First of All, I want to remain anonymous.
I am an US Armed Services Veteran whom was working for this company for a couple months. After 1 month of working for the company, I was offered an opportunity for better employment to help me provide for my fiance and my preschool age son.
When this occurred, I felt the need to notify my store manager and district manager of the chance I may wind up leaving the company with proper notice should the employment opportunity selection go in favor for me as a government contracted employee as an EMT.
Immediately after notifying my store manager, his friendly behavior and my work enviornment quickly turned hostile and very stressful. He continued for the following few weeks of my employment with them to harass me for little things like "working too slow" which he never had any complaints about my working pace. I always had receive compliments of good hustle and work. Even though during this emotionally trying time during my employment, and the manager was being a quote unquote *hole to me for nothing, almost all customer's I interacted with gave me great reviews complimenting me of my hard work and devotion to customer satisfaction even going as far as to calling my store to notify my manager of being a very polite and courteous employee and even offering me one time a 29" television for helping him above and beyond the call of duty as a customer account representative.
On the 20th of August I was injured during a rushing day as the days usually are at work very fast paced, when I was dismounting a vehicle in order to refuel the vehicle to complete my delivery duties for the day by tripping over a CV radio antenna wire that I had previously informed the manager of many times was improperly installed and was unsafe In accordance with Ohio Revised Code 4121.30 chapter under work safety regulations. When I tripped from the wiring wrapping around my left ankle as I was so unaware of, I landed with all my momentum on my right ankle, subsequently INVERTING IT. It was severely sprained. I crawled back into the vehicle after groaning for a minute in pain and after refueling the vehicle. IMMEDIATELY, I notified my store manager of the incident and advised him that I would do my best to complete the tasks and then return to the store to let him know on my condition and level of need for medical attention for the sprain.
2 hours pass by after my last delivery, my ankle at this point was causing me immense pain. So, I proceeded in calling my store manager in order to notify him of the seriousness of my injury and needing medical attention. He then told me "come back to the store and wait for my return because I need to talk to you about some things when i get back from running 'credit' and you can just help shannon (the lead assistant manager) with collection calls." I headed back to the store and he was not even there for me to again request to file the work related incident and seek medical attention. 3 hours pass and the store manager returns only to call me in the office and ask me what the *ing problem was. I informed him of my ankle injury severity and that I require I seek medical attention. He then stated " well you have just wasted my time and the company's time and are a waste of space and resources, you are still under 90 days probation so just GO, your fired get out of my store. As I left I had a few choice words to say at this point "You are an unethical piece of *it and you will hear from my lawyer I will get my worker's compensation benefits I have every right in receiving. He finally stated " You will not get those benefits you are being fired for INSUBORDINATION and are just a washed up veteran so NO lawyer will take your case.
UPDATE* They are now after EEOC of cincinnati investigated my claims being required to conduct mediation and they have stated to my lawyers THEY WANT TO SETTLE OUTSIDE OF COURT.
And yes I am getting my hearing this month for worker's compensation benefits. The manager for two weeks after that day he terminated me decided to do a NO CALL NO SHOW and then when showed up was terminated.
I will say when I worked for the company without duress, their consumer business practices were nearly 99% of the time very ethical and fair and we always worked with our customers. We even incorporate methods as directed by Mark Speece and our Regional Director Kory Helm to prevent any and all bedbug infestations for our merchandise and had no complaints with the problem.
But I will also say know your rights because I do believe that if the Company knew my store manager's actions would ever lead to legal trouble they would have never hired him because the majority of their management and corporate office usually did Follow the laws and were not typically ever discriminate against anyone. *Update
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