TLDR: Owners had their “Business Consultant” meet with me. Was pretty inappropriate; ultimately tried to bully me into quitting. I didn’t so I was fired. Main worry is if I can legally post the video I have from this inappropriate interaction.
I was fired from my Store Manager position a few weeks ago in (my belief) direct retaliation of my standards and expectations for Maturity and Responsibility amongst the Owners and “Upper Management”.
I had heard a lot of negative things about this specific “small business”, but it was convenient and a decent opportunity. This place also advertised themselves as being progressive. I have a lot of experience working in food service, hospitality, and just general customer facing service type jobs. I pretty much immediately noticed issues. Essentially everything from staffing issues, food storage and handling, customer service, quality control, adherence to labor laws. This place does not pay their employees minimum wage (they receive tips but like a carry-out style), and they purposely staff teens.
In the year of me working there, I was dumped on in insanely busy and troubled store and essentially expected to figure it out on my own. The issues I brought up were essentially ignored. I was expected to take responsibility for unethical practices, as well as just ignore common decency when working with young people.
I could go on and on, but the important bits. I have Autism, as well as some other health concerns; and I am very open about the limitations I face. One of the reasons they tried to give for firing me (as my performance was frequently surpassing expectations) was my “way of speaking to people”. I mentioned during the meeting I am referring to that I am Autistic. I believe the owners wanted to take advantage of this to inflict enough emotional turmoil to cause my resignation.
I have a video from our security cameras downloaded onto my phone. I had regular access to these cameras in my position, and used a shared log in. The meeting took place in a cash handling office that is under 24/7 audio and video recording. The program we used for the cameras didn’t work great so I was only able to download about 70% of the meeting, but the important bits are there. I’d love to sue, but I do not have the resources or anything like that. I just want to be able to talk about what happened without fear of being sued. Thank you for reaching and any advice! I have reached out to a couple lawyers, but since they are free resources they haven’t responded.