Regis Hair Salon UNFAIR Company, AWFUL Management!! Palmdale California

I have been an employee for a Southern California Regis Salon since Jan of 2004. In mid 2007 their had been a situation within the salon that, to my understading, was handled inappropriately, resulting in the manager at the time, April, having to "step down" from her management position.

While sifting through the three in-salon candidates for the position (one being myself), April would continue the duties of manager until an appropriate replacement was found.

In November of 2007, our regional manager, Linda had phoned me to say that I had been her top choice for the position, but that the timing was not right, seeing as how I was pregnant and due December 11th. She told me that if my "circumstances" had been different, I would have been given the position, but that she needed to have a manager for the busy Christmas season.

I felt discriminated, mainly because I knew that I would and could do a better job than the other two candidates; I am the only one with prior salon management experience. Nevertheless, it was not my opinion that made the decision at the end of the day- it was Linda. And she did not choose me- she chose Lyndsay.

Continuing, I was set to go on leave December 11th, but after speaking with Lyndsay, decided to make November 26th my last day. I ended up going into labor December 3rd and had a healthy baby boy. I had contacted the FMLA Department, as well as Linda to inform them that I had went on leave early.

In my maternity leave approval paperwork, I had selected January 26, 2008 as my return to work day, and I did just that. Today is March 29th and I have now been back to work for 2 months. It is hard, and has many changes that accompany, but well worth it. Here is my problem:

On Wednesday, March 26th, exactly 2 months after my return to my workplace, Lyndsay asked to speak with me. Her exact words, and I quote "You're on Linda's s**t list". Professional, huh?? Anyways, I asked why and she had told me that Linda had done my 3 month review and that my totals were the lowest in the salon. Lyndsay told me that Linda had reviewed me for the months of Dec 07, Jan 08 and Feb 08. I asked Lyndsay why Linda would do my review over my leave. Lyndsay said that she had informed Linda that I had been on an approved leave, and that Linda's response was "basically, she said 'tough s**t'".

I called Linda at her office later that night to talk about the situation. She basically avoided answering my questions; first, she should understand that I was on leave 3/4 of the time that she is trying to do my review. Second, during out discussion she had tried to tell me that my leave had never been approved when I have the paper saying that it was approved. Third, her only response was "you don't understand", with the conversation ending with her saying, "I can tell that we don't see eye-to-eye on this, so call me if you have any more questions or concerns."

Absolutely nothing got solved trying to talk to my regional. I'm not going to have a job come May because I had gotten a bad review over the months of Dec, Jan and Feb, yet I was on an approved leave from Nov 26 thru Jan 26. What I feel that it boils down to is that I am having my job hung over my head for having a baby!

Linda and Regis Corporation should have denied my leave if they wanted to put me through all of this! Or they should have just let me go before I went on my maternity leave, not let me return to work thinking all is fine and dandy, only to try to terminate my employment based on a review of days during which I did not work.

Oh, what to do, what to do... I have never worked in such an incompetent salon. The management is horrible. The corporate office is a joke. It is basically a revolving door and nothing more than a money hungry JOKE.

C.R.
Lancaster, California
U.S.A.