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Originally Posted by Dionysus
Did your employers know that you take the bus before they hired you? Sometimes, when I interview for jobs, they clearly let me know that they wouldn't want to hire me if I used public transportation.  |
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Originally Posted by 33girl
If an employer even ASKED you that question, they need reported to the EEOC. They can ask if you have reliable transportation, but it's absolutely none of their business what that transportation is - you can ride a camel to work if you want to.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Marie
Are you sure? I work for a Big 4 accounting firm, and having a car is a requirement of the job. I guess it would be alright if you got a ride to work everyday, but outside of NY relying 100% on public transportation wouldn't be acceptable/feasible.
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Originally Posted by kddani
Yeah, whether or not you have a car is not a recognized form of discrimination, to my knowledge. The EEOC is there to deal with racist/sexist/age related discrimination.
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Originally Posted by susan314
I've seen it flat out say in job ads that having your own car is a requirement for the position. I'm not sure that an even remotely savvy company would put that right out in an advertisement if it were an EEOC issue.
Conversely, I've also seen job ads specifically say that the location is "convenient to bus stops." (Of course, as I recall, the positions didn't appear to be terribly high paying or prestigious...)
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RE: the bolded,
i think private companies are more likely to get away with telling you they wouldnt hire you if you didn't have a car... because theyre private.
my last job was in NJ and i didn't drive at the time i started the job. they directly said to me "there really isnt public transportation out these parts so you need to get a car ASAP." mind you, at the time, i only had a permit, anf if you know anything about NYC Tri-State traffic, especially NJ, its no day in the park. plus the drive from my house to the office, according to mapquest is like 2 hours, not accounting for rush hour traffic.
so i said, "im a city girl i can tough it out." found out the bus that went there from Port Authority stopped maybe a 10 minute walk from the office and ran every hour. fine, thats doable.
but as the days got shorter and the weather got colder, it got unbearable. sometimes the "hour ride" would take 2 hours. i'd get to work at 9, sometimes as late as 10am (hours were 8-6). and i could easily get home at like 10pm if i left my desk at 6. so i literally spent just as much time AT work as i did GETTING TO work.
sure i couldve moved to NJ, but it was an entry-level job in an industry i didnt care fore... no thanks.
there were others at the bank who took the bus, but theyd been with the company for years and had flexibility with their bosses to get in late/leave early because they understood. MY boss, OTOH, had a "i don't care how you get to work, it cant be that bad, you chose it" and complained how bad it looked to give me leneincy (sp?) on being late to work when everyone else made the effort to be there on time.
like i was PURPOSELY arriving late and leaving early.
anyway, when i announced my resignation to my boss and her boss, she pretty much played dumb to my situation and said "well we wouldve thought twice about making you an offer here - its one thing if you don't have a car, but you don't even drive."
sorry that was long, but it made a really uncomfortable environment being "the girl that didnt drive" because no one would offer me a ride to the bus stop or train station and then always to make smalltalk about "oh man your commute mustve been rough this morning." GTFOOHWTBS.
with all that said, im pretty sure after i left the company put a "must drive and have a car" clause in their contracts without any legal repurcussions. this happened to be their top reason for their high turnover.