For context, my employers are all men. It's been a shit year and I didn't realize till I was absolutely fed up. During a meeting on february 14, the engineer that was berated alongside me quit on the spot. i decided to send this letter after that. Would you guys think this is something I can work through or should I leave? Names of people and projects have been changed for identity purposes.
Dear John,
I am writing this letter to express my concerns about the current situation at abc company following the mandatory staff meeting on February 14, 2023. During the meeting, my colleague, Jenn, and I were berated and blamed for issues we were not aware of in front of everyone. I feel it is imperative to address the issues that need attention at abc.
I would like to highlight a few points, which I believe are vital in this situation.
Firstly, during the staff meetings held so far, the hosts claimed they were not pointing fingers and making no accusations. However, it was contradicted shortly after when the host would mention the work that specific people have participated in or directly name the individuals they want to criticize. Do not criticize. Coach.
It was humiliating to hear negative feedback about our work at the meetings when these constructive criticisms were never provided to us during our regular work hours or in private meetings. I had a personal meeting with CEO about two weeks prior and nothing of that sort was mentioned to me. On top of that to tell me that I’m taking more from abc than I’m giving back was extremely hurtful. If that were the case, why was I the one who was looped in to take the urgent training class for a state project along with CEO? Why was I brought into that project? Why am I given project after project? How am I able to answer the questions Jenn asks me? How am I able to answer the questions you ask me? I know I falter here and there but even after 30 years in the field, professionals falter, too. It is human and should be treated as a team effort to get through.
Secondly, when I joined abc, I had received inadequate training at the prior small business and had admitted that it was because I was a scared fresh graduated in a company that had too much work to handle. As a result, I decided to use all my time at abc to my advantage by asking questions and pouring over previous work on my own. Any complaint that came my way, I took as a failing of my own handling and tried to do better. While I am confident with Phase Is and IIs, which were more detailed and guided in the learning process, I feel that a more comprehensive training program would have been beneficial.
Thirdly, I was transparent during my interview process that my family is my passion and my work would never be a higher priority. I informed CEO that I was wary of overtime, and he never mentioned any weekend work that could be possibly given. However, at the mandatory staff meeting on February 14, 2023, CEO claimed that he's given the same speech for 27 years that warned of possible overtime and weekend work. Jenn and I agree that this supposed speech was never made during our interview process and when we started at abc. Yet, I still worked overtime for at least six months, being the first one in the office and the last one to leave. I felt that my long hours on the field, constant studying on my own, commuting four hours a day, and keeping up a professional appearance for clients had taken a toll on me. Despite my efforts to work smartly, I was accused of not being passionate enough. After Christmas break, I decided to ease up a bit with how much time I spend at the company and spend my time there more efficiently. Work smart.
Here are abc's overtime rulings: (reference to handbook that states we're supposed to get paid overtime)
Not once have I asked for overtime pay for all the extra hours I spent. I do not have health insurance connected to abc or a 401k. I am here to learn, be trained, and do well. So to make it seem like I was taking more than I was giving felt extremely unprofessional and quite frankly absurd.
David would often berate me in front of drilling company and blame me for project issues. He used me as a scapegoat and continually blamed me for incompetence and poor work. This situation was so bad that the drilling company refused to communicate with David again after a scheduling mishap that took place. I still defended abc and David and tried to be a buffer between the two. However, David was hell bent on making sure I knew my place in the company, calling himself the project manager and that I should only listen to HIM and not even answer questions from clients on my own. He accused me of engaging in illicit behavior with drillers, which was misogynistic, rude, and inexcusable.
David's treatment of drillers is absurd and may be a violation of workers' rights. For instance, during a project at 123 street, David forced one of the drillers to work under awful conditions simply to get the job done in two days. It was a garbage transfer site with 0 ventilation. He didn’t inform the drillers beforehand about the terrible site conditions, forced them to work in those unworkable conditions, and berated me for not getting a sample from specific locations that were impossible to drill.
Finally, David changes reports without informing me and offers no reasoning or constructive criticism for me to learn from. He leaves me out of email chains, and is extremely unreasonable to discuss anything with.
