I’m going to be cross posting this anywhere I can think of because I need to do something to help the clients of my old job. I’m going to be as vague as possible to avoid any kind of lawsuit. I quit a while ago and gave two weeks notice like a good worker bee but I can’t stop thinking about the people I used to work with. I have yet to find a new job but have a part time one in the meantime so I can get out of my current field because no matter where I am employed the systems that were created to help the people I work with are broken and corrupt. I will not be able to do ethical work in my field (healthcare) so I am trying to do something else.
Anyways. I worked for a company that helps a group of marginalized people and has almost 99% control over their lives. I was a low level worker and initially was hopeful that this company would be ethical or have enough laws and guidelines to follow to be ethical and that I would be able to help my clients. As time went on I began to witness a pattern: patients would come to trust me and would disclose abuse or neglect to me that they had experienced from other workers in various departments. My clients would even make progress then regress due to decisions or actions by other workers. I reported all this to my supervisors. My supervisor would give excuses and say we should wait and see. I complied for months. The part of my work that earns them money suffered, and I got disciplined for it. Repeatedly my supervisors displayed complete lack of concern for my well-being, my clients’ well-being, and instead seemed oddly focused on the part of my job that earns the company money and ensuring that my actions did not make the company liable. They encouraged me subtly to stop reporting the abuse and neglect I witnessed by telling me that giving them a play by play of my interactions with other employees and clients was unnecessary. This all came to a head when I reported another incident of clear neglect of a patient by an employee. This time I even had documentation to back it up. I was already looking for a new job and was sick of feeling discouraged and frustrated by the fact that I worked for a company that enabled abuse of a vulnerable population. Again, my concerns were brushed off. So I naively over email informed my supervisor that I did not feel comfortable with what was going on and was thinking of reporting it to the internal ethics board. He mmediately responded. Angrily he informed me that what I had witnessed was not neglect and that I needed to stop escalating the situation with increased levels of reporting. This scared me, honestly, because I needed job security. So I didn’t report anything. I can’t go into detail but slowly my supervisor began documenting my “disregard and refusal” to follow guidelines that had never been enforced before, were not enforced with anyone else in my position with the same supervisor, and honestly were kind of trivial. It became clear to me that they were preparing to terminate because I had threatened to whistleblow. Unfortunately I never reported anything so even if I made a case for retaliation, it probably wouldn’t go anywhere.
However I don’t really care about what happened to me. I kind of expect a decent level of micromanaging, unfair treatment, etc. we are in late stage capitalism after all. I do care about my clients though. I don’t know where or how to report the mistreatment of the clients to people who would actually care and take some kind of action. I want to though, because things that I witnessed are just heartbreaking, especially considering that this is a vulnerable population. I can give more info in DMs if I feel like you aren’t a mole. Please comment or dm me if you have any advice or helpful info.