View Full Version : Work Bully/ discrimination
juicy130
Jul 7, 2013, 08:24 PM
I am being discriminated against by my supervisor since 2008 in several different ways (ie: workload, denial attempt to pay me according to salary schedule, withholding vital information that prevents me from completing work). I have went to Human Resources with verbal complaints thought out the years in hopes the work bullying would stop. For some reason HR heavily discouraged me filing a formal complaint. It has not stopped and in return I endure retaliation from my supervisor. Most recently, she has trying to have me written up over a simple keying error. I can't take it any longer. What legal course should I take to file a formal complaint?
smoothy
Jul 8, 2013, 05:11 AM
Find another job.. because any chance you have of winning a dime.. is very remote... and the process very expensive. And even if you win.. you lose as far as any future at this employer is concerned.
Also a lot of this is perception... and being a peon... your judgement is not as important as that of your superiours.
Unless you have a ironclad labor contract... you are an At-will employee... and that means you are there at their will as much as your own... meaning either you are they can decide your employment there will end for almost any reason.
And incidentally... your boss doesn't legally have to be your friend.. or be nice to work with or for. It's their job to tell you what to do... when to do it.. and sometimes HOW to do it. Also its part of your job most times to find the information you require... not to expect it to always be handed to you. Easy going bosses that actually know what they are doing and good at getting things done on time are rare, So rare in fact you will come to appreciate those times you do have a boss that's nice to work for.
How many years work experience do you have in total, and at this employer?
joypulv
Jul 8, 2013, 05:28 AM
Going to HR throughout the years was a big mistake. Employees everywhere are expected to handle personality differences themselves, unless you have solid evidence of something blatant and serious. It sounds like they are trying to get you to quit. I would start looking. If you get written up for the littlest mistakes or lateness or being on the phone or whatever, you'll be fired, and then it will be harder to get another job.
The job market really isn't 'fair' in the sense we all would like.
odinn7
Jul 8, 2013, 08:52 AM
Not quite the same but I'll chime in...
A few years ago I was working for a company where my brother in law was also working. We were both supervisors of our own departments. He was in charge of a building department and I was in charge of a machining department. One of his responsibilities was to hand me over work orders for upcoming jobs so I could get them programmed for the machines.
For whatever reasons, we didn't get along too well (still don't). Anyway, I started noticing that my work orders were coming later and later, thereby giving me less and less time to program and less time for the machinists to get the work done on time. One day one of the owners came to me and asked me what the hold-up was and why I was running behind all the time... I told him that they were releasing work orders too late and too close to the deadline. He told me that nothing had changed, they were still releasing them like they had always done. We decided there just must be a hang-up somewhere.
It continued for a bit until one day he comes to me again and asks me why such and such job is not being machined yet. What job? I tell him I don't even have a work order for it yet. We go through my stuff and there it was, at the bottom of my old work orders from weeks before. Ok, I apologized as somehow I messed up and misplaced it although I had no idea of how this happened.
A few days later, my brother in law comes in at 4:30 and hands me a work order and tells me it's a rush and it needs to go tomorrow... there was a hold up on it and it got released late but it was important so I had to stay late to get it done. I was pissed off but whatever. My brother in law leaves and I call the owner to let him know I will be staying late. When he asked why and I told him, he told me there had been no hold up on that job, it had been released days ago. Now we were suspecting my brother in law for doing this stuff on purpose.
Long story short, now that we suspected this, the owner was actually able to catch my brother in law hanging onto work orders for days and then releasing them to me late... caught in the act. Not only was he making me work extra hard and overtime, but he was delaying work... money for the company... to try and make me look bad, like I wasn't doing my job. He cost them thousands by doing this.
So what happened to him? They had a meeting, yelled at him, told him they should fire him... but nothing really happened. They still left him in charge... he was still responsible for giving me my work orders. What happened to me? I decided that I couldn't work like that anymore... for a company that would allow that with nothing being done... not even having someone else responsible to give me the work orders. I had a meeting and voiced my concerns about this and asked how I was supposed to be able to trust that anything is going to change. They said they weren't going to do anything about it further than what had been done.
Legally I was unable to do anything and really, what could I have gained from it? I found another job.
joypulv
Jul 8, 2013, 09:34 AM
odinn7, UGH. Don't know how you tolerated it as long as you did.
It wasn't even a violation of the don't rat out fellow workers rule.
JudyKayTee
Jul 9, 2013, 12:21 PM
Odinn, this must make for great Christmas dinners!
Shudder.
odinn7
Jul 9, 2013, 12:48 PM
Yeah, he's a wonderful specimen of humanity. Not many like the guy because he is one that is always better than everyone else. He got jealous because he is the one that told me there was an opening there and I applied and got the job. 2 years after getting the job, I applied for the new machining department and passed all the qualifying tests (which he did not). As part of the position, I had to go to North Carolina for a few weeks for training (paid for that and a great hotel room with food allowance)... that is when I think it really started to eat him up. Once I got my own office, that is when it got to the point that I had posted about. He's like a spoiled child.