J
jamiela1
Guest
What is the name of your state? NY
Last year my supervisor created a hostile environment for me soon after she found out I was pregnant - she wrote me up for reasons like "people not liking me" and for receiving personal phone calls even though I'm a salaried employee. She also openly reprimanded me in front of employees that report to me and made comments about other pregnant women that were in my mind discriminitory ("She won't be coming back to work after she has the baby, I'm sure. And if she does, she'll be worthless because she'll always be calling out.").
Then I was the only person in the dept that didn't get a pay increase in January and she didn't give me my bonuses last spring because she said my performance wasn't good enough.
When I told her I thought she was being hostile toward me and that I wanted to talk to her about it she said I'd "better be careful."
I went out on maternity leave for 12 weeks and she made it very clear that she thought this was too long a time for me to be gone. Before I left she hired an "assistant" and had me train her in all of my responsibilities.
I returned to work a couple weeks ago and was told that all I'll be doing for a while is training new people (Before I was the department manager.). My title hasn't changed but now my "assistant" is doing all of the work I used to do and my employees are reporting to her.
Then came the last straw - I am pumping milk for my baby and planned to do so in my office with a piece of cloth over the window. One of my employees is also pumping and I offered to let her use my office as well so that she would be more comfortable. She had been pumping in the bathroom and wasn't happy about it.
The next day my supervisor called me into her office and said "It's been brought to my attention that you're putting something over your office window and you can't do that. It's not fair to the other employees that you use your office to pump so you'll have to do that in the bathroom."
I went to the president of the company the next morning and told him I thought she had created a hostile work environment for me and that I felt that she had discriminated against me. He had the VP do an investigation and she decided that I had not been discriminated against and that I had to try to work things out with my boss, just me and her. When I went and talked to her she told me that she really liked the way the department had been the past 3 months without me and that she was going to micromanage me because she didn't think I was a good performer anymore. She said if I didn't like it that was too bad.
I went to the VP and told her I didn't think my boss would work with me and she said that either the 3 of us could sit down and try to work things out or I could decide that "this was just too much for me right now" and I could leave and they would give me a severance. I just have to ask for what I want.
Sorry this is so long. This is the jist - I want to leave. I need a good severance, though, because the economy is so bad and I don't know how long it will take to get another job at my current level. What should I ask for? What is the standard for money vs. benefits such as health insurance? How do I get the most out of them?
Also, can I collect unemployment as well?
Could a lawyer help me with this or should I not bother?
Last year my supervisor created a hostile environment for me soon after she found out I was pregnant - she wrote me up for reasons like "people not liking me" and for receiving personal phone calls even though I'm a salaried employee. She also openly reprimanded me in front of employees that report to me and made comments about other pregnant women that were in my mind discriminitory ("She won't be coming back to work after she has the baby, I'm sure. And if she does, she'll be worthless because she'll always be calling out.").
Then I was the only person in the dept that didn't get a pay increase in January and she didn't give me my bonuses last spring because she said my performance wasn't good enough.
When I told her I thought she was being hostile toward me and that I wanted to talk to her about it she said I'd "better be careful."
I went out on maternity leave for 12 weeks and she made it very clear that she thought this was too long a time for me to be gone. Before I left she hired an "assistant" and had me train her in all of my responsibilities.
I returned to work a couple weeks ago and was told that all I'll be doing for a while is training new people (Before I was the department manager.). My title hasn't changed but now my "assistant" is doing all of the work I used to do and my employees are reporting to her.
Then came the last straw - I am pumping milk for my baby and planned to do so in my office with a piece of cloth over the window. One of my employees is also pumping and I offered to let her use my office as well so that she would be more comfortable. She had been pumping in the bathroom and wasn't happy about it.
The next day my supervisor called me into her office and said "It's been brought to my attention that you're putting something over your office window and you can't do that. It's not fair to the other employees that you use your office to pump so you'll have to do that in the bathroom."
I went to the president of the company the next morning and told him I thought she had created a hostile work environment for me and that I felt that she had discriminated against me. He had the VP do an investigation and she decided that I had not been discriminated against and that I had to try to work things out with my boss, just me and her. When I went and talked to her she told me that she really liked the way the department had been the past 3 months without me and that she was going to micromanage me because she didn't think I was a good performer anymore. She said if I didn't like it that was too bad.
I went to the VP and told her I didn't think my boss would work with me and she said that either the 3 of us could sit down and try to work things out or I could decide that "this was just too much for me right now" and I could leave and they would give me a severance. I just have to ask for what I want.
Sorry this is so long. This is the jist - I want to leave. I need a good severance, though, because the economy is so bad and I don't know how long it will take to get another job at my current level. What should I ask for? What is the standard for money vs. benefits such as health insurance? How do I get the most out of them?
Also, can I collect unemployment as well?
Could a lawyer help me with this or should I not bother?