Major victory at work involving harassment.
We have a few supervisors and management types that are pretty nasty to deal with. This type of harassment is written up in our policy manual too but no one usually finds away to combat it.
What goes in is if you question anything or complain, you are met with a nasty defensive reply or are attacked in some way. The intent is to intimidate you and teach you to keep your mouth shut.
I'm part of a mobile blood collection team, stationed some distance from our HQ. I and one of our blood drive leads have had some problems with what goes on with our donor scheduling process. I wrote up an email asking some questions and giving a few suggestions and sent that to a couple people at HQ that are involved with that part of the operation. I also copied it to a couple other higher up management to ensure that it just wouldn't be blown off.
Knowing who I was dealing with, I told our lead what I had said in the email and that I wouldn't be surprised if they came at me with some kind of chickenshit attack. You could say I was actually baiting one of them, a woman director of a department. I was really careful to write the email to not have any kind tone that could be taken as my calling someone stupid or anything like that as well. She took the cheese and the response was epic!
She read into one line of my email a totally off the wall indication that I had actually violated a company policy. Then she did something I couldn't have predicted or even hoped for in my wildest dreams. She drug another supervisor into it. A snot nosed punk that had previously pulled the same crap on me. That makes it a pattern. That supervisor was asked to address the issue with me. His email was so over the top, I have to wonder if he was drunk when he wrote it. I showed it to our lead and my local supervisor. My local supervisor had also been involved in a string of emails about this issue the previous day and sent a reply sticking up for me, telling them that not only has she not ever seen me violate that policy, I'm actually a Nazi about it and it's quite the opposite. I've had run-in's with other staff over it too.
Not only that. They pulled another move I also predicted to our lead. The old phony, "it's not the first time we've heard he did this" ploy. The director says, someone says, they have seen me do this before! Of course they won't tell me who that is or when it was but I know it's bullshit. It also evidently wasn't written up at the time and addressed with me in a timely manner and probably was before my last annual review and was not brought up. At this point, management is unaware that I know about that move. My local supervisor gave me a heads up there. I can't let on that I know about it.
So the next day I decide to push back hard. I send all the emails to the woman director right beneath the CEO. I say I should probably start with her and ask if I should contact HR? I call bullshit, retaliation and harassment! I clearly state that no one could have misinterpreted my email that way unless they were reacting with anger at being questioned on how they were running things. That any and all inquiries, investigation and the supervisors email were an attack to intimidate me and teach me to keep my mouth shut! I figured, job or no job, I was going for it! Like a few fights when I was a kid. I was a big tough kid but when older guys pushed me too far, I called them out and said, "you want a shot at the title? Bring it on!"
I got a response from that director within an hour, telling me that she could see there was a major misunderstanding. She also said that she would talk to the asshole supervisor and his/our boss about it. Then she goes on to praise me for how I do my job and that the alleged violation is not my way of doing things. I know that did not happen without her running up to HR first with it. Now I smell blood in the water! There is no way our HR director isn't all over it and she probably approved that directors email response. Our HR director has probably already chewed some ass! I replied to the director and thanked her and said I appreciated what she was doing.
Yesterday I was treated to an apology from the punk supervisor. I get back from a mobile some distance away and have a note to call our boss at HQ. I pretty much know this is going to be good for me! I call and she picks up right away. Not usually the case. Those people are busy and usually all over the place. Normally you leave a message, or you try their cell next if it's important. That tells me that they were in her office waiting for me. It could have been a for awhile and could have been a half-hour longer. I almost decided to finish everything else and call when I was all done. She puts me on speaker and tells me that punk boy supervisor is also there. Now I know what this is about. He's been ordered to sit there and wait for my call and apologize to me.
So our boss starts out by telling me there was some confusion about me original email and wanted to pin down exactly what my concerns were. So we go through and at one point when telling them about what I think might just be a software probably, supervisor boy pipes up and says, "I took that as something completely different and I apologize for my response." Nice try asshole. He didn't apologize for the right thing! What I accused of, he had use the phrase, "that is unacceptable!" about three times in his email tantrum. I restrained myself from saying his wasting my time with his little email lecture is what was unacceptable! I'm kicking myself in the ass a little for not taking that shot but I think not doing so was well played. My ass is a little sore form all the kissing as it is!
As far as I can tell, this ass kissing is designed to satisfy me and make it go away. As far as I know, it hasn't been written up as an official grievance and gone through all the channels. I have this feeling that even though taking this seriously, the director I emailed the complaint to and other managers hope to avoid that. I've decided to just let it sit there for a week and let them think I fell for it if that is the case. Then I will contact the director I originally complained to and let her know I insist on this being made an official grievance. The one thing is that I haven't heard from the department director that dragged the punk supervisor into this. In a way, I'd love for that asshole to know that it was her that got him fired! She need to go too. If I don't have her lips locked on my ass, all this is a joke anyway.
All this has me thinking what are they so scared of? I mentioned smelling blood in the water? Could this be a solid legal case? I can conjure up all the emails and from the previous similar attack from the punk supervisor, showing it's a pattern of harassment. I may be bouncing all this off a buddy of mine at Job Service and a local lawyer. I kind of doubt I could show the kind of damages to get a big chunk of money.
It is fun to win anyway. If all I get out of it is is for a couple of people to change their ways and listen to us, I'm good with that. I don't think that can happen though. I now will have to watch my back even more if those people are still around.
