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Slander? Worth pursuing?

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J

JMc1083

Guest
What is the name of your state? South Carolina.

There's a bit of a back story here, so I'll go ahead and get it out since apparently, because I didn't (thinking it was too much unneccessary info) nothing is being done.

I worked for a company called Namco, namely the arcade branch, on two seperate occasions. I worked from 2001-2002 for over a year before leaving the company when offered a job with better pay, more hours, and a closer drive. During this past holiday season (2003-2004) I came back on to assist due to a friend now taking over the management position in order to help them survive the holiday rush. On January 11th, I called to check in on one of the employees to make sure everything was running okay, when another person picked up the phone. I was informed that the District Manager had come into the store and essentially fired everybody. I never received a phone call about this. I asked if the DM was there, and was told he was. I drove to the location, which is no more than 5 minutes from the apartment I was staying in, and the DM was gone. After waiting for well over an hour and a half for him to allegedly "return with food for the new team," I grew tired of waiting. I wrote a note with my contact information, gave it to the new assistant manager, and left.

During this time, the manager of the other arcade (under the same business) was there helping arrange everything. He said he had gotten a phone call this morning and suddenly had to hire a new crew. This struck me as odd, because I had been told by the new crew they had been hired 2 weeks prior. I later found out from an employee who was working that morning, that the manager had left the store without the phone ringing once. Simply that he had to go take care of something and he'd be gone all day.

There are also little things. Like we suspected him of switching his non-functioning games for ours, stealing tokens, as well as stealing money from our cash drawer since he had been in the store a LOT two weeks leading up to this.

Little to say, I never got a call back from the District Manager.

Once again, I apologize for the long, drawn out back story. As I said though, according to the people I spoke to, because I didn't give this to them up front, they felt I had misled them.

Now for the incident at hand. On Saturday, October 9th, at approximately 3:00pm I had just returned with several friends from a restaraunt. One of them had ridden with me and wanted to return to the arcade (the one I had worked at had been shut down). I dropped him off, and began to speak with two of the employees (one of them was the employee present the morning he left the store to come to the one I had been employed at), who are both friends of mine. Not even a minute goes by before the manager walks in and taps me rather aggressively on my back. He begins to yell and curse at the top of his lungs at me, since a friend of mine had asked for the release date on a game and I had told them the information I had found out from some different websites. It's the middle of the day, on a weekend. The store is packed, and there are children everywhere. The entire time, he's using expletives such as, "f***" and "bull****." People from across the store actually came forward to see what the deal was.

I asked for the customer service number, and was told I was banned. The number was refused, and I came back later to get it from the employee already mentioned. I contacted the number on Monday, and spoke with the Vice President of Operations. He said he'd look into it.

I received a phone call yesterday that I was unable to pick up due to being at work. I called them back today, and was told that they weren't going to do anything about the situation. Apparently, the manager immediately contacted his DM and RM about the incident. The VP of Op told me that I had never told him I was a previous employee (which I didn't think mattered, because I never worked for said manager). He said that the current manager has been with the company for a couple years and managed several locations, and they were going to side with him on the situation. He said that he raised an issue of me never going to the bill changer or asking for change.

This struck me as odd, because the other employee present during the screaming incident had told me that the manager had been telling everybody that I was, "stupid for getting fired three or four times for playing on the clock," and had, "stolen tokens." As I've already explained, I worked for the company twice. Leaving once on my own accord, the second being laid off (I had never received word from a higher up that I had been fired, simply by a new employee). Also, we began to have a shortage of tokens when said manager began visiting our store on a regular basis and asking two of the newer employees to let him into the back.

I rarely went into the arcade that this manager ran while he was there. When I did, I didn't bother asking him for change. I'd come in, drop $5 into the machine, play a few games, and leave with the excess tokens to return whenever I was in the area.

So here I am, fresh off the phone with the VP of Operations being told that I've been hinted at to have stolen tokens and money while previously under employment. He had no interest in speaking to the two employees who were present at the time of the incident, nor other customers. They were going to leave it at that and, "part ways," as he said.


Is there anything I can do? Have I been slandered? Who should I contact? The Better Business Bureau? An attorney? And finally, is it worth it? I've felt I've been wronged on several levels, and am not quite sure if there's anything I can do about it. Can I only hope that kharma takes care of the rest? :(
 



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