Do You Know the 4 Key Steps to Taking Back Your Life from a Bully?

Question: What are the four key steps to taking back your life from a bully?

Answer: Listen to our interview with psychotherapist Dr. Ben Leichtling (pronounced Like-Ling).  Dr. Leichtling wrote a book about how to take back your life from a bully, and consults with companies on how to eliminate bullying from the workplace.

Dr. Leichtling reveals in this interview his four key steps to breaking free of a bully.  He also give invaluable advice on how to deal with the mental and physical trauma that bullies inflict.  This is one episode no one should miss.

Podcast #11: Interview With Dr. Leichtling

Dr. Leichtling was so generous with his time that we couldn’t fit all of his helpful insights and ideas into the podcast, but it was simply too good “to leave on the cutting room floor”.

So even more of this interview is available on the Members-Only Forum, which is just $1 for the first month (and no further obligation).  You can join the Member Forum here: http://undercoverlawyer.com/amember/signup.php

The Quick Tip a site where you can rate your boss, and check to see if you potential new boss has been rated by his or her employees.  The site is: http://www.ebosswatch.com/

Find even more helpful info from Dr. Leichtling at his site: http://www.bulliesbegone.com/

Let us know your thoughts on the interview, and what physical and mental effects, if any, you have felt as a result of a bully in your workplace.

-Curt

P.S.  The link for getting access to the full interview with Dr. Leichtling (for just $1) is here: http://undercoverlawyer.com/amember/signup.php

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When Your Bully Boss is Behind Closed Doors, Do You Want to Know What the Lawyers Are Telling Him?

In Episode #9 the Undercover Lawyer (Curt K.) reveals 10 things that bosses do to their employees that cause hostile work environment lawsuits. (Podcast Player below). Even defense lawyers get mad at bad bosses, because bad bosses cause lawsuits.  This is explosive information that big business pays top dollar for; Curt himself regularly charges companies $1,000+ for “How Not to Get Sued” seminars that cover this same material!  But now you get it for free, plus Curt’s explanation of how employees can use this information for their advantage.

In the Quick Tip Curt covers how the new Federal Bailout Program includes money that you get right now if you’ve lost your job.  It’s the COBRA subsidy, which requires your employer to pay 65% of COBRA premiums, so that you pay only 35% of the premium to maintain health benefits after leaving a job.  Before this you would had to have paid 100%.  You can get more info here: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.HTML

JOIN THE RESISTANCE!

And the most exciting news, the Members Only Private Forum of the Undercover Lawyer Academy is now available for only $1 for the first month (and $14.97 per month thereafter).� This is a giant discount from the usual $47 per month that will go into effect in about 30 days.� But if you sign up now, you lock in the $14.97 price for life (even after the full Employment Law Academy opens with tons of powerful new content).

You can take advantage of limited time $1 offer by clicking here: http://undercoverlawyer.com/amember/signup.php

Curt’s Article About Hostile Work Environment Wins Award For Best New Hub!

Curt now has EIGHT powerful articles on Hubpages, each one contains information you should not be with out in dealing with a bad boss or hostile work environment.

One article was nominated for “Hub Nugget”, meaning Best New Article — and it won!  Thanks to everyone who took time to vote for the article, “Hostile Work Environment — Why HR Doesn’t Care About You”.

Here’s a link to the article if you haven’t seen it, with links to the other 7 articles (or “Hubs”) after that.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Hostile-Work-Environment—-Why-HR-Doesnt-Care-About-You

http://hubpages.com/hub/Hostile-Work-Environment

http://hubpages.com/hub/Hostile-Work-Environment-At-Will-Employment

http://hubpages.com/hub/Hostile-Work-Environment-Protect-Youself-From-a-Bully-Boss

http://hubpages.com/hub/10-Signals-The-Boss-is-Bullying-You

http://hubpages.com/hub/Employee-Rights-Can-I-Sue-My-Former-Employer-For-Giving-Bad-References

http://hubpages.com/hub/Employee-Rights-Can-Your-Bully-Boss-Abuse-You-With-Bad-References

http://hubpages.com/hub/What-is-Workplace-Retaliation

The Abusive Boss Who Got Sued For “Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress”

Have you felt emotional distress at work because of the abusive way your boss treats you? Many of the people who contact me for help in dealing with a bully boss feel this way, and they want to sue their boss in court for all the workplace abuse he or she has inflicted.