For example, I spent three days writing a quarterly status report for 456 Street (my first time doing so) and when he received the report, he proceeded to change everything without informing me as to why the changes were made and what changes were made. To understand, on my own, what the changes were, I recovered an older version of it, printed it out, and compared it to the new version line by line, in detail. After my own review of the changes, I proceeded to ask why the changes were made to get a better understanding of report-writing, but David's responses were unhelpful or dismissive. He would respond with “Because I thought this was right” or “I changed my mind” or “Because this is how it is” while offering no reasoning or constructive criticism for me to learn from.
David has also assigned me an RAR for a 789 Street. He gave me a 10 hour deadline. I find this incredibly unreasonable as this is 66 pages of just report writing and thousands of pages of appendices and figures. With a project I know nothing about; I only did CAMP for a handful of times early in June maybe. This makes report writing even harder and more complicated. I may have made minor mistakes here and there, only for David to accuse me of complete failure and inadequacy.
With the current state project, David tries to leave me out of correspondence and work that needs to be done. He never forwarded me the email that he sent to our state project clients, and I have pointed out at least 4 times that he does not include me in the emails.
David asked me if I billed for the state project and I told him that he said he’ll take the state project from when he sent in the management plan. I also told him I do not know how to bill and he proceeded to blame me for not knowing how to bill. I have not done billing before and I have no idea how to do billing. When I pointed these things out that he was the one who claimed responsibility for the project going forward, and that there is email proof of his instructions, he tried to blame me and treated it as my own failure for not being taught how to do billing. There was never an opportunity offered to be taught billing, so it is not my fault for not knowing this. When I continued to assert my point and spoke firmly, he proceeded to tell me to calm down and treated me as if I was hysterically yelling at him. He said I walked in with an attitude today. I am not his child for him to say anything of that sort to me. My voice remained calm and at a the normal level I would use in the office, so being treated like this was degrading and infuriating.
In the field, David would use materials laying around a client's site as tools to get samples for data we needed. He would dig through clutter and garbage to get tools; he drilled a cup into a stick to use as a bailer. I was humiliated when he sent me to the a project thinking that it was a construction site because he told me I do not need to know anything for the site; to just get a sample and leave. I went there believing that it was a site that had ongoing work so there were probably tools that are available for use, like David said. Unfortunately, he was referring to the clients possessions in her basement. I had to ask to drill her possession. She literally had to leave the premises because she was so angry at me for working in such an unprofessional manner. I calmed her down because I do not like leaving any project with an upset client.
I view myself as a representative of abc. Anything that goes wrong, I handle it to a professional level because my thought is “this client is a potential future client as well”.
Early into working at abc, sam received an email from david saying he thought she was doing excellent work so far. Afterwards, he told her that I had sent him a nasty email and assuming I had done it because he complimented sam's work. I have no recollection of this email and I do not know where he conjured this email from. I was happy for her to receive high praise so soon and there was never a reason why I would feel negatively towards it. I have always defended everyone from abc, during any type of office gossip or any complaints from clients about abc. I always made sure to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and take on any blame that comes my way to do better.
Now I these are some complaints that are not related to me but they are something I have noticed:
david asked sam once what was wrong with her face and proceeded to ask why her face is the way it is and why klara's is like that too. He was talking about their acne.
David makes distasteful and racist comments about Chinese people and Asian people.
For example:
– Saying Chinese people eat everything except air and cars.
– Commenting that klara and sam should speak Chinese when they are in the vicinity of each other. Nearly demanding it because they have a “shared language”.
– Because he frequently comments about being in Japan for 4 years, I believed that meant he liked being in Asia and Asian cultures. However, during Christmas, I gave him a book on Japanese mythology as a gift and his response was that he does not read and he does not like Japan.
– In the past, I have defended david regarding his attitude towards Asians when sam had expressed her concern regarding comments he's made to her regarding her being Chinese and other Asians. I tried to excuse his comments and brush them off and was ultimately proven wrong when his microagressive racist comments continued.
Sometimes, when sam asks a question regarding something she needs more clarification on or instructions given, david would just stare at her and say nothing. It made her incredibly uncomfortable.
In the past, david berated vee for not getting plans correct while offering no constructive comments. It was obvious how distraught she became after his treatment of her, to the point where she came into work for four (4) days wearing the same clothes right before she quit. I was alarmed at seeing her in this state.
In conclusion, I feel that the issues highlighted above need to be addressed to create a better work environment at abc. It is essential to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and provided with adequate support and training to succeed. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.