Deposition of Ongoing Workplace Harassment resulting in my termination
This deposition has been put together to present the reader of an on-going situation at my workplace that has no end in sight, as these problems have become a daily ritual with several of my co-workers. The situations that have occurred are as follows: On approximately April of I was downstairs pulling a part for a customer when a co-worker named Shawn Williams approached me from my left, passed in front of me, and as he did, raised his foot contacting my groin area. As he was walking away from me my comment to him was "If you were trying to incapacitate me, you're going to have to kick me harder than that". With that said he walked back towards me, stopped in front of me and proceeded to kick me again full force in the groin area once again. On that occasion, I was told by witnesses that saw the deliberate attack, that I fell backwards and struck my head on the concrete basement floor in whereas I was unconscious for about 5 minutes. Upon being brought to my feet I discovered that breathing and walking were extremely difficult if not impossible. With the current situation growing more painful, I called my wife and explained to her what had happened and felt it necessary to be driven to my health care provider, Rhonna Lee, ARNP. Upon examination when I arrived there, I was told that I was bleeding into my groin area and needed further medical assistance from an emergency room. I was then told to be driven to Holy Family Hospital where in fact I was told that blood was pooling in my groin area and that I had a mild concussion from my head hitting the concrete floor from falling backwards. For the record, as of this writing, pain still exists in my groin area when ascending or descending any kind of stairs along with shooting pains in my head that never existed before. The witnesses' names that saw this take place will be provided on a separate page. From approximately May to Oct my living conditions were being put on public display for everyone to comment on. Everyone being defined as other employees that I worked with on a day to day basis, and regular store customers that I had a professional relationship with on a daily basis as well. Explained further about my living conditions, my wife had her previous home destroyed by a fire in which she lost mostly everything along with several pets that she was very fond of. Having nowhere to live, her father stepped in when we got married in May and purchased us a 34 foot 5th wheel trailer to live in until we could secure another home for her property. Living conditions with this situation were barely tolerable at best as they were not designed to be lived in on a yearly basis.in the summer time the inside temperature reached 100 degrees on a regular basis. When the AC finally kicked in it brought the temperature down to around 85 degrees.in the winter time, the exact opposite took place. Water supply lines froze, the toilet ceased to function properly.inside temperatures would hover around the 60 degree mark. It was all we had until her old house could be removed and another one replaced. And in the winter time, this wasn't going to happen. The problems started at work when two certain individuals (Mike Thorp) and (Gregg Shepherd) decided it was time to make fun of my present living conditions. Signs were drawn or cut out of magazines depicting old broken down looking trailers with my name in a caption above the trailer. Two incidents stand out in particular with the above mentioned people as where a comment was made by Mr. Shepherd regarding the trailer as in "Why don't I just tow it to work and put it in the parking lot, then I'll never be late for work" (Which I never was any way). This unprofessional comment was overheard by one of our regular customers who had a good laugh at my expense. The other incident involved a phone call from my wife which was taken by Mr. Thorp in which he was told to tell me to bring home old newspapers from work if I could. When the message was given to me by Mr. Thorp he then asked me, "What are the newspapers for, insulation for the walls in the trailer?" This was also overheard by several of my co-workers, including Gregg who thought that was very funny. Another demeaning comment at my expense. Upon the "dying down" of all the comments mentioned in the above paragraph, I took it upon myself to approach Mr. Shepherd personally and request that no more comments be made concerning my living conditions as they were causing me a great deal of stress not only at work, but I was now bringing the tension and problems home to my new wife, which she did not appreciate. Needless to say, the above request was ignored and the demeaning comments started up yet once more. At that time our current manager was Mr. Cruz Nacacio. My above request to stop with the comments was being ignored. So I made a judgment call to involve Mr. Nacacio to put a stop to this unwanted harassment. He assured me that this would be dealt with on a professional level, and the comments would cease. Around 3-4 days later after the above request takes place, I discover that a sign was built and hung above our entry way that goes back into the warehouse. However, this sign is facing our sales floor so everyone can see it, from co-workers to customers alike. The sign is multicolored, green, yellow, and red. And the caption above the sign reads, "Chances of Steve wigging out today" with the needle placed on high. As stated above, I have many customers both retail and wholesale that come to me for their parts solutions. About 2 days after that sign had been left up, one of our well-known wholesale mechanics approached the sales counter where I worked and asked "Hey, what happened to your sign that was on the wall?" I replied, "I don't know, why do you ask?" His reply to me was, "I wanted to see what the chances of you wigging out were today". At this point, I am now the laughing stock of the entire company. I'm finding out that my stress levels are at an all time high and I start crying for what appears to be no reason at all. One of our drivers pulling a part for delivery finds me back there sobbing uncontrollably telling me everything will be o.K. And that you just can't let them get to you. After regaining my composure yet one more time, I decide to confront the manager, Mr. Nacacio, and explain to him that this kind of unprofessional behavior needs to stop immediately and that it is causing me unnecessary stress, discomfort and levels of depression that I have not seen since I was a youth. His comment to me was that his wife suffered from bouts of depression as well but had no idea how to deal with it and that I needed to contact a professional. I don't believe even a day had gone by after this conversation took place when the personal attacks started up yet again by the same people mentioned above. The problems in the above mentioned paragraphs are not being resolved. If