When someone like this tells me they want to sue, the first thing they say is that their boss caused “a hostile work environment.” (If you still think you can sue for a hostile work environment, you need to sign up for my 7 Free Work Law Secrets Email Course). The second thing people want to sue for is “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” This also rarely works, and I don’t advise pursuing it, but…

…but a women named Gina Strong in Washington State recently has some success suing her boss for negligent infliction of emotional distress. Because she also sued her boss for intentional infliction of emotional distress (and lost on that one), her story is a great example of what legal claims can work if you want to sue your boss and which legal claims don’t (usually) work. Having a boss who did more than just call her names is where Gina’s story starts.

Gina Strong’s Emotional Distress

Gina Strong worked in a school district print shop, where Jim Terrell supervised her. Terrell screamed at Gina every day. Terrell criticized her work in a sarcastic unprofessional manner. Terrell told blond jokes in Gina’s presence, and yes Gina was blond. Terrell even ridiculed Gina’s personal life: he made fun of her new house; he mocked her husband’s job; and he told her that her son would soon realize that she was a “bum” mother.

How did Gina respond to Terrell’s workplace harassment? She responded the in the same way as many of the people who are reading this article have have responded to their own abusive work environments: she vomited, she experienced anxiety attacks, she suffer from depression, and she even began to have a heart arrhythmia.

Gina went to the school district office and filed a harassment complaint against Terrell. A district office employee, Nichollet Koch “investigated” the allegations and found (like every other in-house investigation) that nothing Terrell did to Gina “rose to the level of illegal harassment.” In other words, the organization knew that Terrell was an abusive asshole, but it wasn’t illegal abuse. So, the school district didn’t punish Terrell. It “recommended” that Terrell take some classes to improve his “management style.” Gina was not satisfied.

After the district closed it’s file on the matter, something made the investigator, Koch, look further into Terrell’s behavior. Soon after the district office recommended that Terrell be terminated. Terrell resigned before that happened.

Three months after Terrell had resigned Gina filed a lawsuit against the district officer and Terrell as individuals (not as agents of the school district). Both defendants filed motions for summary judgment – which asks the judge to throw the case out before trial. The court did throw out the case, but Gina was not satisfied. She filed an appeal.

The Appeals Court considered whether Gina could sue her boss for Constitutional violations (the court said no), whether she could sue her boss for “intentional infliction of emotional distress” (the court said no again) and whether she could sue her boss for “negligent infliction of emotional distress” (the court said yes).

The Appeals Court noted that Gina did not allege that Terrell sexually harassed her, or that his conduct created a “hostile work environment based on sex”. Instead the court observed that “the majority of her claims related to Terrell’s method and style of supervision.”

Court Acts on Gina’s “Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress Claim”

The legal claim of “intentional infliction of emotional distress” is a “tort” (which is not a dessert in this context). A “tort” is a civil wrong – as opposed to a criminal wrong. Torts come from the history of judges writing written decisions about why the judge decided in favor of one side and against the other side.

In the state of Washington, for you to prevail against your boss on the tort claim of “intentional infliction of emotional distress” (IIED for short) you must prove that:

1. Your boss engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct;

2. Your boss intentionally or recklessly inflicted emotional distress on you; and

3. Your boss’s outrageous conduct actually caused you to feel severe emotional distress.

The Washington State Supreme Court adopted these elements from a publication called the Restatement (Second) of Torts sec. 46 (1965). I’ll explain the Restatement more fully in another article, but for our immediate purposes all you need to know is that most states follow the Restatement; so most States, including your state, use the same three elements above for their tort of IIED.

Most people read the elements of IIED and think “Perfect! This is how I’m going to sue my boss!!” The elements seem to fit what their boss does to them. It just sounds right. Their boss purposefully puts them through hell, and they can’t sleep, feel depressed, suffer from anxiety, and begin getting ulcers.

