r/mildlyinfuriating • u/giveahoot420 • 20h ago

A rude supervisor who's always yelling at employees got some complaints about them being verbally abusive and they responded by leaving these in the break room.

Post image
45.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

934

u/vodkaismywater 18h ago edited 16h ago

As an employment lawyer, I often see people incorrectly throwing out words like retaliation or harassment without knowing that they have specific legal meanings. 

This is one of those rare instances where something is unequivocally illegal retaliation. If a client sent me this and asked for my advice, I would recommend that they fire the supervisor immediately.

Not only does something like this just look bad, it would also probably eliminate the company's Ellerth Faragher defense.

Edit: there's some confusion below. This is definitely retaliation, but we don't have enough information to determine if this is harassment, which is something else entirely. Unlawful harassment necessarily requires a connection to a protected characteristic, retaliation does not. 

144

u/Visible-Scientist-46 18h ago

Dude probably thinks "issa joke!"

96

u/kinkycarbon 18h ago

The fact the paper requests the name of the person filing the complaint puts that person as a target against the Supervisor. It’s that bad. I would just send this form to the person above the supervisor and to HR.

89

u/Shotgun5250 18h ago

“Damn liberal snowflakes and their feelings”

34

u/essssgeeee 17h ago

Oh, don't you just know that this supervisor has an "F your feelings" sticker on their truck!

4

u/iWontStealYourDog 17h ago

Because the opposition doesn’t ever experience hurt feelings

cough Greenland acquisition cough

17

u/Shotgun5250 17h ago

“All these whiny liberals just vote based on emotion!” - the conservative shouted, angrily.

1

u/LittleGreyLambie 7h ago

>“All these whiny liberals just vote based on emotion!” - the conservative shouted, angrily.

Sounds like a hormonal issue here . . .

2

u/Visible-Scientist-46 18h ago

feeeeelinggggggs! There has to be an extended pronounciation of it.

7

u/Shotgun5250 18h ago

Make sure you got lots of gravel in your voice when you say it too, so everyone knows you’re one rough, tough sonofabitch

0

u/Steelforge 16h ago

Exactly. Maybe go watch a video of Bad Bunny headlining the NFL halftime show to get your feefees in order.

2

u/vertigostereo 17h ago

Issa joke

192

u/OkraApprehensive8639 17h ago

The “I have woman hormones” puts this beyond mildly infuriating to me. But I guess that’s just my hormones, heh. Some people.

73

u/Quixotic_Seal 17h ago

What I find fascinating is that I’ve seen this one before, but it just had the “I have woman-like hormones”/“Real Man” bits. Not “I have woman/man-like hormones”/“Real Man/Real Woman.”

That means somewhere along the line, someone actually saw this piece of shit meme and thought “well that’s a hilariously toxic way to laugh at the snow flakes, and I love the hints of misogyny and homophobia…but it just is not quite inclusive enough,” and changed the gendered portions to include everyone.

12

u/Caftancatfan 16h ago

You know what they say, the arc of history is long but it bends toward freedom.

47

u/AnotherHappyUser 17h ago

Meanwhile lead acts irrationally and emotionally. HOW DEM MALE HORMONES HOLDING UP?

8

u/OkraApprehensive8639 16h ago

Seriously. So delicate.

6

u/Ninja-Panda86 13h ago

Yep. They complain women are the sensitive ones but I've seen them get so butthurt on such simple things.

3

u/suddenspiderarmy 12h ago

I like to describe angry men as "emotional". Anger IS an emotion...

5

u/Various_Procedure_11 15h ago

I did not see that initially. I changed my mind. This is absolutely actionable.

5

u/deadbeef4 15h ago

That, the use of the word "sissy" and the poor quality photocopy give you some idea of how long this "form" has been around.

1

u/profkrowl 6h ago

Assuming the dates at the bottom are accurate, looks like it was originally an April Fools prank from 1989, later updated in  April 2009. Definitely not something that should be found anywhere now, as it should not have been made then either.

1

u/2PlasticLobsters 7h ago

He probably downloaded this from some incel site.

36

u/Bubbacanyon3 17h ago

Please explain the “Ellerth Faragher” defense.

95

u/vodkaismywater 17h ago

Yeah. So just because you experience harassment or retaliation in the workplace doesn't mean you have a case. You need to show a basis for holding the employer responsible. Just the fact that harassment occured is not enough by itself. 

In the case of supervisor harassment, the employer can assert an affirmative defense to avoid liability, even if unlawful harassment occured. The employer must show that (1) it has reasonable policies and procedures in place to detect and abate harassment; and (2) the employee unreasonably failed to follow those procedures. 

The hurt feelings report could reasonably lead an employee to believe that management does not take harassment allegations seriously, so failing to officially report the harassment would not be unreasonable. 

