Crystal's Story
My story isn’t about a supervisor’s bad day at work. It’s about months of abuse: yelling and put-downs in front of coworkers, withholding of information that prevented me from completing my work, and threats to my position if I didn’t cover my superiors’ mistakes, which cost the company thousands of dollars. The cost: my deteriorating health, which further worsened for two years after my termination while I had no health insurance, inadequate support for my two children, and relocation expenses when I was forced to move to a new town because we couldn’t afford to live in our old house.
During my time at a rapidly growing company, I had a folder over 1” thick of letters from customers who thanked me for the service I provided them. And I went above and beyond my call center representative duties. I managed redesigning the new employee training procedures, creating the training documentation and schedule and training new hires.
After two years, I proactively approached one of the owners of the company and asked how I could get promoted within the company. Since this owner knew my work ethic, he allowed me to transfer to any department for which I qualified. With his trust and support, I decided to go into sales. I accepted a position as Post Sales Coordinator.
It only took a couple of weeks for me to realize that things weren’t right in my new department. Members of the Accounting Department advised me that previously recorded financial information was incorrect — thousands of dollars of falsely recorded information — which I later realized was due to my team lead’s errors. I wouldn’t sign off on the inaccuracies. One client owed more than $10,000, but my team lead insisted that we write it off. When I asked how I wouldn’t get in trouble for that, she advised me not to worry about it. I went to my supervisor in hopes she could give me some advice. I even said “If you want me to write these amounts off because that’s what we’re supposed to do, then fine, but I don’t want to lose my job over someone else’s mistakes.”
Over the next seven months, I became the target of both the Sales Department supervisors AND my team lead, who all ignored my requests for assistance. I requested a meeting with them to address my concerns. They wrote me up for several reasons, none of which were valid claims. When I asked what would happen if I refused to sign the write up form, they told me that my position would “immediately be terminated.” So I signed and immediately scheduled a meeting with a Human Resources representative and my supervisor to discuss the frivolous claims. A rebuttal was to be filed, but the Human Resources representative was suddenly no longer at the company, and my claim was closed. I documented and saved all correspondence as evidence of abuse and sabotage to my position, but not once were my materials reviewed.
From then on, I was excluded from meetings and vital information. My team lead and supervisor would present my work as their own, communicating that I never completed my work. I was overloaded with work to the point I approached my team leads and supervisors because I was working 12 hour days, while my team lead refused to stay past 5pm. She frowned upon my work ethic, and the owners speaking highly of me only increased her feeling that I made her look bad. But I wasn’t trying to take anyone’s job. In fact, I emphasized that we were a team. I was simply trying to keep up with the demand and not get fired. Why should I not be good at my job to keep my job? Why should I have to worry how good is too good, because if I do bad, I’ll lose my job anyway?
The final straw for my bullies was when the company president asked me to schedule a meeting to discuss a presentation I created. I was excited and felt confident that my hard work paid off. While the president was impressed with my presentation, he was disappointed that we were so far behind in my department and could not implement the ideas I presented. They finally hired a new employee so we could get caught up. When the president soon had to leave town due to a death in the family, my supervisors terminated me, claiming I was a hard worker but just “didn’t fit in.”
I couldn’t believe they took from me — without reason — the job I’d worked so hard to keep. I asked for months if we could have a meeting with my team lead, my supervisors, and Human Resources to discuss my concerns. They never granted me that meeting. Then just like that, my three years with the company ended, after years of hard work and several reviews with such statements as:
- Crystal strives to create productive working relationships.
- She is always open to feedback regarding her performance and shows desire to make consistent improvements.
- Crystal displays a positive outlook regarding her role on a daily basis. Every interaction with internal or external customers is always professional, courteous, and friendly.
- She goes above and beyond, often volunteering to work extra hours in scarce coverage situations and assists teammates in any other areas.
After years of hard work, I joined the unemployment line.
Although I witnessed abuse happening to other coworkers, I never thought it would happen to me. I was too dedicated to the company. My coworkers felt that I was too much of an asset to the company for the supervisors to simply find a way to push me out of the company. But the same work ethic that got me promoted got me fired. The situation begs the question: should an employee bother to be loyal to his or her employer if their hard work will get them fired anyway? And how are my former employers getting away with their abuse?
Help workers by passing the Healthy Workplace Bill. The demand for unemployment benefits, MassHealth Insurance, welfare, food banks, credit debt, healthcare costs, and suicide due to workplace bullying will decrease.
Let’s work together to make the workplace healthy.