The problem is, most of what your boss does to put you “through hell” does not meet the very high threshold of what it takes to qualify as “outrageous.” In Gina’s appeal the court decided that the first element of IIED, outrageous behavior, must be “so outrageous in character and extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”

IIED, said the court “does not extend to mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty oppressions, or other trivialities.” The court claimed to be sympathetic to Gina’s plight, but said that what her boss did was more in the vein of “insults” and “indignities” and did not cross the boundary into something “beyond all possible bounds of decency” and “atrocious”.

Victory! The Court Allows Gina’s Claim of Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress

After dismissing her IIED claim, the court turned to Gina’s legal claim against Terrell for the tort of Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress (NIED). This time, the Appeals Court decided that what Terrell did could possibly rise to the level of NIED, and therefore allowed Gina to take Terrell to trial on the NIED claim.

NIED is more often recognized in the workplace setting when “it does not result from an employer’s disciplinary acts or its response to a workplace personality dispute.” The elements of this claim are:

1. Boss had a duty to refrain from conduct that would foreseeably harm you;

2. Boss breached the duty of #1, and did engage in conduct that would cause you forseeable harm;

3. The boss’s conduct in #2 directly caused you harm

4. You actually were harmed (you are not exceptionally tough, and didn’t manage to shrug it off);

5. You have objective medical evidence that you experienced emotional distress (such as your doctor had to prescribe anti-depressants, sleeping pills, or high blood pressure medication).

In Gina’s case against Terrell, she claimed that he did the following things (#2) and had a duty not to (#1) which directly caused (#3) her actual harm (#4), and she also had seen a doctor who could verify her “emotional distress” harm. So, here are the acts that made up element #2, what the boss Terrell should NOT have done:

• He continuously made demeaning comments and jokes about her blond hair until she dyed it brown

• He mocked the house she purchased

• He mocked her husband’s job

• He called her a “bum mother”

• He spit in her face as he screamed at her for using the wrong bulletin board for union information

• He stood so close to her while screaming in her face that she feared he would strike her and felt his spit hitting her face

• He disconnected the telephone during the night shift so she could not call out of the print shop

Terrell tried to argue that these actions could not possibly amount to NIED, because they were all “workplace personality disputes” or were related to discipline in the workplace. The court didn’t buy that argument for a second.

The court pointed out that spitting in someone’s face can equal fourth degree assault. Making someone believe you are going to hit them can equal battery. Neither of these two things are a “mere workplace personality dispute.”

The court also pointed out that there was no way the boss, Terrell, could convince them that his comments were all work related. Terrell’s mocking of Gina’s personal life and taunts about her hair color were “rude, boorish, and mean-spirited and were not done in furtherance of legitimate work-related topics… Terrell’s conduct regarding [Gina’s] personal life was not a workplace dispute, although it occurred in the workplace.”

The court then reversed the lower court, and ordered that Gina be allowed to go to trial in front of a jury on the NIED claim.

Undercover Lawyer’s Take Away Tips:

1. Don’t believe that you can sue a jackass boss for acting like a jackass by using “intentional infliction of emotional distress;” your best bet is, and always will be, to get yourself in a protected class.

2. You might be able to sue your boss for negligent infliction of emotional distress, but only if your state recognizes this tort and your boss is attacking you as a person and not as an employee.

3. Keep a journal, take notes, write everything down. It bears repeating that you need to keep dated quotes of what your boss says and does. To pursue an negligent infliction claim you will need to show that he or she lashed out at you in ways that are completely unrelated to workplace issues.

If you want to download the full case to read for yourself, or to highlight the NIED portion and hand to your HR Department when you turn in your own boss, you can view and print it here:

Does your boss attack you as a person, and not your work as an employee? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

You Are Not Alone in Dealing with an Abusive Boss

One of the things I’ve tried to emphasize and acheive with UndercoverLawyer.com is convincing people that they are not alone in their pain.  Thousands, if not millions, of people across our country suffer each day at work as they labor under an abusive and hostile boss.  Many people blame themselves.  Other victims of bullying management simply hunker down alone, unaware of how many other people share their plight.