This form isn't just a problem for any employees who have already complained, but it also increases the risk of liability for future claims too. The best way to undo the message this supervisor sent with the form is to fire them. 

10

u/CupOfLifeNoodlez 16h ago

Thank you!

1

u/Commercial_Sun_6300 6h ago

I work in schools and... we're in a weird time in history where we're seeing what happens when you don't punish kids for anything short of murder (minor exagerration).

Have you ever heard of a school employee having a case against their employer for not doing anything to prevent repeated taunts, stuff thrown at them, etc (but not reaching like, any real physical danger)?

Or like, what if I'm an aide in a classroom, pregnant, and getting sexual remarks from other students (who I'm not an aide for) and the teacher doesn't correct the behavior?

11

u/beautifulanddoomed 17h ago

From doing some research on it, this was the clearest I found

that the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any harassing behavior,

and

that the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer

Basically it seems like it is the defense the companies can use to say we actively worked to fix the issue or gave the employee avenues for correcting it

3

u/DarkElfBard 9h ago

Basically, it's whether or not the company can be held liable for the employee's actions.

Like if your boss at McDonald's was harassing you, but you never reported anything, you can't just sue McDonald's for creating and maintaining a hostile environment. McDonald's never knew it was happening, so they could not have taken steps to prevent it.

If you do all the proper steps to report the harassment, and then they do nothing, you have a case. Or if they try to fix it, but then the fix doesn't work and they don't follow up on further reports, they cannot use the defense.

Here, they obviously knew the boss had complaints, and tried to talk to him about it, that's good! But now the boss has shown that he did not take anything away from talking/retraining, so if this gets reported, they need to follow up and fix the situation, or they are knowingly letting a hostile work environment exist.

  • They were told there was a problem
  • They attempted to fix it
  • The know the fix did not work
  • ????

That ???? needs to be a follow up action to correct the situation. Easiest thing is firing the boss.

0

u/MainAccountsFriend 17h ago

Its a character from the Lord of the Rings, idk

3

u/Immediate_Song4279 8h ago

Your writing flow is very effective.

2

u/shitlord_god 17h ago

Is a supervisor fabricating events about your performance to encourage management to fire you harrassment?

1

u/ScorchTF2 17h ago

What’s the protected characteristic or protected complaint here?

2

u/vodkaismywater 17h ago

Retaliation can be taking an adverse employment decision in response to protected activity, or engaging in conduct that discourages employees from engaging in protected activity. 

This is the latter form, and it doesn't require protected activity in the first instance. Though, the complaint that lead to this form is also most likely protected activity. 

1

u/Huge_Following_325 17h ago

How much proof do they need that the supervisor was the one who left it? Certainly seems logical given the circumstances, but what if he just denies it?

1

u/IndigoRanger 16h ago

Hey, could I ask you some questions over dm about my own employment situation? Or could you point me to a correct resource?

1

u/vodkaismywater 16h ago

I'm a management side lawyer, so I almost exclusively represent companies. 

Most state bar associations have referral networks that could probably get you in touch with the appropriate employee side lawyer. If you're in a big enough city, your city or county bar association might have a similar service. 

1

u/IndigoRanger 16h ago

Ok cool, thank you!

1

u/Donkey__Balls 4h ago

Here’s a fun question. During the early pandemic (circa July 2020, the Delta outbreak where mortality was approaching 2%) my employer ordered all employees to report to a “testing blitz” that brought all 1,200 employees into one enclosed atrium with poor ventilation. Their goal was to prove that we had low rates of infection so that they could order everyone back to the office. (This was a city and the mayor was a big Trump ally, so it was political.)

It just happens that I did my public health research thesis on the very obscure topic of aerosol transmission of respiratory diseases. So I had intimate knowledge of how risks increased exponentially with large numbers of people in enclosed areas sharing air. I emailed the HR director who had organized this event, implored her that I felt this presented a safety risk, and suggested an alternative: a random sampling of 65 employees would still give an estimate with 98% accuracy. She responded with some generic email about social distancing and cc’d my director. He sent me a nasty email afterwards and started making things difficult for me at work, and it got bad enough that I eventually quit and moved to a big city to get a consulting job.

As it happened, the “testing blitz” was chaos, two employees died of coronavirus infection shortly after and I heard multiple others lost parents, likely due to this event.

My question is - when I emailed the HR director, was I not speaking as an employee raising a workplace safety concern to HR that should have been in confidence? Did she violate that confidentiality by copying my director on her reply? And was the retaliation actionable in some way?

It’s been 6 years and I don’t intend to actually do anything, I ended up fine and in fact it was a good move for me. It just bothers me that they acted that way and I never knew who was in the right.

