Forced to quit after humiliation

[Janniejan2]

What is the name of your state? California.

In a nutshell, I was working for a title insurance company for 7 months. It was a new position for me in an industry where I have 15 plus years experience in other occupations.

From day one, I felt that my supervisor didn’t like me. She basically abandoned my training and forced me to learn mostly on my own. In fact, she made things harder for me instead of helping me learn. I thought she had a tough love approach so I tried even harder and got good at my job despite her efforts to hold me back. I didn’t really realize that she didn’t like me until someone else was hired later and I saw her getting the attention I should have gotten.

One day, out of the blue, I was called into my supervisor's manager’s office for my review. My supervisor was present but didn’t say anything. The manager, who doesn’t know me, just ambushed me with false shortcomings. It was obvious she had been fed a lot of lies and turned loose on me. She spoke to me angrily the whole time. She said I didn’t follow instructions, the customers didn’t want to deal with me, the sales reps disliked me and I wasn’t getting my work done, I haven’t learned a thing, wasn't cut out for the job, should look for something else more suitable, blah blah. All completely untrue.

After the "review", she proceeded to write a corrective action. I was so destroyed I couldn’t bear to look at it when she handed it to me. She was so brutal and mean and I was so humiliated that I felt I had no choice but to quit and fled in tears. Nothing has ever happened to me like that! I was told by a friend who used to be a manager in the title industry that what happened was called constructive discharge. I don't have copies of the review or the disciplinary action but the review was as bad as it gets.

I filed for unemployment but missed my telephone interview due to a misunderstanding with an area code split and accidentally gave my number with the wrong area code. Unable to explain what happened, I was denied. I appealed it and go to court on January 20, 2005. How can I best present this at the hearing so I can obtain the benefits I believe I deserve. I’ve been looking for a job for 3 months and have not even gotten an interview and I’m going broke fast.

 

[Katy W.]

Constructive discharges

For you to successfully call this a constructive discharge, you would have to argue that your employer created a hostile work environment so severe that it altered the terms or conditions of your employment and any other reasonable person would have also quit. Your situation sounds horrendous but the standards for constructive discharge are tough and I don't think it would be in your best interests to pursue a c.d. claim.

The situation with this manager sounds very humiliating. I have been in a similar situation. My mistake was to stick around because what my manager was doing to me was illegal and I was in the right. You know what? 2 years of my life were still spent being miserable, my kids still spent two years watching me come home from work in tears. You have already quit, which is smart. I would tell your story briefly to the unemployment people, then drop it if they deny your claim. To pursue this will just spend more of your emotional energy. Be glad you don't have to deal with these people anymore and move on.