[jonesies_dmcm]

I believe I was fired out of retaliation for assisting my son (part owner of a construction company) during the time he was attempting to execute the buy-sell provision of the company. The assistance requested by my son on Friday, March 9th 2007 was to:

1. Relate to him information regarding activities transpiring at the main office that day.
2. Provide him with technical assistance by installing an external hard drive to copy and safeguard the company files onto the drive from the server.


Below is an account of the events that transpired on Friday, March 9th 2007:

At approximately 8:30am, my son and I were at the main office copying the files. At approximately 9:30am, my sonn had to leave for a meeting and instructed me to complete the copying and deliver the hard drive to him at his remote office location. Kevin also told me to record the time and events surrounding the delivery of the push-pull buyout notice he was having delivered that morning.

At approximately 10:30am the notice was delivered. I reported the events following the delivery. In a later conversation described below regarding my termination, Tim denied any knowledge of the document being delivered. At that point, my son verbally recounted to his partner what I had reported to him regarding their exact movements and reactions upon receipt of the notice.

Prior to being terminated, my computer workstation appeared to get infected by a virus and I was concentrating on trying to determine a fix for the problem (I now believe the partner's wife and the IT coordinator placed a demon on my computer disabling many key components) when I happened to look up and notice the partner waving his arm. At that time, I had my reading glasses on and could not determine exactly what was going on. I gave another glance towards the end of the office where the partner was standing, and could see he was still waving his arm. My response back was to shake my head side to side indicating I didn’t understand. When I did that, the partner walked my way and stopped in front of my cubicle and in a very demeaning voice said “What’s wrong? Can’t you come down and talk to me?” My response was to his tone, not his words when I said “No”. He asked, “Why not?” and I said, “I didn’t want to talk”. At that time, he bent over and said, “Fine, don’t bother coming back Monday.” I asked him if he could do that (meaning fire me) without checking with his partner(my son), and he responded, very arrogantly “Yes, he was sure”. The partner then asked me about a bid file for a job the company completed over two years ago. I responded to the question by stating I did not think I bid the job and knew nothing about the file. At that point his voice became very loud and he virtually called me a liar by insisting I was the only estimator around at the time the job was bid, so, in fact, I had to have bid the job. My response to him was that if I did bid the job, I didn’t recall, it was so long ago. At that, he stomped off stating, “I’ll find the file myself!” After he left my cubicle, I looked in the job file folder and found the job file in question and discovered that, in fact, the partner had bid the job, not me.


After all this transpired, the partner called my son and reported to him he had just fired me. He gave no specific reason and did not relate any of the previous happenings to my son. The partner's comment to me a short while later was, “Kevin was OK with me firing you”. Once I heard this, I called my son and asked him if his partner had related what had transpired between us prior to the partner firing me. My son stated that the partner had just told him, “I (the partner) just could no longer deal with me(the employee), so I let him go”. Kevin told me that he then immediately changed the subject to discuss the buyout of the company and no other discussion regarding my termination transpired. Before my conversation with my son ended, I related to him what had really happened and he told me not to worry about it, pack up the hard drive and leave. My son then returned the phone call to his partner to tell him that he believed what he had done to me was not right and that he disagreed with these actions. This was approx. 4pm.

I went to my sons cubicle and proceeded to disconnect and pack up the external hard drive, as he had instructed me. At that time, I was confronted by the partner's wife and asked what I was doing. I told her I was taking the hard drive to my son as he requested earlier. Instead of suggesting I wait until she had a chance to confirm my son's request, she became physically and emotionally upset and shouted at me several times that I couldn’t take the hardware from the premises. She also shouted across the office to another employee to call the police, saying, “We have an employee that refuses to leave!” I told her “I was leaving and taking the hard drive.” She then said, “Oh no you’re not!” I asked her how she planned to stop me and asked, “What are you going to do? Physically restrain me?” Her reply to me was an emphatic “If I have to I will!” At that point in time, I felt threatened and attempted to leave. She positioned herself in the middle of the exit aisle and forced me to walk around her.

It is truly my belief the underlying reason for my termination by the my son's partner was to remove me from the main office work environment, consequently preventing me from assisting my son with computer related tasks or relaying to him activities occurring at the office while the buyout proceedings between him and his partner transpired.

As a side note: It is my belief that the scenarios outlined above were discussed and planned prior to their occurrence.

After I left the office I was physically shaking and emotionally distressed. I felt my integrity and reputation as a loyal and dedicated employee could be irreparably damaged in the eyes of my peers, who witnessed the proceedings, but did not know any of the facts surrounding the day’s events.

This false perception could extend into the construction industry. This could especially be extended to anyone coming in contact with the my son's partner or anyone present at the time of the incident. This false perception could affect my ability to secure future work in the industry.

I’ll be up front and offer that it is my anticipation that once the partner receives this complaint, he will have no trouble creating valid documented reasons for my termination. He will be prepared to present a myriad of evidence to dispute my claim of retaliation and provide other valid reasons. Most of the evidence will relate to using company assets (my computer) to receive and forward so-called “offensive” E-Mail. However, I was never informed of any specific company policy regarding this type of computer use, nor was I ever reprimanded for such use. The fact is that this type of E-mail activity is common inside and outside of the company and throughout the industry. I would be willing to say that the partner did know about this type of E-Mail activity, and even participated on occasion. It has been going on ever since I have worked for the company.

[Fr_Chuck]

If your son is part owner, how can they fire you if he does not allow it.


If you are not suppose to give out confidential information from the main office, you can be fired for that,

[phillysteakandcheese]

This story sounds very back-handed... Your son's half of the business was being bought out by the other partner and you were there trying to take a copy the business's computer data before the other partner received the buyout notice that same day?

Whether the other partner knew the buy-out was occurring, you can't be surprised that he wanted you gone after you refused to talk to him, and that his wife didn't want you stealing the company's computer data.

And there's no "false perception" that you were attempting to steal the company's computer data. You knew your son was separating from the company. You knew that data was valuable. You knew the data didn't belong to you, or wouldn't belong to you after the buyout was delivered. So you tried to steal it.

I sure hope the devil is in the details on this one, because your side of the story seems to say you knew you were stealing company property.