Discrimination By Any Other Name...

I’m not a whiner, and one of my pet peeves are frivolous lawsuits that create a backlog in our court system and prevent real cases from getting the attention they need, so when I found myself on the receiving end of some hardcore discrimination, my first reaction was to consider undertaking a process that contradicts my usual modus operandi.

I’ve been working at The Facility for nearly two years. Lately, it’s been a rollercoaster with the boss’ untimely and quick death from liver cancer. The weeks that followed his passing were downright depressing. My supervisor (who I will refer to as Nan) and I didn’t care for his management style as he was a bit too much of a micro-manager, but we liked him as a person and enjoyed working with him when he wasn’t breathing down our necks. Throughout the last days of the boss’ illness, Nan and I noticed that one of our co-workers (let’s call him Freaky) was taking the boss’ imminent passing particularly hard. This made sense, because he worked very closely with the boss. However, Freaky’s behavior became more and more peculiar.

Some of my regular readers may remember Freaky from an essay I wrote about a year ago. I discussed his insubordination on a project I assigned him to, and his sick obsession with useless details.

The guy is whacked, but I never knew to what extent until the boss’ departing. The shit hit the fan about ten days after the boss had passed away when the Powers that Be asked Nan to step in as interim boss. This was the most logical move as she was the next in line on the food chain.

One of the first things Nan had to do was take on a new set of duties that she had never been cross-trained for, because the boss liked to keep his power to himself. She needed some backup, so she told our department assistant (to be known as Lee) that she was now working with her exclusively. In lieu of the boss’ illness, Freaky had taken it upon himself to supervise Lee at an extremely unhealthy level. He gave a whole new definition to micro managing, and even grilled her when he felt she took too long on a potty break. Lee was ready to give her notice and walk when Nan and I figured out what was going on, and pulled her aside to discuss the matter. We had seen this behavior with Freaky one other time when he supervised a temp. The power went to his head and he turned into a complete asshole, so this latest behavior was nothing new.

When Freaky was no longer Lee’s supervisor (which he never was in the first place), he went ballistic. He refused to do any of his work and would not give credence to Nan’s new position as the boss. He also began spending long periods of time locked in the boss’ office. My curiosity was peaked as to what he was looking at, and like a good former investigative reporter told Nan that I was going to see if anything was out of place. The boss was very anal retentive so his office was meticulous; the papers were stacked neatly by topic, and his files were labeled clearly and picture perfect. Nothing was out of place, until I opened his personal file drawer. It looked like a bomb went off in it. Freaky had plowed his way through all of the boss’ confidential files, which included personnel files on everyone in our department. Lee also confided in us that Freaky was also photocopying like crazy and downloading files onto CD, which is way inappropriate on so many levels.

The worst part of all of this came when Lee gave Nan and I an eight-page journal of her experience being supervised by Freaky. I consider myself to be a woman who has seen some appalling shit in her life, but this report was disturbing. It confirmed that Freaky wasn’t just weird, but completely fucking crazy. Nan, Lee and I spent the next week wondering if Freaky was going to walk in with a gun, and make headlines.

Nan requested meetings with the big boss at The Facility to work everything out, and get Freaky’s ass canned, because by that point, he deserved it. Big Boss talked to all parties and agreed with us at first, but at the beginning of this week, she did a complete 180. Freaky walked into a meeting with Big Boss, the Director of Human Resources, and the head of our oversight board and framed the entire situation as a personality dispute. Us three evil women were ganging up on this sweet guy who was trying to deal with the passing of a dear co-worker. He also told them he was completely unaware that the three of us perceived his behavior poorly. What a truckload of pure bullshit!

For the past two weeks, every time Freaky has got me alone he has told me that Lee was a liar, and at one point told me that he was training her his way. Would a guy who was completely unaware of his inappropriate behavior make preemptive statements and defend actions he was supposed to be oblivious to?

The discrimination part came quickly, and has left me just plain stunned. After the meeting with Freaky on Monday, Big Boss and the Director of HR have refused to meet with anyone else on this matter. They sided with Freaky, and would not hear statements from the rest of us. Basically, they took the word of Freaky, an admin assistant with less than two years at The Facility, over the word of two managers (me and Nan), one of which has been with The Facility for six years, and Lee, a person who was directly supervised by and on the receiving end of Freaky’s harassment. I checked the EEOC website, and this is Discrimination 101.

To make matters worse, Nan found out that late last year, the boss gave Freaky a 25% annual pay raise after giving him a mediocre performance review. Nan has been here for six years, and has never received an annual raise of more than 4%. The other three most recent employees (all female) and myself have never received an annual increase of more than 4%, but this guy is here for one year and gets a 25% bump with an average performance review!?! This is such a direct violation of the Equal Pay Act that a first year attorney could win this case without going to court.

My dilemma now is where do I go from here? I gave my notice now that we are California-bound, and my last day is June 8th. My sister says I should just move on with my life, but this situation is so fucking unjust. The Facility prints this laundry list of “values” on the back of our security badges that includes things like Communication, Teamwork, Trust, Integrity, but it’s all talk. I’ve told Nan that she should sue. She’s been holding this place together for six years, and they’ve let an abusive underling come in and usurp her authority. Lee is so afraid of Freaky (who happens to be 6’2” & 200+lbs.) that she’s ready to quit, and as for me, I’m just straight up pissed.

If I was staying in town, I would have already filed a claim with the EEOC, and I’d have scheduled an appointment with a labor attorney. I told Lee that if she wanted to sue I would testify on her behalf, and would even fly up as needed to see this thing through. I wish Nan would consider taking legal action, but she has had health issues and doesn’t think the stress is worth it. She wants to find a new job, and move on with her life. Maybe I should do the same, but discrimination is a hard pill to swallow. I’ve felt invisible at certain points in life, but feeling invisible, and having someone tell you that you are, are two different things.