First post here, and I'll start off saying I have no idea how to format on reddit, so I'm sorry for that in advance.
I had worked for a local county-level government with a clerical position in the Social Services department. I can't really go into much detail about the actual job due to confidentiality concerns, but fortunately this is more about the treatment received by the bosses that went (and unfortunately still goes) ignored if not encouraged by the higher-ups.
Off the bat, being openly queer was met with resistance from a boss with comments like “Oh, that's so gay” said to me when a printer stopped working, just small things, but they started building up. The job had a six month probationary period before even getting the starting pay, instead getting a lower wage for the 6 month period. During this time, although I was walking on eggshells to try to keep the job, I had went to personnel to speak with them as my boss was notorious for literally screaming at workers in front of everyone else because they would make a small mistake. Her abuse continued, even when I wasn't under her later in my employment. A good example is when I wasn't shown how to access information to do a part of my job, and then being written up and verbally abused for not knowing how to do this because she did not tell me how to do it. Many employees have had full on breakdowns and had to take a few weeks off to try to recharge thanks to her abuse.
During my first six months, the unit I worked for was supposed to have 6 clerical workers. After 3 months, I was the only clerk, expected to do all work, and berated for not being able to do it by both my boss, and the person above her. The other clerk was on paid leave after sexually harassing other workers (which was witnessed by most workers, and was eventually written off, that'll come up later) so the parts of his job that I wasn't aware of how to do were suddenly another thing to be berated about.
After about 6 months of that, we finally get staffed fully, and then March of 2020 happened. Most people are on paid leave for almost 6 months thanks to the union, but being public service, we did have certain workers in the building. I had maybe a month to stay home before being pulled back to the office to be the only clerk, not only for my own unit, but the two other units under my boss's boss. No extra compensation, and being berated is constant due to my constant mistakes handling two other units that I didn't know anything about.
I get moved to another unit after having a breakdown myself and taking a week off due to the toll on my mental health. This was roughly a year into my employment, and unfortunately I had been up to personnel about the ongoing abuse multiple times by now. Nothing had been done, and her abuse only increased. After moving to the other unit, things calmed down until shortly before 2021. At this time, I was suddenly doing the work for 3 units while they let the clerks in the other units say “I don't want to do that” and pass it off to me. I was then written up for telling the other clerk that I had too much work to handle and I couldn't process their mail for them. Now, at this point, my new boss is walking around work, coughing and not wearing a mask as cases start to spike. I come in one day despite feeling some sinus pressure as my workload was too high to not come in. Turns out, I had caught covid from my boss, and then was written up for coming in with symptoms. Several other very tiny things that were non-violations of any rules or regulations were brought up in this meeting as well, such as the other clerk seeing an email where the first boss was verbally abusing me over email to verify tone because it had client information. That she had heard on the phone due to sitting less than six feet away from me.
The abuse spike had lined up with one specific event in my life. I had came out as nonbinary and started going by my current name. I had taken an hour off here or there to file paperwork and start the legal process of changing my name.
During this time, targeted harassment became so obvious that other workers were going to personnel without me knowing to bring it to their attention. The commissioner, who never steps foot downstairs where we work, replaced an entire unit with her daughter's new office in a new position with the second highest paying wage in the county. To try to cover it up, the other bosses, including my boss, and the person above them who was also targeting me, were able to now close the blinds in their offices that they got by request of the commissioner's daughter. This contributed to abuse of workers, and they started losing workers left and right thanks to the ongoing abuse.
During this abuse, the other clerk, who was on paid leave for sexually harassing countless female coworkers, had not only been welcomed back but given a promotion, as his mother who worked in administration pulled some strings to help him out with that. 18 months of paid vacation and a promotion at the end.
The final straw, after having spoken with my boss about harassment from another employee multiple times, was my boss gaslighting me and telling me that there was no way I'd ever spoken to her about this worker. I had emails, notes, and dates and times for when I had spoken to her about this (unfortunately, the environment of this place was so horrible that I had to have a paper trail of who I spoke to and when). At this moment, with the open, obvious abuse, I broke, I said “I can't do this anymore” and stormed from her office, logged out, and went to personnel to say “I need something done. It's unsafe at this point, and I can't handle this any more.”
I am told that they'll have a solution by the next day. I'd heard that before. I go in the next morning, and they advise me that I'm on paid administrative leave to investigate these allegations, and that a third party would be brought in. I go to the meeting with him about a month later, and find out that my boss had made a false allegation of physical assault against her, backed only by the boss above her, who was also discriminating against me.
I get a call one Friday about 2 months later telling me that I'm to report to work on Monday. I ask for the results of the investigation, and the boss's boss says that she is unsure, but that due to losing many employees, they need me back in. I immediately turn around and call the personnel office. I ask if there were results, and they say that they cannot tell me, and the person that can is waiting for a meeting. Not in a meeting, waiting for a meeting. I point out that I felt unsafe there, and still felt unsafe given the lack of any information after finding out about the false abuse allegation. I'm told that there's a chance they cannot get to speak to me for the next two weeks.
I had to say “I'm refusing to come into work until this is resolved for my own safety. If you want me to, I can come in and meet with them when we open, but I am not going to return to work under these abusers until I know that there is a solution.” They say that I'll get an email to my work email regarding this before Monday.
They had concluded that the very blatant, verified, and targeted abuse was “unfounded” and provided no further ways to dispute this. None of the witnesses listed by me were spoken to until after the bosses had spent plenty of time with this investigator. Come Monday morning, I speak with the clerk for the commissioner, asking if any transfers were open to other departments. There were, but I was told that there was not despite laws that these need to be posted publicly.
After this, I gathered my personal belongings, and then advised my boss's boss that I was quitting, effective immediately. She asked for my resignation letter to be sent to her, and I sent it to her and 4 other individuals, including the 2 other bosses that had abused me over the time there and the commissioner as well so that she was blatantly aware of the abuse going on and could no longer deny it.
I've posted a censored copy of the resignation letter here with last names and the county name removed, but all of the personal information in this letter is also available on the county website due to being government workers.
I stay in touch with workers in the building, as my mother has worked there since I was a child, and I've grown up around a lot of these people. As it turns out, many people have left since then as well due to the increasing abuse. Multiple people who have complained about the primary abuser have been told by personnel – after countless complaints against her – that they do not fire her because she “gets stuff done” after asking about this multiple times.
I've started working at a seasonal position, and not only am I safe, but my boss stands up for me when faced with bigoted customers complaining about eyeshadow on my face. This job is such a positive environment where not knowing something is met with being shown how to do it, not publicly being screamed at by your boss. And the kicker is that I'm making $14/hour now, and my take-home is higher than it was at the position in the county.
I've learned that no job is worth constant abuse, and if you're having to use your vacation time to handle the abuse, then it's not worth the vacation time.