anything, they are getting worse. I was trying not to involve anyone else by solving this using my supervisors, but since that was not working I felt it was necessary to now involve the President of the company Mr. Tim Trudnowski. I had explained to him the verbal assaults, the demoralizing sign, and that no one was taking me seriously. When I showed him an actual photograph of what had unfolded over the past week or so, the manager, Mr. Nacacio was called in to try and explain this unprofessional behavior. After about a 20 minute discussion involving the President and a picture of this sign which he apparently knew nothing about, I was informed that this was just meant to be a practical joke that somehow got way out of hand. All the signs regarding anything that had to do with my living conditions and/or mental state of mind were taken down at the request of Mr. Trudnowski. This is the last I've seen of any drawings, with regards to the one copy that exist in my employee file. However, the verbal, slanderous, unprofessional remarks are still present as of this writing. I specifically used the word unprofessional because a lot of these words are heard by not only my co-workers, but my customers as well. Words like: Stupid, moron, retarded, Fag, idiot. The list of demeaning words is endless. It’s something new and insulting every day. At this point, I also feel it important to know that I have been on several different kinds of anti-depressants just so I'm able to somewhat function at work. Upon getting home from work, I take another form of tranquilizer to avoid severe anxiety attacks brought on from the insults at work that day, every day. Just as of recently, a visit to my health care provider prompted her to increase my dosage of anti-depressant due to the fact that I was still being overwhelmed by these demeaning comments at work. My status as a parts professional at Motion Auto Supply is ruined. My self esteem as a person is ruined as well. Trying to deal with people much less demanding customers that rely on your parts experience is tough enough, but when you start throwing demeaning comments at someone on a daily basis is another thing. I have been dealing with people, customers and co-workers in one form or another for over 33 years, yet I have never been so insulted by the shear lack of respect and professionalism that takes place on a daily basis at Motion Auto Supply and their employees. The date is now 24 March. And around 11:30am, I was terminated from my job by Tim Trudnowski with my supervisor Jeff Kramarz present. Below is the situation that took place leading up to my being released from Motion Auto Supply. As I may have explained earlier in this document, addressing this on-going situation involving the harassing and demeaning comments, I chose not to pursue it any longer with my supervisors as it was not getting fixed at the highest levels of management, fact being, when I made my displeasure known when this first started, I was labeled a “Tattle-Tale” by Mr. Shepherd. About 7 days earlier, I had arrived at my work station just like any other day with the exception that I had eaten something earlier for breakfast that was upsetting my stomach. Before I could make it to the bathroom, an unexpected smell in the form of gas was expelled. After this I had walked over to the fan and had turned it on to disperse this. At this, Mr. Shepherd walked by, looked at his friend Steve Bennett and asked him “If he just Sh*” after he told him no, he looked at me and asked the same question. Before I could give an answer or some sort of explanation, his parting comment to me was “You just stood in front of the fan and Sh*? Are you that Fuc* stupid? ”. This comment was made very loud so that all my co-workers on the counter could hear it. At this point, as Mr. Shepherd was headed for the warehouse, my comment to him was “What did you just say to me? ” Another comment was made, but he was too far away to understand what it was. There were no customers present that I remember this time. And if I remember correctly, when that demeaning comment was made to me by Gregg Shephard, my manager was in his office which was right within earshot of that comment. And the only thing that was said to me about that from Mr. Kramarz was no one should be called stupid, it’s very unprofessional. That’s as far as that went. I informed Mr. Kramarz of my displeasure of being treated this way yet again, but nothing was mentioned to Mr. Shephard regarding his unprofessionalism at work. On 23 March around 4:50pm, an order was canceled at the last minute. My supervisor, Jeff Kramarz told me to go back in the shipping area and recover the piece that was due to be shipped out so we could credit his account. Upon asking a gal named Heidi that worked in shipping, she told me that the package was already boxed up and ready to go on the back wall. After several minutes of looking for this package that was among several others with different shipping labels, another gal named Michelle Agnew that normally works in the sales area of Automotive Jobber Supply, was helping out in the shipping area approached me and said “What’s the matter, cant you read friggin’ shipping labels? This was done in front of several people in the shipping area: Heidi, Nancy, and apparently another AJS employee named Brian heard this as well. After being belittled and insulted by Mr. Shepherd just last week in front of my co-workers, I was now completely outraged that this behavior was yet still left to continue. Without any hesitation, I became instantly insulted with my reply to her being “Has anyone told you to go fu* yourself today? ” Her reply back to me was I’d better re-think what I just said. I told her that there was no need to and that it was simply a question not a directive. After that short incident I took care of the original request from my supervisor of finding and canceling the order before it got shipped out. Upon realizing what had just taken place back in the shipping department, I chose to report this matter to my supervisor Jeff Kramarz. I didn’t want him to be blindsided by any accusations that may come about before I had a chance to explain to him what had just taken place. The date is now 24 March with the time being around 9:45am. My supervisor gets called into Tim Trudnowskys office for an apparent conference over what took place the other day. But before Jeff does this he looks at me and said “What did you say to Tim about this”. I informed him that I explained this all to him so he would be “up to speed” on this matter if this were to take place. After about 15 minutes of Jeff being in Tim’s office, he came out and told me that Tim wishes to speak to me on this matter. I explained again the question as I said it to Michelle Agnew, word for word. At that point Tim explained to me that since I “Fired back” with what I had said that I was now terminated from the company.
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