TJOnline
09-16-2006, 11:46 PM
Hey everyone,
Just joining this board. I've been out of the community for far too long. I'd like to share a personal horror story with others in Georgia to see if anyone else has been hit with similar tactics. I was recently kicked out of a 15 year Georgia Tech career as a research engineer. Word apparently got around that I was a smoker and a gang of co-workers would do things like cough, rattle their keys, leave suggestive objects around for me to see, or sniff or suck air through their teeth when they would pass my office door or pass me in the hall. I caught one of them in the act:
http://www.afafa.org/Office1.mpg
When I would confront them, they would just pretend innocence and go right on doing it. Took the matter to management and was told that I was being paranoid. Eventually, management demanded that I enter into continuing psychiatric treatment and sign a waiver giving GT the right to talk to the shrink. I said no way to that and was terminated. No psych history. No criminal history. Lawyers said that their behaviors didn't qualify as harassment or that I didn't get enough proof. Management wouldn't investigate. I never told anyone in the workplace that I was a smoker. I eventually found that there's a whole lot more going on than just the workplace thing. Now I'm an activist.
Has anyone else gotten treatment like that in the workplace or in public?
Anyway, glad youall are out there. If youall have a social in the near future, I'd like to pop by, if I may. I'm in the Decatur area.
:thumbsup:
Ted
Just joining this board. I've been out of the community for far too long. I'd like to share a personal horror story with others in Georgia to see if anyone else has been hit with similar tactics. I was recently kicked out of a 15 year Georgia Tech career as a research engineer. Word apparently got around that I was a smoker and a gang of co-workers would do things like cough, rattle their keys, leave suggestive objects around for me to see, or sniff or suck air through their teeth when they would pass my office door or pass me in the hall. I caught one of them in the act:
http://www.afafa.org/Office1.mpg
When I would confront them, they would just pretend innocence and go right on doing it. Took the matter to management and was told that I was being paranoid. Eventually, management demanded that I enter into continuing psychiatric treatment and sign a waiver giving GT the right to talk to the shrink. I said no way to that and was terminated. No psych history. No criminal history. Lawyers said that their behaviors didn't qualify as harassment or that I didn't get enough proof. Management wouldn't investigate. I never told anyone in the workplace that I was a smoker. I eventually found that there's a whole lot more going on than just the workplace thing. Now I'm an activist.
Has anyone else gotten treatment like that in the workplace or in public?
Anyway, glad youall are out there. If youall have a social in the near future, I'd like to pop by, if I may. I'm in the Decatur area.
:thumbsup:
Ted