Fired, and I still don't know why. . .

[Seanette]

Big News, everyone!

I got a letter in the mail today from the state Personnel Board, dated February 3, 2016.

. . .I won.

(doing the Snoopy dance of joy) VERY happy for you!

Any word on how fast that lying supervisor's career has gone down in flames?

[Kiwi]

woohoo!!!!!

Go the back pay and seniority!

Do you actually want to go back? What about the other job that sounded promising?

[silverstaff]

(doing the Snoopy dance of joy) VERY happy for you!

Any word on how fast that lying supervisor's career has gone down in flames?

Well, I haven't exactly peeked in at what's going on there. I've been silent to my former co-workers because of the pending case.

They can't just fire him, as that level of supervisor is also a merit system job, so it's as hard to fire him as it would have been to fire me after that magic day had passed.

I've got no idea how that's going to shake out, to be honest. The order saying I should be reinstated makes no mention of the place to which I'm to be reinstated, although I'm requesting it NOT be to that same office, due to the obvious hostile work environment situations it creates.

Now the key issues are
1. Does the State lodge an appeal in court and drag this out more (but also making my back pay keep piling up), or walk away and cut losses. Also, appealing this means it goes into open court, instead of the more closed realm of administrative hearings.

2. Does my former agency try to put me back in that same office, working for the supervisors who lied and falsified documents to fire me.

woohoo!!!!!

Go the back pay and seniority!

Do you actually want to go back? What about the other job that sounded promising?

The question is, do I have to accept the reinstatement to get the back pay? Can I accept it and then immediately resign it to collect back pay and seniority, so that I can say I resigned to go back to my old PD?

I don't know the answers yet, but better to have to choose between two jobs than have none.

I honestly hated it at that old job, I had already planned on trying to find a new job when my probationary period was up and having the big strike against me of having been terminated by another agency while probationary was probably making it impossible for other agencies to want to hire me.

[Antares]

Fantastic!

[Valentinian]

Hooray!

[laborcat]

Wow. Congratulations! I'd see where they want to place you, see if you can deal with it for a few weeks, then if you really don't like it, then leave. I certainly wouldn't go back to the same office as before. As weird as this sounds, thank you for sharing the ordeal with us. I needed a happy story this afternoon. Good luck moving forward.

[Nunavut Pants]

Glad to hear that they've finally come back with the results. I didn't think there was any question of what the results would be, mind you...

[notalwaysright]

Glad to hear that they've finally come back with the results. I didn't think there was any question of what the results would should be, mind you...

I agree, with my edit. The good guys don't always win, so I'm super happy they came to the correct decision on this. And I will be interested to hear if they file an exception.

[Rosco the Iroc]

Big News, everyone!

I got a letter in the mail today from the state Personnel Board, dated February 3, 2016.

. . .I won..

DAMM SKIPPY!!

[eltf177]

CONGRATULATIONS!

Now that you have options you can sit back and decide on the best course of action for you.

Damn shame your lying sack of crap ex-supervisor doesn't get the axe he deserves but I've no doubt everyone there hates him for the position he put them in and he will be suffering every day until he leaves. And it couldn't happen to a more deserving idiot...

[Gizmo]

Congratulations. Well done for having the grit to follow this through and prove that their actions were awful. Hopefully the rest will now play out as is best for you.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Congrats, OP! Glad that justice was served, even if things aren't entirely done yet, it sounds like the State will be grasping at straws if they try to get this overturned.

[silverstaff]

I figure I can share something now that I found in Discovery, something that, while it didn't change the legal facts of the case, made it quite clear as to the character of my former boss.

I was able to piece together the timeline of how exactly I got terminated, and what the token excuse/last straw that started all this was.

Rewind back about a year. On February 16, 2015 there was a HUGE snowstorm around here, we got 18 inches of snow that day. Around here, that's a once-in-a-decade level snow.

My bosses boss had been griping at me constantly over reports going late, which is to say that he assigned them to be due when I was at my military duties and when I couldn't complete them because of duties, he penalized me for it. After my military duties in August 2014, I was sternly warned that if any reports went late again, that it would have "negative consequences" for my career with that agency. It was pretty clear he was implying I would be fired.

At the same time, my workload there increased. I went from having about 4 reports due a week, to having 6 or 7 due a week, and thus went from my normal 40 hour work week, to working 50 to 60 hours most weeks to keep up.

Well, I would be off my probationary status on March 1, 2015. That gigantic snowstorm hit on February 16, with snow starting around 8 AM, right as people are getting to work. By noon, there are several inches of snow on the ground, with over a foot more forecast for the next 12 hours. Most of my co-workers have left work by noon. Everyone sees me sitting there, working in my office.

