Fired for not making sales quota

Sometimes I forget to say that, Myra.

I’m always sorry as well, if I don’t know how to help.

My area over the last ten years has been helping people collect unemployment insurance benefits. Yet before that, I learned a lot about reality of how UI works over the ten years I worked with employers to win appeal hearings.

So, the fact is, I knew if a discharge, or a voluntary quit was precipitated and caused by sexual harassment, or abuse of power by some type of discriminatory harasser, but I also knew how rare it was for a claimant to prove/rebut the discharge was retaliatory, or literally prove the burden the voluntary quit happened only after first trying to preserve their job.

We begin to prove/rebut as employees by going up the chain of command to grieve about problems at work.

It troubled me, that I became so accustom to ignoring the truth, merely because my opinion was a claimant didn’t have what it took to literally prove, or rebut to a standard of law .. even when the truth of their story was ringing loud and true to me .. the person, not the employee.

Complicit is a word we hear often, but none of us are immune to the implications of what that word means.

Anyway ..

HR is normally where I advise anyone to go, when/if something inappropriate happens to them, or even someone else, in the workplace. However, HR, or human resources, can be a very loose term for a department that can also describe another function .. to protect the business, or stakeholders at all cost from financial threats resulting from a myriad of employment laws .. up to and including ..sexually inappropriate conduct.

One question I ask people I talk to going through this is whether HR personnel might be naturally inclined or possibly motivated by threat themselves, to act unnaturally to protect the wrongdoer at all costs.

And if so, has that attitude resulted with the abuser, or HR using strategies intended to delegitimize the complaint of the person .. who really is trying to make efforts intended to preserve a job through some sort of reasonable resolution process.

In the end .. my thing is how to expect unemployment lawa ro work when a claim reaches a hearing.

I know it’s only lower level tribunal hearings which are designed to gather full records, of relevant facts for each claim appealed.

And for me this means basic advice should suggest we need the weight of documentation to help us with the burden of proof. We receive it from employers, but do we counter-document to clarify, or rebut what’s contained in the employer documented story?

How often do we as individuals send on our own, a formal complaint to HR without beating around the bush to get right into the professionally rendered, but sordid details specifically addressing how we were inappropriately touched by a boss?

Not often, but it is precisely what is needed to prove good cause for even puny ol’ unemployment .. especially if the HR dept. is the type to investigate and take steps to stop, or terminate such egregious bad behavior .. or cover it up to make the complainer look like the guilty .. or hypersensitive complainer.

Whether we quit and then learn we have to prove quitting was the employer’s fault, it’s really is via our thoroughly documented efforts to preserve our jobs we will find ourselves winning benefits more often. And yes same hold true for documentation we know may be used later to undermine the credibility of the direct witness, or the one who fired us, for something that might stand up to sustain the burden of our misconduct .. if we didn’t choose to document to our own advantage.

The more we get fed up, is fine by me, because how else do we actually do something about anyone who thinks their power over an employee at work should include the right to squeeze thighs at-will, or anything else we all know is wrong. Maybe if we stand up .. the less online and public absurd comments like the other found here, we won’t have to see.

Similarly, I sold [timeshare] years ago (I was 18) and my boss grabbed my thighs, slid his knees to mine and said words I don’t remember because I was shocked that I was cornered, seated and being touched. No decent/good man would do that to an employee.

Unfortunately, I quit instead of saying anything, because I knew I had no proof of what he did and others wouldn’t believe it.

In a parallel Universe, I kicked him in the balls and every man and woman understood why – but in this world, he would have proof of assault (bruising) and I would still have nothing but an allegation…

I’m sorry that happened to you.

She’s full of it. as high strung as this one is, she would’ve RUN to the unemplyment office and a lawyer if he squeezed her upper thigh. lol