The wide spread nature of discrimination at work snuck into a couple of headlines this week in two high profile media outlets, bringing much needed publicity to the issue of hostile work environments with particular emphasis on age discrimination.

The first article appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s “Personal Journal” section, titled “More Workers Cite Age Bias After Layoffs“ .  The piece may be gone from WSJ’s free website soon, so click the link and read it while you still can.  The author points out that age discrimination claims…

“are at a record high, jumping 29% to 24,600 filed in the year ended Sept. 30, up from 19,103 in 2007. While overall employment discrimination complaints are also at a record high — up 15% to 95,402 complaints — the most dramatic increase was in the age-related complaints…”

One specific story cited by the article is of a woman named Joan Zawacki, who is 56 years old and a former brokerage employee at Realogy Corp.  Ms. Zawacki says that her company, like many others in the news, tried to pare down the number of employees by encouraging older workers to retire.  When that didn’t work the company, alleges Ms. Zawacki, started demoting the older workers in order to pressure them into resigning.  Ms. Zawacki is now suing her former company for $2+ million in damages.  To read the full article click HERE.

The second major media outlet that shed some much needed light on hostile work environments based on age was MSNBC’s article “Job Bias Claims Rise to Record Levels.”  The article notes that “discrimination claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission jumped 15 percent in fiscal 2008 to 95,402 — the highest level since the agency opened in 1965″ according to EEOC spokesman David Grinberg.

Grinberg also noted that “It’s possible we have yet to see the full impact of the recession on discrimination charge filings as the economy continues to spiral downward since fiscal year 2008,” Grinberg said.

Grinberg’s own opinion is that discrimination cases filed with the EEOC will continue increasing and reach 100,000 this fiscal year ( which ends Oct. 1, 2009).  The MSNBC article includes some nifty graphs and charts illustrating the trends in discrimination claims.  It’s well worth the time to click through and read it.

Are the people who fight back having any success?  Just ask Tommy Morgan.  He’s the man who just had a $6 million jury verdict against his former employer, New York Life, upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Mr. Morgan had claimed age discrimination, and he won handily.  The full case, which you can print out and save, is available HERE.

So have you experienced at hostile work environment at your work?  Are layoffs coming, or even started?  What’s going to happen if enough people don’t agree to take those retirement incentives and reduce the ranks to the levels “the Street” wants to see?

Knowing your rights will help you no matter what happens at work, and many people wish they had taken time to learn about the law and the workplace before their trouble had started:

“Hey Curt, I read the book and I must say..it’s a “LEATHAL WEAPON” for employees. I wish I would have read it before going down the path I did. Lesson learned.”  James P., Lansing MI

But don’t just learn your rights.  You can do that and gather the strength and encouragement you need to stand up to your bully boss or hostile workplace.  The Undercover Lawyer Forum is free (for a little while longer) and it’s a great way to break the isolation that so many people feel who are abused at work:

“This forum is a great place to let off steam and get support from others in the same boat. I appreciate these folks so much. Curts book is a priceless resource to have. It helps to see all that legal jargon put together in a way that makes sense to the average employee. Of course questions do still come up and when they do Curt and/or one the others on this site are here with their wisdom.”  Jill S., Concord CA

You can start learning all about your rights and get practical step by step instructions on how to fight back against age discrimination and hostile work environments with the e-Book “Work Laws Exposed”, and you can share your story and read the story of others like you at the Undercover Lawyer Forum.

Finally, be sure to bookmark this page and check back regularly in the months to come, as we brace ourselves for an increasingly difficult time for employees who need to keep working.

The Abusive Boss Who Lost in Court

Download PDF Transcript

Abusive bullying boss ruining your work? You need to hear about Joe.

Joe is a hospital perfusionist (the person who operates the heart-lung machine during an open heart surgery).  Well Joe’s boss, a surgeon, yelled at Joe, cussed at Joe, shook his fist and threatened Joe’s job. Joe got sick.  Literally sick.  As in having to go to his doctor and get anxiety medication, dreading every single work day morning type of sick.