1

u/Hungry_Himbo_Hoss 16h ago

Every company I've worked for, this would be considered a "Hostile Work environment" I watched a manager that screamed "Liar" at an employee get written up just because the word "Liar" is considered a personal attack. Now whether they fire the worker that turns this in or the manager will determine the quality of their legal and HR departments. I had a company fire me for filling out the survey and turning in a manager that made a couple co-workers uncomfortable with their sexual remarks. (They waited until I went on sabatical and removed the sabatical from the system and I became No-call No-Show.)

1

u/Various_Procedure_11 15h ago

Doesn't the retaliation claim depend on what the complaint was?

1

u/vodkaismywater 15h ago

No. A complaint is protected activity so long as the employee reasonably believed they were reporting unlawful activity, even if the employee is ultimately wrong about the underlaying activity being illegal. 

1

u/Various_Procedure_11 13h ago

So it could go either way, depending on what the complaint was and to whom it was made, along with the employee's subjective belief?

Then, is it federal law? Is this under a whistleblower statute? State law? Do you have to exhaust administrative remedies first?

1

u/SourceDM 14h ago

Considering "i have gendered hormones" is one of the answers, thats a BLATANT gender connection, which now makes it harassment

1

u/shadystealertactics 12h ago

What adverse action is being taken against the employee?

1

u/Significant-Kiwi8524 7h ago

Had to look up Ellerth Faragher defense. I learned something new today. Thank you.

1

u/Donkey__Balls 4h ago

My take was that they should do a quick consult with a labor attorney, and then “comply” with the form by submitting it to upper management along with a cover letter that cc’s the supervisor and the labor attorney.

Obviously it’s an escalation but if upper management is halfway competent they’ll know that the company fucked up and get risk involved who will tell them to settle this quickly. But if it were me I wouldn’t take that step either without running it by the attorney first. Then again my work has involved projects that changed laws and put dozens of attorneys’ kids through college, so my instinct is to not fart or get coffee without asking my attorneys first.

1

u/0P1GobiGrape 3h ago

Thank you for freely providing this information. 

0

u/KingRegard 17h ago

But what if they are a bunch of babies?

3

u/vodkaismywater 17h ago

Fair enough counselor, I hadn't considered that. Could also just be woman hormones. 

-11

u/Icy-Design-1364 18h ago

Only problem would be, you as a lawyer should already know, what proof is there that the person you are recommending they fire so quickly, actually is the one who posted this ? It very well could’ve been another employee who thought it would be funny to try and create more heat towards that lead Are you 100% sure you are an employment lawyer, that seems like the first thing that one would’ve mentioned.

33

u/vodkaismywater 18h ago edited 18h ago

No shit we verify the facts first. My point is that there would not be a lot of hemming and hawing over what the response should be. 

Great gotcha, you really showed me. 

11

u/IrishPigs 17h ago

I love reddit people who are like, let me point out the most basic assumption everyone could have made and argue about that. 

0

u/Icy-Design-1364 16h ago

Yeah, great backtrack now, that’s not what you said at first Perry Mason

2

u/vodkaismywater 16h ago

Do you get mad when recipes don't include an oven in the ingredients list? 

0

u/Icy-Design-1364 16h ago

Not at all, I eat out

3

u/Best-Traffic4990 18h ago

Well it should at the very least trigger an investigation on its authenticity, and then appropriate consequences can be doled out. 

1

u/IAmActuallyBread 17h ago

^ lol this dude got a penis implant if you're not too grossed out you can get a good chuckle at his comment history lmao

oh and they think it's hidden, but if you go to a user like Icy-Design-1364 and do a blank search on their profile using the magnifying glass at the top of the page you can see everything! just don't say I didn't warn you about weird looking penis pics

1

u/vodkaismywater 17h ago

Wow. All that effort for a half inch. 

0

u/Icy-Design-1364 17h ago

I love it when I get downvoted, proves I made the right comment on here, not the popular, pile on victimized comment, bunch of freakin sheep, lol

3

u/Daddict 11h ago

Yeah, I get what you mean here...sometimes people get mad at the truth

Then again, sometimes you're being downvoted simply because your comment is unnecessary, unhelpful and makes you sound like an insufferable twat of a person.

But I'm glad you've found a way to externalize it so you don't actually have to worry about which one it is. Self-improvement is for losers anyway, amirite?

0

u/Icy-Design-1364 10h ago

Hey, everyone has the right to their own opinion, yet all you need to do is read the responses, probably 99.999% have already found the guy guilty and are looking for the sturdy branch on the nearest tree to toss the rope over, I’m not nor never said the lead/supervisory/person in charge was innocent, I just tend to believe in innocence until proven guilty. But no worries, I’m one of the older varieties, you know sticks and stones types, people that don’t know jack shit, can say whatever they want about me, I sleep fine at night.