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Harassment

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D

Darby

Guest
Any help you can provide is appreciated.

Here is the situation:

In July of 1998 I was hired as the Executive Assistant to the Chairman for a
small but very profitable consulting firm in California. When I interviewed for the
position I was very honest about not wanting to work more than 45 hours a
week which my future boss assured me was not a problem. In his exact words,
"the job is typically 40 to 45 hours a week, certainly not 50". However the
job turned out to be consistently 50-60 hours a week with frequent work
related calls to my home in the evenings, the middle of the night, early
mornings, and almost every weekend. After a few months of this I confronted
my boss about the amount of time the job was consuming and he told me "It is
the ethos of the people working for this firm to work 60-70 hours a week
including the administrative staff, and if that means pouring hot water into
a cup of something for lunch, then that's just the way it is". Needless to
say, this was not what I had agreed to when I was hired.

In addition to this, the previous assistant was sabotaging me in any way she
could. She would frequently withhold information such as important contact
name and phone numbers, meeting dates and times etc. She would secretly
arrange secondary travel arrangements for my boss and cancel the ones I had
made. She would also frequently and knowingly give misinformation which
made me look foolish when I acted upon it. She would then "save the day" by
jumping in with the correct information and getting the task accomplished.
When I complained to my boss about this he assured me that he would handle
it. Nothing improved. In fact he only fueled the problem with statements
such as "If it's too much for you to handle, I'll just call Grace (the
saboteur), I'm sure she will take care of it". Not once did I ever tell my
boss that I wasn't willing to do something that needed to be done and still
he made this comment to me repeatedly. My boss and his ex assistant had an
extremely close relationship and still do and he made no attempt to remedy
the situation. In fact, the assistant who had the job just before me also
complained of Grace sabotaging her, and she was fired after only six months
on the job. She was given an attractive severance package in the hopes it
would deter her from suing the firm.

On a few occasions I asked my boss how I was performing and he always said I
was doing an excellent job. However, his behavior contradicted his words of
praise. I was extremely uncomfortable working with him. I felt that he
wasn't being honest but since he wouldn't tell me that something was
bothering him I couldn't remedy the situation. Instead he would complain to
Grace causing the situation to escalate. Grace was making vicious comments
about me to co-workers, in effect destroying my reputation in the firm. I
was never anything but nice to her in the hopes that it would change her
behavior. This didn't work. I even sent an email to her asking her if I
could take her to lunch to thank her for her help (she wasn't helping but I
was trying to be nice in attempt to win her over). This resulted in her
forwarding my email to another co-worker and making some nasty comments. I
only know of this because the co-worker accidentally responded to my email
instead of Grace's therefore sending her response to me instead. My boss also
made nasty comments and acted badly. For example, my dog cut her eye open
and when I called to let my boss know I was going to be late because I
needed to take her to the vet he said "Oh, well I need you to take Paul (his
son) to San Jose for his Psychologist appointment. Call and see if you can
get a later appointment at the vet and when you get your priorities
straight, call me back". I sincerely believe it could have been my husband
needing to go to the emergency room and he would have said the same thing.

I began having headaches, vomiting, losing sleep and crying at the drop of a
hat because of this ridiculous behavior at the office. I dreaded going to
work and avoided Grace's office at all costs. After 4 months I quit.
During my exit interview I informed the CFO of the sabotage and supposedly
this was put into Grace's annual review. Even though I considered the
atmosphere to be extremely hostile I stayed on for over two months while
they searched for a replacement. I trained my replacement and was ready to
leave the company when the CFO offered me a part time job in accounting. I
had decided after fourteen years that I wanted to get out of the field of
administrative support and go back to school so this was the perfect
opportunity. Since it fell into my lap and I would no longer have to work
with Grace I decided to accept the position.

The woman who took my place was soon fired. She too complained of Grace
sabotaging her. She lasted only six months and informed me that my boss
told her that he had fired me. This was absolutely not true. Why if I had
been fired would I then be offered a different position within firm? This
woman too was offered a rather handsome severance package, again because
they were afraid she would sue the firm. She received $10K severance for
six months of work.

After firing her they actually had the nerve to ask me to bail them out
because no one else in the company knew how to do the job. Unfortunately, I
felt pressured to say yes, because I was afraid saying no would affect my
new part time position. I had already started school and didn't want to
lose my flexible part time job so I agreed to help out. I wrongfully
assumed that the situation would be only temporary. I have now been working
full time for half the pay for the last 16 months. Twice I mentioned
wanting to be paid a flat monthly fee for taking on all the extra work and
nothing ever came of it. Then in the beginning of September I spent time
figuring out what I should have been paid based on the amount of time spent
and my previous salary. When I went to my boss about it, I was informed
that the job was going to be handed over to an accounting firm within a
month and that he would consider giving me a bonus. I showed him my
calculations which stated that had I been paid what I was being paid to do
the job before, the company owed me approximately $10K. He offered me a
bonus of $1600 which I agreed to take because I felt as though it was better
than nothing. Knowing that if I pressed the issue I would wind up with
nothing, I swallowed my pride and accepted his pittance of a bonus.

The same week that I was informed the job was being handed off to an
accounting firm the problems with Grace started all over again. She made
horrible slanderous comments about me to a co-worker who informed me of what
she said. She said things like "I wouldn't be surprised if she just wrote
herself out a check" among other things. When I confronted her she first
denied that she had said it at all and then she tried to say she didn't mean
it the way it sounded. This is only one example of the nasty things she has
said in the last month. She had only been nice to me long enough to get the
work done. As soon as she knew I would no longer be doing it, she resorted
to her old behavior.

I am furious that this behavior is tolerated and am once again, being
severely physically affected by it. This is by no means the entire story,
but I wanted to give a sampling of the situation to see if there is anything
I can do. I feel absolutely harassed and dread going to work. The
atmosphere is extremely hostile and I need to know if there is anything I
can do. Another woman in the firm filed an informal complaint against Grace for sexual harassment and while I do not feel sexually harassed by her, I do feel harassed in general. I might also add that a woman in our Londo
 


L

lawrat

Guest
I am a law school graduate. What I offer is mere information, not to be construed as forming an attorney client relationship.

Well, you seem to like being pushed around. Be strong for once and stop being harassed.

If both the boss and the girl are saying false statements about you and emails are written (please keep copies of these with time and date stamps), then you have a suit against each of them and the company for defamation.


You may have other types of causes of action based on intolerable work conditions. But this depends on both federal law and your state law.

My suggestion: instead of complaining about it and not doing anything about all this time, seek an employment labor law attorney in your state to represent you.

Try attorneypages.com or call the san francisco or los angeles bar association and go from there.
 

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