Tough situation. All I know is I lost a job in my early twenties for telling on a fellow employee who was drunk as a skunk every afternoon if he even came back to the office causing me to pick up the slack. He stayed, I was gone shortly after I reported – ostensibly as a “reduction in force” but who gets a year’s salary for a reduction of force…answer me. And no one else lost their job. I had consulted my parents because I was very young and did what they suggested - wrong answer. I will never be “the one” to tattle on anyone ever again. It all worked out because I had a year to get myself to an even better job in an even better location and that office ended up closing abouto a year later, but jeesh.
Wow, @momofthreeboys that is a cautionary tale! I’m glad it worked out for you.
I had a coworker who did not drink on the job that I know of but came in extremely hung over every day. (I know he drank because another coworker who played online video games with him said he usually played extremely wasted, and I also recognized signs of alcohol abuse in him that I see in my brother.). The problem was this guy did nothing but stare at his computer screen all day with no documents or windows open! All day! Blank screen! (Rollercoaster Windows desktop image.) He said he was “thinking”. This was in plain sight of upper management which made me think he had someone protecting him. He was eventually fired for not getting stuff done and mismanaging a critical project, but it took months.
Gosh, stories like Oldfort and Momofthreeboys make me reconsider my answer
In large corporations it’s often important to develop a strong trail of documentation before firing someone for a variety of reasons
Guess this is why people don’t report harassment or other things. Fear of losing your job
This is making me think of the Penn State thing. Did people say - hey I am not going to report Sandusky because I have only heard rumors and I might lose my job? The one guy who saw something did report it and nothing was done
Lots of people at Fox stayed quiet. People say MYOB until the situation blows up, then those people say, why didn’t you say something.
What am I missing?
Retaliation claims are at the top of the EEOC filings in the last few years. Most companies have strong anti-retaliation policies and will NOT prevail against any kind of legitimate claim of retaliation. Things are not what they were even 10 years ago.
I know a retail lawyer with a large fast food chain. They were brought into a tragic case because their teen aged drive through window attendant served food to a clearly intoxicated driver without taking any action to stop the person from driving on and a fatality accident occurred shortly after the driver left the store. That seems incredibly extreme, but is an example…
You are not missing anything – that’s the way it often goes. In situations like this you become a “bubble in a briar patch” – darned if you do and darned if you don’t.
@MomofWildChild, that does seem extreme. If the accident happened “shortly after” he left, even calling and reporting to police might not have prevented anything. Surely a teen fast food worker couldn’t be expected to physically prevent an adult in a car from leaving the premises!
How did the case shake out?
IME the perspective of those who work for large corporations with robust HR departments is quite different from those of us–the majority of us, in fact–who work for “small businesses.”
In small businesses, the revelation that a coworker has an alcohol problem or something of that nature normally results in their being fired. They don’t sue. The vast majority of people who are fired from jobs don’t even think about suing, much less carry it out. The vast majority of businesses don’t have employee welfare plans that would offer rehab or counselling.
If retaliation claims are at the top of EEOC filings, then it is reality that one’s job is in jeopardy if one reports behavior. Probably not everyone knows they can file such a claim nor could they afford to be without a job while the claim goes through processing.
How do those claims typically get settled and how long do they take?
Nrdsb4- I think it got settled but I don’t know for how much.
Nor is it easy to prove a retaliation. There is all kind of maneuvering and shenanigans that can take place to get rid of an employee.
@fendrock wrote “…This is a small company without any strong management. The sole HR person is a temp to hire person who I am quite sure has never handled such a situation before…”
This firmly puts me in the MYOB camp. Work politics are slippery and often not logical or fair.
I’m not convinced this is a situation which justifies you sticking your neck out, although I can certainly understand why you (& others) feel it’s the right thing to do.
All the more reason to be very very sure of what you are alleging. You could just as easily be accused of wrongdoing if there is little to no burden of proof.
I’ve read a lot of awful stories on my nursing forum of nurses wrongly accused of impairment or diversion. If it’s reported to the hospital admin., there is immediate testing which can, to a degree, exonerate a person. However, sometimes nurses are reported straight to their boards of nursing, which can cause protracted “investigations” during which the accused cannot work. There can be very grave consequences to these kinds of anonymous complaints. It’s never happened to me, knock wood.But some of the stories I’ve read are really horrible.
I hope (pray) that things have changed in the workplace of today.
I remember years ago as a young person being terribly sexually harassed. For months and months. I finally had enough and went to the owner of the small company. He immediately told me he was planning to lay me off.
It was a terrible job and I found a new one soon after. But I can’t imagine in today’s climate that this environment would still be tolerated.
Maybe I’m too naive.
I think you’re naive. This stuff goes on constantly but, I think, is discussed less, because it’s known it’s taboo.
I worked for an HR consulting firm once upon a time. It was fairly cutthroat: You had to stay billable or there would be hell to pay. I was adequately billable, until I started working with – oh, let’s call him Andy. Andy was senior to me and very arrogant, but he was also a brilliant salesperson. Andy happened to be having an affair with – oh, let’s call her Kristin – and they were living together. Kristin also worked for the firm and was at my level.
Andy was asked to tag along to the clients I had been taking care of and who were very happy with me, but he was supposed to “up-sell” them to new projects. Little by little, Andy started taking the work away from me on these clients and giving it to Kristin. I mentioned to my boss, with whom I got along very well, that this was happening. He said he thought he ought to report it to HR, since it was a form of sexual favoritism. I said Sure, do whatever you need to do.
HR followed up with me and I relayed my entire story. They promised they would investigate and get back to me by two weeks later, on a Friday. Friday came and went without a word from HR; Monday came and went without a word from HR: and on Tuesday I was fired.
How about that.
I claimed retaliation and wound up getting more severance. But, of course, Andy stayed at that firm another 20 years and recently retired. I don’t know what happened to Kristin.
ETA: This was in 2004 – not that long ago.
A lot has changed in corporate America and in HR policies since 2004. While that certainly could happen today, it is much less likely. Some states require specific training for employees (like California) and Boards expect management to institute best practices in these areas.
@VeryHappy That is a horrible story.