (the Consultancy) and suggested that I'd fallen asleep during the meeting, was not happy and wanted me off their project. This in turn meant the Consultancy had no option but to cancel my contract. I have been contracting for 10 years and what happened last week has stunned me, and certainly never happened before.
I was categorically not asleep during the meeting. There were 8 other people in the meeting, 3 others from my company and not one mentioned or even suggested such a thing. I spent some time after the meeting with my line manager, who had sat opposite me; a very straight talking, no nonsense character who would have certainly informed me had I even appeared to have fallen asleep. I also walked 20mins back to my office with other colleagues, none of whom mentioned or hinted of their concern of this matter, as you would reasonably expect had such an event occurred.
The agency are saying, they have sufficient grounds to invoke a clause to terminate my contract with immediate effect. The clause of the contract enables them to terminate with immediate effect should they have reasonable grounds to be dissatisfied with my services.
So my question is, does a suggestion or claim that I was asleep by one person from an end Client, even though I wasn't, constitute reasonable grounds to invoke a clause that MY Client (the Consultancy) were dissatisfied with my services? Even though the original claim was not by them.
Is it to be noted that I was not woken by anyone (because I was not asleep at any point), I had not slumped into my chair, was not found under the table snoring. I have admitted I was tired during the meeting, and unfortunately my tiredness may have been noticed. However, yawning is mostly an involuntary process, and maybe I should have excused myself from the room however I did not want to miss any of the meeting. I can't believe that a natural human reaction constitutes a lack of ability or professionalism of services.
Also to note, the Consultancy's relationship with the Client had not been great before I started, of which I was warned about beforehand.
Apologies for the essay, but the context around events was important.
Thanks in advance.
(I'll be amazed if this has happened before).
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