I was a manager for vioc for eight years. My employment was terminated in October. I was accused of sexual harassment misconduct.
My supervisor stonewalled me and would not allow me to defend myself. I asked him who said what. He said "I don't have to tell you anything!" I asked him what is wrong. Again he said " I don't have to tell you anything!" I didn't have a clue as to what was wrong.
He asked me if I sprayed anything at our CSR. I told him that I had not. He then said he had statements that I did. I asked to see these statements to defend myself. Again he said "I don't have to tell you anything!"and that I was fired for misconduct.
This whole termination process took about 2 minutes. This alleged incident happened a full week and half earlier. Later that day I contacted Ashland's (vioc's parent company) Human Resources department to discuss the matter.
Again I was stonewalled when Cindy McClusky stated that she had three statments faxed to her and that was what she was going with. She also would not tell me anything. I then contacted human resources about a week later to get my personel file to see exactly what happened and what was said.
Their reply was "We don't have to give you anything." She was not very polite. I informed the individual that the State of Illinois says you do. She refused. I had to hire a lawyer to get my file.
After reading it I was shocked to see it was full of lies and half-truths. If I was allowed to defend myself in a proper manner I would still be there working.
I have since filed a complaint with the help of my attorney to the Illinois Department of Labor Fair Standards -Hearing Section. I have not heard from them yet but, I should soon.
Over the years as a manger with vioc I have seen several individuals accused of things they did not do. A couple were fired only to be proven right later. They were never called to return to work.
When I transferred to this particular store, one of the other manger's was having a physical relationship in the store during business hours with a female technician. He began buying her gifts. She then complained to the service center manager.
Company policy clearly states that this is sexual harassment and is a terminable offense.
The service center mananger transferred the technician (she was very upset about this) and did nothing to the manager having full knowledge of what happened. My situation was no where near this level and not even true. Why he decided to follow a procedure now and not before I have some good ideas. This is not a new service center manager.
I have been reading the consumer complaints and most of what I read is true about vioc. This company will do anything it can to avoid paying a claim whether you are a regular or not.
One time a customer's car was broke down at a shop only a couple of days after we serviced it. The drain plug came out while they were on the road. The service center manager went to the shop and swapped oil filters using another company's oil filter.
This would say that we did not service his vehicle last and that vioc was not liable. The customer was furious. I told the Area Manager what happened. He did nothing about it.
I personally did not sell customer's things they did not need, but I could be pushy at times. Vioc demands that we sell at a very high level or you lose your job or you don't get promoted or some other rotten thing they can think of. Our company president in 2003 said at a regional meeting of service center managers to "Get everthing you can out of the customer because there is only a 50 percent chance their coming back."
I have worked for several quick lube companies and I reccomend that you do the work youself or a mechanic you know well. Far more gets screwed-up on customer's vehicles than the general public knows.
Upper management at vioc is incompetent and completely out of touch with how a sevice center operates. They come up with ridiculous demands on their employees and "You better get it done or we will get someone else. "These are NOT good people to work for.
Vioc is only concerned with $. They don't care how you get it done as long as they don't have to hear about it or it doesn't interfere with some FAT area manger's bonus.
I had done a lot for this company and for them to fire me without so much as a write-up or a chance to defend myself is not only unfair but very men mean spirited.
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