Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

[labman]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

I would trust Eloise on this, and to be honest would let it drop. Put it down to experience and get on with your life in a somewhat wiser way.

I am frequently asked to write references for people. Clearly when you use someone as a referee, it is common etiquette to ask the person for permission to do so. Where people fail to do this, I always start, "I was somewhat surprised to be asked for a reference for Mr X, as I had never been asked if I would act as a referee. However, ......."

Where the person asks, and I feel my reference would do them no favours, I always suggest they find another referee. If they insist on using me, and incredibly some still do, I give an honest negative reference, and they don't get the job.

The reference point is thus very true.

I have to say, and you won't like it, but if you were to approach me with your background known to me, I would not touch you with a barge pole.

There will be plenty of help here about how to move on and what help and support you can get from this point, but I agree, you really should let this drop.

[Eloise01]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

How about calling her "doxy", "strumpet" or "trollop"?

That would, of course, depend on the degree of your death wish. Or possibly on the degree to which you are intent upon name calling someone whose version of events is not in evidence. There are always, as I have pointed out, two sides to every story. For all we know the OP is a fantasising predator who targets young and impressionable women. I give my advice based on what an OP says, or possibly on what they don't say. It may or may not be what they want to hear, and it may or may not be advice based on the truth. That is impossible to control or manage. But I would not assume the veracity of someone else, or indulge in name calling, when they have had no opportunity to put their own side of the story.

[PlanB]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Or you may be able to come to an amicable agreement brokered by a lawyer where they will provide you with a *neutral* reference if you don't pursue this to the ET. That's called negotiating a severance package not blackmail :grin: Check out your legal rights and then use them as bargaining tools.

[MissFM]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

GS - am sure that much of the above was not what you would like to see/hear. It is likely, though, to be fairly accurate in terms of how the world works. None of it would be meant to hurt you - quite the contrary. See what your solicitor says - and ask her to be clinically ruthless because you neither deserve or need to be messed around or fleeced.

I am - we all are - on your side, however it might seem

[Eloise01]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Or you may be able to come to an amicable agreement brokered by a lawyer where they will provide you with a *neutral* reference if you don't pursue this to the ET. That's called negotiating a severance package not blackmail :grin: Check out your legal rights and then use them as bargaining tools.

Before I did anything at all I might decide which "version " of the employer I am propagating. Is he the friend, backed into a corner and the weight of the world on his shoulders (earlier posts) or the scheming Machiavellian with an intimidating and bullying nature? A good reference, if that is all that is required, may be snared with more honey than vinegar. And will cost through a solicitor, if you get it. I'd suggest trying a personal approach first. More chance of success and costs nothing.

[MissFM]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

and sorry - my post has crossed with others - I was referring to Eloise's and Labman's (118 and 121) - have not yet had time to digest the later ones

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Or you may be able to come to an amicable agreement brokered by a lawyer where they will provide you with a *neutral* reference if you don't pursue this to the ET. That's called negotiating a severance package not blackmail :grin: Check out your legal rights and then use them as bargaining tools.

I got such an agreement some years ago after being sacked for alleged "gross misconduct" by a City F in$titution. :scared: I'd been told I only had a 20% chance of winning at the ET but I was offered what's known as a 'Commercial Settlement' where the other side made no admissions but agreed that it would be cheaper to settle than to defend at the ET (they'd hired a top notch law firm). The settlement included a small sum of money and an agreed reference, which I wrote myself. Both parties agreed not to slag each other in public for the next five years (been nearly ten now so I'm free! :lol: ) and they were to provide the agreed reference to anyone who asked. The agreement was brokered by my solicitor through ACAS.