Joe didn’t just turn the tables on his boss, Joe freakin’ flipped the tables over.  Here’s how:

The Bully-Boss Surgeon
Joe Doescher’s “boss” was a cardiovascular surgeon named Dr. Daniel Raess. Dr. Raess behavior included yelling, screaming, and swearing at Joe with “clenched fists, piercing eyes, beet-red face, [and] popping veins.” The final incident ended with Joe believing that Dr. Raess was going to hit him, but at the last second Dr. Raess screamed “You’re finished, you’re history” and he stomped out of the room.

The Anxiety Stricken Employee
Joe felt like Dr. Raess damaged Joe’s ability to do his job, his ability to interact with his wife and family, and caused him to suffer from anxiety. Joe was even diagnosed with a “major depressive disorder,” a “panic disorder,” and an inability to focus.

Joe Strikes Back
So Joe filed a lawsuit against Dr. Raess, alleging that Raess was a “workplace bully” who assaulted Joe and inflicted emotional distress. Joe’s lawsuit went all the way to the Indiana Supreme Court, who were keenly interested in the testimony of Joe’s expert witness, Dr. Gary Namie, the nation’s leading Bullying Expert.

The explosive result in this case made national headlines, but don’t settle for a sound bite explanation. See for yourself how Joe Struck Back, and how the result directly affects YOU.

Subscribe to the “Hostile Work Place Podcast” right now by clicking on the “iTunes” button below; OR scroll down to the media player and easily listen to Episode 8 through your computer’s speakers. No ipod required.

Raess v. Doescher, Indiana Supreme Court (April 8, 2008).

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10 Steps of Walking the Plank Toward Termination: STEP 4 Your Boss Switches From Harassing You In-Person to Harassing You In Writing

When your boss goes to Human Resources and asks “Can I fire this employee right now?”, do you know what the H.R. Rep always answers?  H.R. says, “What documentation do you have that shows your employee is not doing their job?”

You know what happens next?  Your boss looks down at his or her own feet, and their face starts turning red.  Then they look back up at the H.R. Person and say something like “Goddamnit, don’t we have at-will employment in this state?!  It used to be if someone didn’t do their job they got fired!  Plain and simple.  How come all you ever say is ‘no’?  Why don’t you ever help us get things done around here, instead of just putting up road blocks all the time?!”

The H.R. Rep responds to this tirade with something like, “I take it you have done no documentation of this employee’s performance? You know, like I taught all the managers to do in that little half day seminar last month?”

“I prefer verbal feedback and coaching.  The more informal type,” your boss says.  He’s referring to the last time he yelled at you.

“Well,” says the H.R. Rep, “did you document in your performance log the date and time of each of these verbal feedback and coaching sessions you had with your employee?”  The H.R. Rep says this with a slight grin, because they know what the answer is.

This is where your boss blurts out something like “F*ck! I’ll get your f*cking documentation,” and then stomps back to your department to start writing an email to you about your performance.  And the H.R. Rep?  This is when they cooly open a notebook and jot down the date and time your boss swore at them and admitted to not doing proper documentation.

Then the H.R. Rep calls a friend who is a H.R. Rep at another company.  They meet at a nearby Starbucks and sip lattes and complain about how everybody at their company hates H.R people.

Really, this is not an exaggeration.  Not at all.  This what happens between managers and H.R. Rep’s every single day, especially know that managers are under pressure to start cutting payrolls and reduce labor costs.

Watch for meetings between your boss and someone from H.R.  If you can see into the office, does your boss appear agitated?  Does the boss leave the meeting and immediately start writing?  And most important, does your boss send you a terse, or even angry letter about your performance soon after your boss met with H.R.?

These are all signs that your boss wants to let you go, and is trying to get it approved by H.R. first.

If you are not in a position to observe what meetings your boss has, and with whom, never fear.  There are other ways to tell.

• Does your boss send you emails, particularly about some aspect of you doing your job, with increased frequency?
• Does your boss send you a written memo about a deadline you missed (probably for good reason) instead of chatting with you and letting you explain?
• Does your boss ask you to sign or initial any memo that has anything to do with your performance, or any project you’ve been working on?

