By Tony Farina
Things went from bad to worse for one gentleman in February when his brother, a Buffalo public school teacher at Mckinley High, died suddenly and after he took five days off from his job as business development manager from Intandem Solutions which has offices in Niagara Falls, Lockport, and Olean, he was fired when he returned to work without notice or any known reason.
As of this writing, Brian Marciniak, who lives with his daughter in Buffalo, still doesn’t know why he was fired from his $70,000-plus commissions job on Feb. 22 and officials at Intandem Solutions, despite repeated efforts by this reporter, did not offer any comment on the matter or reason for dismissal.
Marciniak remains shocked and upset by both his brother Joe’s sudden passing and the death of his beloved brother who had over 1,000 people show up at his funeral. Brian had more than three weeks of vacation on the books as well as four additional sick days when he took time off when his brother died.
“I asked for a reason why they fired me, and they gave me no reason,” says Marciniak who is contemplating legal action. “They loved me, no complaints via word, email, or texts on anything I ever did wrong and never complained about my work volume other than telling me not to sell so many cleaning accounts, which I had booked the week my brother died and the week after and for that matter, the week before.”
This reporter repeatedly called the Olean headquarters of Intandem Solutions, described as a social mission-driven business offering a range of services, but after numerous attempts I finally received a call back from a quality department official who said he would refer the matter to the Human Resources office, but I never received a follow up call from the company which reportedly, according to Marciniak, has more than 450 employees.
Marciniak, who worked for the company at 1555 Fashion Outlet Blvd., Niagara Falls, continues to grieve for the loss of his brother and is filing for unemployment benefits for losing a job for no apparent reason. He suffered his brother’s passing and then the loss of his job one right after the other.
Intandem Solutions has given no answer to why he was fired. I guess the message is to be careful who you work for. Who could expect to be fired for taking time off that you have coming to attend to the passing of a family member?
That’s what happened to Brian Marciniak.