A friend of mine resigned from a job where he had personal problems and then went to the same legal advice centre as me, he claimed Constructive Dismissal even though in all honesty, he didn't have much of case, but was also offered a similar settlement of a month's salary and an agreed reference. :grin:

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Before I did anything at all I might decide which "version " of the employer I am propagating. Is he the friend, backed into a corner and the weight of the world on his shoulders (earlier posts) or the scheming Machiavellian with an intimidating and bullying nature? A good reference, if that is all that is required, may be snared with more honey than vinegar. And will cost through a solicitor, if you get it. I'd suggest trying a personal approach first. More chance of success and costs nothing.

Not necessarily, see my post above. Neither one of us had to part with a penny (although I did make a £100 donation to the legal advice centre, but that was the least I could do).

[Eloise01]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Yes that is possible. But it isn't foolproof. It depends on what the OP is actually wanting. And what their best chance of getting it is. That's something only they have the knowledge to decide. I've certainly known a few employers who have breached CA's - via that wonderful thing called the telephone, for example! Hard to prove and harder to action. It depends on whether you both enter into the agreement with positive intentions. If one party doesn't... That's why, whatever the OP may now think, if the employer thinks he is still a friend, it may be that guilt will trip him where a lawyer may not.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

I am frequently asked to write references for people. Clearly when you use someone as a referee, it is common etiquette to ask the person for permission to do so. Where people fail to do this, I always start, "I was somewhat surprised to be asked for a reference for Mr X, as I had never been asked if I would act as a referee. However, ......."

Where the person asks, and I feel my reference would do them no favours, I always suggest they find another referee. If they insist on using me, and incredibly some still do, I give an honest negative reference, and they don't get the job.

One thing is personal/character references, another is references from previous employers. For personal ones, I totally agree, you should contact the referee first and only a fool would contact someone who may give an unfavourable reference, however, for employment references you don't contact your previous employers to see if they would act as referees, you just provide your previous employment details.

Depending on the circumstances, you may give the name of a contact (some employers insist in it being your line manager), but in some cases they go straight to HR. These days employment references are mostly about confirming dates, at least that's the case in large organisations.

[Eloise01]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

These days employment references are mostly about confirming dates, at least that's the case in large organisations.

Not by any means. People keep saying this, but I actually see no empirical evidence to support it. It is true of some employers, just as it is true that some employers don't consider a reference of this nature sufficient. In my experience the only reliable evidence of what an employer provides, or what one will accept, is what they do!

But I think that manners (if we are talking in the abstract here) never harm anyone, and asking if a manager or someone providing an employers reference is willing to do so is just that - good manners. I wouldn't, for example, have held it against anyone I employed if they hadn't asked me, and they'd have got the same reference anyway, but it always made it simpler not to get it out of the blue. Plus, if they really didn't have a great reason to go, I might be able to entice them not to!

[PlanB]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

[QUOTE=GettingScrewed;310597]. I guess the solicitor didn’t tell me that on the phone earlier. It is indeed a free first consultation that I have with her on Wednesday morning.

/QUOTE]

^^^^ So, what happened?

[GettingScrewed]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Jeez Eloise! Now I’m Jimmy Saville? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words will hurt forever!

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so friendly with her; I assure you that I am like a broken Playstation in that I do not play any games. She was moping around and telling me that she didn’t have any friends, that she was always an outsider. I took her under my wing to begin with and we just became friends from there. You seem to want to write that I ‘should never have been friends with her’ on a sack full of oranges and clobber me around the head with it. Point taken, understood and accepted.

When his dad died, I was not just doing my job. There were others in my position and they weren’t going to do it. I took it upon myself on my days off to come in to sort these things. I text his girlfriend and told her to keep him away. To let him spend some time with his ailing mother and his heartbroken sister. I was at the funeral and came to the house later and spent a few hours having drinks with him and sister while they regaled me with stories of their father.

I did indeed resign which I’ll talk about later. There was no reasonable belief that I did what I was accused of. I told him off the record that “You know I didn’t do what she accused me of, I know you do and so does your girlfriend because you were both with me every step of the way. Your girlfriend even tried to talk me into pursuing her against my better judgement” He told me that even though he wants to, he can’t tell me what he thinks of her now…I must stress all intentions were good and the girl and I remained very friendly up until a month ago, while I had moved on and was dating.