Does Your Boss or Co-Worker Create Problems To Solve and Take Credit For the Solution?

Many of the people who contact me for help with a stressful workplace are dealing with a new supervisor who is causing chaos in the employee’s formerly peaceful workplace.  Why does a new supervisor feel the need to upset everything and everyone?

To look good.

That’s right, to look good by fixing a big mess.  And don’t think the supervisor will take responsibility for causing the big mess.  The employees who “can’t accept new ideas” will get the blame.

New supervisors are under a lot pressure to look good fast; they need to demonstrate that they deserved to be hired or promoted; they desperately want to show their own boss that he/she “made the right decision” in choosing who got the open management spot.

A Wall Street Journal article touches on this scenario (the WSJ piece describes everyone who creates problems to solve as an “employee,” and does not describe the ‘new supervisor’ phenomenon I so frequently see).

The article described a plant manager at a Louisiana-based chemical company who spread layoff rumors, then later informed his employees that HE had saved everyone from being laid off.

In another case, a woman claimed she had “fixed” broken working relationships between other members of her work group.  A consultant discovered that this woman actually caused the problems, by telling two of co-workers each that the other one could not be trusted.

New supervisors often fancy themselves as a “turn around specialist” whose mission is to fix a bunch of problems — real or imagined — and fix them fast.  One executive coach in the WSJ article spoke of turnaround specialists “confessing boredom when things turn quiet.”  His conclusion?  “If there’s no mess, those people can be very dangerous.”  The dynamic is the same for new supervisors who envision their new role to be a kind of junior “turnaround specialist.”

A final type of sabotage is displayed by the boss who knows that he or she should delegate work, but can’t stand to give anyone else control.  What happens is the boss will undermine their own workers, and then rush in to fix the “problem.”  In the boss’s mind, nothing can be accomplished without them, and the boss desperately wants everyone else to agree.

———————————

Get Started Finding Solutions to New Supervisors, Desperate Bosses, and Co-Workers Who Create Problems To Solve, by signing up for my 7 part mini-course.  You’ll receive 7 work law secrets via email, all them straight from my authoritative eBook, “Work Laws Exposed.”  Sign up in the green box on this page.

Age Discrimination or Disciplinary Policy Exception: Why Does the Text Message Generation Get More Chances?

Does your company state that it will not discriminate on the basis of age, race, religion, color, nationality, disability or gender?  Does your company also have a written progressive disciplinary policy? Do your supervisors always follow each step of the progressive discipline policy?  A new court ruling says that if they don’t, you could successfully sue and win significant money damages pursuant to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).

The Real Case of Cynthia and Leann: Cynthia Kildoo and Leann Richter worked as retail sales associates (RSA’s) at a Cellular One store. Both were over 40. The company set specific sales quotas for its RSAs.  For those who failed to meet their quotas, like Cynthia and Leann, Cellular One instructed its store managers to follow its written “progressive discipline” procedure that was spelled out in the company’s policies.  To make sure that store managers used the discipline process fairly and consistently, the company required a second review before a store manager could take disciplinary action against an employee.  There were five stages in the published process the company said it would follow when disciplining RSA’s:

Cynthia and Leann’s Store Manager fired them because the two women did not meet their sales quotas five times during a 12-month period. These two, however, thought Cellular One really fired them for their age and not for their job performance.  They believed Cellular One wanted to get rid of older workers because the younger, text messaging RSAs also failed to meet their quotas, but the younger sales people were not fired.  Both Cynthia and Leann filed age discrimination lawsuits against Cellular One pursuant to the ADEA.

In court, Cythia and Leann argued that Cellular One’s inconsistent application of its disciplinary policy showed the company’s bias against its older workers. The two women pointed to the younger RSAs who also failed to meet the company sales quotas.  But Cellular One did not terminate the younger RSAs.  Cynthia and Leann lost their jobs while the younger employees performed in a similar manner, but did not. 

Cellular One was confident that it’s full disciplinary policy would vindicate the company in court.  The company showed that the full disciplinary policy actually stated that the company “reserved the right” to impose different levels of discipline based on the particular infractions of each case. (Whitesell v. Dobson Commc’ns t/a Cellular One, 2008 WL 474270 (W.D.Pa.), 102 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1608).

