does my argument hold water?

by drew

(ma)

I quit my job of 7 years back in October, I was a project manager with a landscape construction company. Over the years My boss’ older brother would work with me as my subordinate. He has a drug problem, and I found countless crack pipes, little baggies, the whole 9… This went on for years. I made my boss aware of this on every instance. As blood is thicker than water, he never did anything about it. He would be smoking crack in company vehicles and hiding drugs and or paraphenalia in trucks I would have to drive. Also operating heavy equipment while high, putting my safety in jeopardy along with the safety of my men. In october, it had gotten to the point where he was stealing copper from customers in order to scrap the metal for drug money. This is when I quit. I made numerous attempts to fix the situation to no avail. My ex employer denied my claim and I’m still waiting for my hearing date, its in MA, so its a total run-around…does my argument hold water?

Hi Drew,

You did not present what I would call an argument.

You told me why you quit .. and although it sounds like a reasonable reason to quit a job .. if you consider the long history here .. an argument is what convinces the hearing officer that good cause existed to quit for the final incident.

If you go back seven years and dredge thing up .. you are diluting your argument with your own apparent acceptance or willingness to work with a drug addict.

The reason you quit .. was because your employer’s crackhead brother was stealing scrap copper not because he got high on the job or endangered anyone .. or you would have done something about that a long time ago … but it does have relevance to the final incident.

So, let’s try to focus on what the employer did this time that seems to of finally, caused you to quit vs. any other time over the last seven years that you didn’t quit.

Quitting must be attributable to the employment or the employer.

Can you prove anything? Do you have any corroborating witnesses to the theft or the drug use or the fact that you brought these things to the attention of the employer?

Is there a police report for the theft of scrap metal?

How do you know the brother stole the copper?

Did you ask your employer to look into the theft or terminate the brother?

Did you have the authority to terminate other crew members if they had done this, but just not the brother?

Witnesses????? Documents of any kind????? to prove what you say is true?

Do you know what the employer told the MA unemployment office that caused the STATE OF MA to deny your benefits?

Or was it just what you told them?

If you want to talk .. I am available most days .. except weekend ….