Two of the witnesses involved in this were earlier mentioned playground nonsense, (if you care to go back a few posts I detail this), and the other two would have been two people I may have called upon to be my witness in the disciplinary. He made sure he got to them. These were two guys that called her a silly little girl, twisted, manipulative and repeatedly used the word dangerous. One of the guys was out with me on both the nights mentioned previously and the other told me several times that he hated her because of the way she treated me. Their statements said only that it was “uncomfortable” when the girl and I weren’t getting along, but nothing of how they witnessed anything she did, no mention of manipulation or twisted character on her part that they had so openly referred to many times previous. The worst thing about those involved here was not the strident clamour of those whom it seemed were out to get me, but the appalling silence of the good people, the people that could have made a difference for me.

The minutes weren’t typed when I went back for the decision and he revealed to me off the record that he was told to fire me no matter what and pay a fine of need be. He also told me that he only furnished the people he was talking to with her side of the story. The whole procedure seemed like he was never investigating any ‘facts’ and that he was only there to convict me. It solved all his budget and possible redundancy problems. It was an opportunity that he took advantage of. I really did not like the fact he took the two guys I would have relied on and effectively made them useless to me. He is clever enough to do this.

I mentioned the fact that I would like to file a grievance against her as I disagree with almost everything she had stated. I quoted section 44 of ACAS,

“Where an employee raises a grievance during a disciplinary process the
Disciplinary process may be temporarily suspended in order to deal with
The grievance. Where the grievance and disciplinary cases are related it
may be appropriate to deal with both issues concurrently”.

I was refused and told the disciplinary had to continue.

I don’t think he liked hearing that the consensus was that I ran the place, but this was not my opinion and this was not my fault. As previously stated a staff member spoke out of turn to him and he told her she was “You’re lucky it is me here and not someone else.” When he told me this I asked him to “Listen to yourself man???...” As noted, there are others in my position, yet I was told “they learn from me”. I did not sign on to be a teacher to other people that are paid the same wage to perform the same tasks and duties. My employer and I did not always see eye to eye regarding things like discipline. If I believed him to be right though, I would support him. Sometimes I supported him in silence, sometimes I supported him with a respectful dissent, either way it was always support. It really is a case of when the king puts the poet on the payroll he cuts off his tongue. I could say nothing without looking like the villain while he maintained the good guy status.

As I began to distance myself from her and finally cut myself off I told him that no one knows or understands better than me that if you surround yourself with children and people that act like children, then you will inevitably be confronted with and forced to deal with the problems of children. I come to the further realisation that much like Danny Glover’s character Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon movie series, I am indeed “too old for this *****”.

Here’s the scoop…HERE is what happened today.

Much of what Eloise stated seemed to be the view of the solicitor although he told me that he has just had a case that is very similar in the details. He said they had a very sympathetic tribunal but ultimately lost. Afterwards he was told that he would probably have won but what cost him is the fact that he resigned. He said the case was so very similar but it was that one thing that cost him. He elaborated to say that there is still a possibility but he wouldn’t be overly optimistic. I do not pretend to know if this was a shrew move on the part of my employer, advice given to him by his own solicitor or team at HR, but I am just an ordinary person that had come here for advice. (I have no great knowledge of this and have appreciated all input, from Eloise’s knowledge, to PlanB and FlamingParrot’s advice, to CleverClogs' notions of a trollop, and of course the advice and support of MissFM, and everyone else!). I did not have his team and he knew I wouldn’t like the mark against my name. I have never been accused or involved in anything like this before. I would feel like the depths of my soul was branded with an accusatory iron, on display for all to see.



To add extra salt to my already gaping would, my employer text me today to say that I had been overpaid a few months back and that I owe him at least £200. I have no knowledge of this whatsoever so I told him I’ll look into and get back to him. That’s just great, like I can afford to lose that at this point. Suddenly that oxygen is running out faster than anticipated.


My family, in the small town of ‘Nowheresville’ have offered me a roof over my head, I may even be able to swing an apartment rent-free for a few months…for all there is to do though, I might as well have a tent in a field. I have an uncle that said he’d keep an eye out for me. He works for an insurance investor. I think he is confined to a desk all day, every day though, which I can only imagine would be as exciting as watching a water tornado dance between two plastic bottles that I taped together in GCSE geography class. No offence to anyone that works behind a desk.

I would feel like a soldier that just out of the military after 10 years of service with only my duffle bag to show for it. Stepping off the only bus that travels through town and walking down the dusty road back to where the old mill has closed down. Either that or I fall back on my Rhinestone denim jacket business that I’m sure is about to come back into fashion any day now.

I have lots to think about in terms of whether I just get another job or up and transplant my city life back to the small town where a rent-free roof and a possibility of employment could await.

When I was getting my photo taken with my nephew in our Superman t-shirts my sister actually showed me the trailer for the new Superman movie. The young Clark Kent saves a school bus full of children from certain doom and one of the kids witnesses his act of super strength. His dad, Jonathan, gives Clarke a telling off and the boy responds with “What was I supposed to do, just let them die?” Is that my lesson here? What was I supposed to do, just let the girl cry in front of me, turn her away at times when she really did in fact need help? It might be easy to say yes now, but not so easy at the time when confronted with a quivering lip and a stream of tears. Is that my lesson though? That the world only wants what it can get from you…

It was put to me recently that if a person is laying in the street, the victim of a robbery, bleeding out from a knife wound and a random stranger comes along and pulls out a needle and thread, tells you he’s a doctor and can stop the bleeding. You’d want him to stop the bleeding right? Instead he tells you he’s nice, doesn’t drink, never forgets birthdays, never uses foul language…but none of that matters, can he stop the bleeding? That is all you want from him. I say this because the girl in question didn’t care about any of my qualities, she only cared about what she could get from me…and when I cut her off, I ended up here with a newfound cynicism and jaded negativity.

As for the girl I had started dating, I think that’s pretty much finished with. How could I explain all this to her? I’d find that about as comfortable to explain as my sex change, my radioactive spider-bite and the dead hooker that I have chained to the radiator in my bathroom.

I am nothing more than a de-clawed kitten at this point. I may not have done everything by the book. I may have gotten too close, or emotionally attached though I sort of feel like I was unfairly punished for attempting to walk in the light of creative altruism. Perhaps others in a similar situation might read this thread and learn from the knowledge and wisdom imparted and my mistakes along the way, or just get a chuckle for my idiocy. I am left with a feeling of loss and shame, like I was just beaten up by a nine year-old girl wearing a My Little Pony backpack, with the added humiliation that she took my lunch money and pushed me over while all the cool kids looked on.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and discover that in the end I’m Bruce Willis and I’ve been dead the whole time.

I read this exceptionally deep and profound quote recently. I found it meaningful and impassioned. It spoke directly to my heart and filled me with a glimmer of hope for the human race…so I thought I’d share it with you…I am not religious as such but I believe it comes from the Church of Excellence…


“Everyone be excellent to each other. Church dismissed”

[Eloise01]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

I think the long and the short of it is to move on.

If your employer say you owe him money, you are under no obligation to "look into it" (unles you paid yourself it, which I sincerely hope you didn't). If the employer alleges an overpayment it is up to the employer to evidence this. So tell him to.

[Inca]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

As I read your latest post I had all sorts of comments,quotes,theories,thoughts and pearls of wisdom running through my brain and then I read Eloises' comment about 'moving on',,and it sums it up eloquently and succinctly,,learn from it and move on for your own sanity.

I wish you all luck for your future.