Who Won In Court, and What Does It Mean for Me?

The trial court found that Cellular One could not make “exceptions” to its progressive discipline policy because most of the so-called “exceptions” allowed younger workers to keep their jobs, while workers over 40 were terminated.  When an “exception” causes a protected class (like employees over 40) to be treated worse than the group of employees as a whole, then each so-called “exception” is actually an act of illegal discrimination.

The court noted that Cythia and Leann “pointed to such weaknesses, implausibilities, inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in [Cellular One’s] * * * reasons for its action that a reasonable [jury] could rationally find them unworthy of credence.”  In otherwords, because Cellular One’s story was full of holes, the women’s case was allowed to proceed to trial.

The Undercover Lawyer’s Take-Away Tips:

1. Know Your Company’s Discipline Policy. Find a copy of your company’s discipline policy.  Usually it is in an “employee handbook” or “personnel manual” that employees are given on the first day of work.  Keep a copy at your desk, and another copy at home.  Does it talk about “progressive discipline”?

2. Does The Policy State When Exceptions Can Be Made? Many companies have discipline policies that allow exceptions “for extreme circumstances,” such as employee theft or when an employee commits a felony.  This is actually good, because it indicates that exceptions should NOT be made for simple performance or “attitude” issues — which are frequently caused by the attitude of the supervisor, not the worker.

3. Always Document Exceptions To the Policy. Detailed record keeping is a HUGE part of appearing credible and honest in front of a judge or jury.  If you can use your notes to state the names, dates, and basic facts of when your supervisors did not follow the company’s discipline policy, but your supervisors themselves have no notes, who do you think will be more believable?  That’s right: You!  So keep a journal of any employee discipline that you know of or hear about when the policy is not followed perfectly.  And you don’t need to keep a little book at your desk marked “Journal”.  Instead, just write an email and send it to your personal email account, like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or Gmail (but beware employers who monitor email).  Or, simply write the facts down in an innocent looking palm-sized spiral notebook labelled “Grocery List.”

10 Signs You Are Bullied and Abused at Work

Are You Bullied At Your Workplace?

Did you know that experts estimate more than one in three U.S. workers have been mistreated severely enough at work that their health has been damaged? That’s 54 million people! This is according to a 2007 Zogby International survey.

Many employees privately complain that their company won’t stop bullying bosses or retrain them to treat employees with respect. It may be easier to ignore the problem of abusive supervisors, but in the end the company will lose money from its passive approach to this workplace problem.

Companies that do not address the problem of workplace bullies do pay a price. Such companies suffer higher employee turnover, higher absenteeism, and more frequent workers compensation claims. Furthermore, a severe bully boss will damage a company’s ability to recruit new people and its reputation in the community. Word does get around about who likes their job and who does not, and why.

Many people are painfully aware that they are being bullied by their boss at work. Others, however, do not understand what is happening to them. These people feel confused, scared, and don’t know where to turn for help with their undiagnosed problem. If you think you might be in this latter group, here are ten signs that you are being bullied and abused at work. Read through them and see if you recognize your own work situation in these descriptions.

You Are Being Bullied and Abused At Work If:

• You are physically sick the night before the start of every workweek

• You have a history of positive appraisals and solid work performance, but if feels like your boss or co-worker never stops criticizing your work and you personally

• Your boss or co-worker yells at you, insults you, or otherwise humiliates you in front of other people at work

• You are accused of making errors when you did not

• A manager or supervisor continually brings up past mistakes as a type of club to hit you with — not in a constructive manner to help you improve

• Someone at work quietly tells gossipy lies about you or your job performance

• You boss freezes you out of his or her “circle” by moving your desk, not including you on meetings or even social lunches

• On your days off work you feel exhausted and lifeless, or you spend time away from work obsessing about work

• Your boss tries to make you fail, by not reviewing or signing off on your work, shuffling your schedule or calling meetings when he or she knows you have a conflict

• When you succeed at work despite your boss, he or she takes the credit for your success (but always blames you for the failures)