I began working at this student loan company about a year ago. I was 18 at the time. If I could have stayed working there I would have made close to six figures; most of the loan officers did last year. I felt like I was on top of the world. Shortly into my training to become a loan officer I met a young man named Josh. He seemed like a great guy, he was even the son of the pastor I listened to in church every Sunday! Being in so many horrible past relationships, some with physical violence and hidden drug problems, I was excited to meet someone whose life seemed to revolve around God, not drugs and violence. Josh and I exchanged phone numbers and began to talk on the phone for the next few evenings, we even made a date to go riding quads and to dinner. The next day after work I went out for appetizers with some friends from work. As we were sitting there talking, I told them that I had a date with Josh, one of the girls looks at me and said “You’re going to dinner with him? He has been calling you a slut!” I immediately called him and told him that I no longer wanted to go to dinner with him because I heard about the names he had been calling me. He apologized to me and said that he started saying that about me before he even knew me! I accepted his apology, but I still did not want to go to dinner with him. At that point he began to blow up my phone every other minute; I had about 40 calls from him in two hours! The next day at work he started sending me text messages, the first one said “Are you still ignoring me?” at that time I didn’t reply so he sent another one that said “Fine, I’m not playing this high school shit” I replied back saying “Well, good. Now you will finally leave me alone!” He then sent another one saying “I won’t be here when you get fucked over”. I went down and talked to my dad who was a manager in their IT department. My dad told me that he would have a talk with him. My dad took a witness with him when he went to speak with Josh and asked Josh to please never contact me again. I was on my way back to my desk when Josh stopped me and said “So your going to play these sort of games?” I just looked at him and said “I’m not playing games Josh, just leave me alone” I returned back to my desk and began to work, Josh sat at his desk with a few people around him and was pointing and laughing at me for about ten minutes.
At that point I was tired of everything and went and spoke to one of my floor managers, Andrew. He had me go and show my texts to one of the female floor managers and she told me that I should go and report him to HR. Andrew wanted to go down to HR with me to report him so we both headed down to HR. I told the HR department director my story and she gave me some forms to fill out and asked me to have them back to her with my claim by the end of the day. I returned back to my desk and about a half hour later I was being called into the vice president of sales office with my manager, the head floor manager, and the vice president of sales. I sat down and asked if I was in trouble, all I got was a head nod. Jason, (the vice president of sales), begins with “You need to go to your desk, pack your things and maybe you can come back to work on Monday.” I was shocked! Then he stated “Josh filed a sexual harassment claim against you.” I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I asked them about three times “Are you joking?!!” Jason continued to say “We haven’t had a problem like this in a year and a half.” I just sat there quietly with my eyes filling up with tears. Bob, the head floor manager at the time who is now director of sales, then said, “You shouldn’t even be dating at work.” I found that funny because 1) there is no dating policy at work, you can date whoever you want and 2) he, himself, had an affair with one of the women at this same company and married her later on. My manager just sat there not saying anything; I felt so betrayed! I left the office and went to my desk. I packed my things and left. I had several people on my way out ask me if I was fired. I had never been so humiliated in my life! I went down to my dad’s office in tears, crying while I told him what happened. On my way out of the building, the CEO of the company saw me crying and asked my dad if I was ok, my dad told him what had happened and the CEO said I could date who I wanted. I went home and sat there for about an hour trying to think of what he could have filed against me. I decided to call HR and ask them what Josh filed against me. The HR director told me, “Oh sweetheart he didn’t file anything against you, its company policy that when you file a claim both parties have to go home until the investigation is over.” I then began to tell her what was said to me in Jason’s office. She then says “Oh, that should have never been said. If I knew it was going to have happened like that I would have talked to you myself. I was just too busy with other HR issues.” I couldn’t believe what was happening! The HR Director called me a few days later and said that I would have to come back to work on Tuesday because she hadn’t finished the investigation.
Meanwhile, during the time that I was out of work my dad’s boss, Eric, called my dad into his office and began to tell my dad “you’re a fucking idiot for bringing your family into this company, you should have foreseen something like this happening with your daughter; your job is now in jeopardy.” At that point, my dad who is 48 years old, decided he could not afford to be without a job. So he called his brother who had been trying to get him to come and work at the company he worked at and told him what had happened. My uncle gave my dad a new job.
I returned to my shift on Tuesday and was told to wait in the hall until the HR director came into work. While I was sitting in the hall, for two hours, Josh was sitting at his desk working. I was so confused and wondered if I was getting fired! When the HR director came into work she said that she wanted to speak with Josh first and that I could return to my desk and start working. I headed back to my desk to only find that they had given my desk away to a new hire! I didn’t have anywhere to sit so they placed me at someone else’s desk until they came into work. I was so confused. But it soon all made sense to me when I went and talked to HR about not having a place to “start work”. She asked me if I would want to work in customer service instead because it was now uncomfortable to work with my managers. There was no way I wanted to take such a pay cut of thousands of dollars. Why was I being told to move to another department?! Why was I being punished for filing a sexual harassment claim; I wasn’t the one who made it uncomfortable! At that point I told her I no longer wanted to work for their company.
To this day they still feel like they have done nothing wrong. . Because of this stress I have now developed panic disorder. Unfortunately, I dated a guy from this company after I quit working there. When I broke up with him, I actually had to get a restraining order against because he harassed me on their company phones. This company records all of their telephone calls so they knew he was harassing me and yet did nothing to stop him.
To tell our story my dad started a blog on the internet. After awhile, this same company started blogging as well and even left death threats up on their site towards my dad.
Is this a company you would want to take a loan out with or even work for?!
Keep watching for my blogs because there are more to come!
Thanks for reading!
you can view my other stories at
www.exemployeesdaughter.wordpress.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment