This is a story about how I approached a manager at Red Lobster to complain about being Harassed, and struck by another staff member and as a result they kept their job and I lost mine.
Before I get into the story I sent head office I would like to define a couple of things so everyone completely understands and relates
#1 Green Cards (a green card is a manager swipe card. It is connected to you information as a server. It allows the holder to delete shifts, ring in things on your tables, print cash reports, personal hours and should not be given to a 15 year old hostess.)
#2 Three Table Sections (Red Lobster has a policy that allows servers to have no more the 3 tables to stop servers for fighting over tables and to ensure good service.) It is forbidden for this policy to be broken.
Below is the last letter I mailed to Red Lobster Head office after i was fired by a manager when I complained of harassment and nobody there seems to care. I even got the president of Red Lobsters email address (Kim Lopdrup) [email protected] and still was not responded to. I will post the story below and people can see it for what it is worth. I have removed the last names from the original sent mail by the staff involved.
Crew Relations,
I am contacting you regarding a situation that I was terminated. I approached a manager that I was physically assaulted and harassed by more then one employee. This has been going on for over a week now and escalated into physical abuse. I was afraid in the last week or so that if I told a manager about the verbal harassment then they would all gang up and I would lose my job because of it. When the harassment turned into a physical situation when I was pushed by Krystle and I almost dropped a stack of dishes, and challenged to a fight by Maxim, I decided enough was enough.
I told the manager about the situation and we were all sat down to write out a statement. I sat and did my statement by myself and all the other servers did their individual statements at the same table. Passing them back and forth writing more after someone else read it, writing on each other's. How can you expect to do a through investigation when you allow all of them to collaborate ideas together and create fiction? Those statements were biased and are not a true reflection of the statements as individuals because they were written as a group that did not include myself and as a result the content is inaccurate.
Further more I wen to the manager to explain the harassment and that they were clustering and talking about me. Then he creates an environment and basically promoted them to do exactly what I complained about. The purpose of getting statements is so you can look at all of what everyone has to say and combine the similar information and try to come up with a accurate story of what happened. If all those servers were to have to sit down alone and rewrite out those statements they would show lies and they would not remember their stories because they were fixed statements.
So let me get into why this all happened in the first place. Jason our new manager rolled into Red Lobster first day when there was standing line and he said, I hate standing lines you guys can have as many tables as you want. So the pickups started up big time. Servers with 6, 7, 8 tables even. So now what this has done is give the hostess Kathleen the power to pick favorites. She started seating people 4 tables when I had an empty section saying that I flipped more tables so she is evening the fairness out. So I have to wait with no tables till they caught up to me. The server that was involved trying to defend their 4th table emails me this. Not her fault because a manager set this environment for us.
You were being very sell fish, impatiant and you were not being fair by complaining about another table and I told you to shut the fxxk up becasue you were going on about head office and pick up tables out loud like a fxxxing idiot so that you can make it possible for all of us to have to go back to the old way and I could have fxxxing lost it on you. You need to use your head sometimes and realize what you are doing. I am mean yo you when you do me wrong, which you were. You are arguing with me about a stupid table that you dont deserve cuz its not your turn and you had more tables flipped than anyone and coming from someone who has no responsiblity at all I dont fxxxing call for that sxxt.
So now you can see the hostile environment starting. Kathleen for a whole week was dong this to me and not giving me pick-ups. I would have like two tables and servers would have 4 or more. So when I went to talk to her about this I was getting told to shut the fxxk up, by servers, threatened and this is why I never said they were harassing me. I did not want to approach a manager and get fired cause he wants pick up tables. I did not want to be the guy that was going to wreck him allowing breaking policy. It's not my fault this is your policy.
Servers getting violent over the whole situation and your manager created the situation by breaking your policies. Further more I would almost like to contact the police about getting assaulted in they're seeing how I lost my job because of it. I gave Red Lobster a chance to address the problem and you allow the assaulting server to remain and fire me. It makes no sense. Maxim Perrier challenging me to a fight. I went to talk to Jason right after and the only manager that is on is cooking and unavailable to address me. I wonder about that when people are complaining they have no hours and the manager is cooking and cant deal with the problems in the workplace. Green cards given to the hostesses to cash us out. And the key for the back door given to the dishwasher to take out the garbage.
I think that Red Lobster needs to place more time into looking at what really goes on in there. I was fired because I'm a potential problem to the breaking of the three table rule as I may tell. To be quite honest with you I don't care about three tables but what I do care is when some can have more while others get two. I don't think so. If you don't believe me, look at the server numbers, plus the tables that were active over the last week. I would appreciate it if you would reconsider terminating my employment, as I am the victim here. This is why people that are harassed say nothing is they fear they may lose their job and that's exactly what happened here. I have worked for you for 1 year now and the servers involved 30 days.
Scott B
In concluding to this I would not have expected such a "professional Corporation" to allow this type of things to go on.
Scott
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
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