I'm working trying to get reports done, because of that threat to my job if any reports go late.

I leave at 8 PM that night, after a 12-hour workday, with the biggest snowstorm in a decade going on outside. My normal 15-minute commute home becomes 90 minutes because of being stuck in the snow 3 times just driving down the streets of my city and trying to get home. I can't even pull in my driveway, I just park on the street and march through over a foot of snow to get to my front door.

I see on the evening news that the courts in my county are closed this week due to the storm, all non-emergency cases would be delayed (presumably arraignments and other things that by law have to happen in a specific timeframe would still happen, they can do those by video from the jail, but sentencings and hearings and such would be postponed) .

My reports were turned in to the courts. There was still another 6 inches of snow forecast for overnight, and it was risky and dangerous just getting home, and going back to work tomorrow seemed even worse. My bosses wouldn't let me telecommute because VPN access was restricted to supervisors only by policy, and many of our require systems for our job had to be accessed from our own network, which meant either being on-site, or a VPN connection.

So, I texted my immediate supervisor. I noted that between the road conditions, declared state of emergency, and court being closed, would there be any problems with me not coming in to work tomorrow due to the snow. She told me it would be fine, she just wanted to know how many reports would not get done. I told her one report was due tomorrow that would be delayed, just like the case would already be delayed due to the courts being closed. I figured since I had permission from my immediate supervisor, and the extreme weather conditions, and the fact that the courts would be closed so there wasn't even anyone to turn the report over to at the courthouse, it wouldn't be a problem.

Well, it took a few days for the roads to be passable. Everyone came back to work on Friday, basically from Tuesday through Thursday the entire office was closed. Supervisors and Officers didn't come in. Everyone came in on Friday, I came in that morning, sat down at my desk, and started to log in and get things going.

My bosses boss, the head of the office and one who kept threatening me storms in and gets an accusing tone and asks me "Silverstaff, why did a report not get turned in on Tuesday?

I respond to him that I was snowed in under a foot and a half of snow, that the courts were closed so there was nobody to turn it in to, and that I had express permission from my immediate supervisor for that report to go late due to weather. The head of the office gets a scowl on his face and storms out.

I thought I'd covered my ass rather well. I'd even used text messages so I could pull up the texts and show them (these texts got submitted at the hearing as evidence).

. . .what I learned in Discovery, through a subpoena of the relevant e-mails, was that said boss had immediately turned around and e-mailed the regional assistant director (the person who I mentioned in my original post as the one who told me I was fired) saying that he had discussed it with my immediate supervisor and they felt that I needed to be terminated as a subpar employee. The assistant director wanted some kind of documentation, so they e-mailed back half an hour later with a memorandum listing all my "failures", which is to say a litany of every report that I had "missed" (omitting that it was due to military reasons). . .and putting the one that was not turned in due to weather as the last one. Then a litany of every tiny error I'd made in the job, as in every single incredibly petty procedural error I'd made in preparing reports early on when I was still learning the process.

I got to read in the e-mails how my bosses argued with HR for two days over whether or not I could be fired (there was some confusion, due to my transfer from another police department, on whether or not I was probationary or not, eventually they decided I was). . .so then they had to take it to the Director himself for final approval.

The Director looked at the list of reasons to fire me. . .and explicitly said it was a very weak justification for termination, especially right at the end of someone's probationary period, and since the justification was very weak, the Director wanted to be absolutely certain that I was not of any "protected class" which could appeal or contest this. He'd sign off on the dismissal if the supervisors wanted it. . .but he clearly had reservations, he was assured that I was not of any kind of protected class and would have no grounds to contest the dismissal. . .and based on that, the Director approved my termination at a little after 10 that morning.

I remember what happened right after that, I didn't know it at the time, but the big boss called all the supervisors in to an emergency meeting in my immediate supervisor's office. Nobody knew what was going on, apparently they were telling that I was to be terminated later that day. The Assistant Director came in from the state capitol that afternoon and that's when I got the call that lead to the

So, that's what I found out in Discovery. Not only did he list all my times I'd had reports not in on time due to him trying to make me work, he essentially fired me (or the "last straw") was due to a report going late because I didn't come in during the biggest snowstorm in a decade. . .when he left that morning and didn't come in that day either.

[Kogarashi]

Wow. The head of the office sounds like a brat who really didn't like you and basically manufactured flimsy excuses to get rid of you just because of that. Here's hoping he gets some comeuppance.

[Kit-Ginevra]

...and if you had have known then,under a foot of snow,nobody would ever have noticed a corpse lying there :P