Apologies in advance – my head is not in the right place, but I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has short of outing myself completely
I've been with my organization for 12 years. It's highly specialized within government / higher ed / medical. For those 12 years, I have had a record of outstanding performance reviews. My boss was amazing, my work family was amazing, and then were only ever the normal hiccups
Under questionable circumstances, my boss abruptly announced early retirement with only 30 days notice. This in and of itself is extremely shocking as Old Boss was/is a God in the field and anyone who knew him said he was going to work every day for the rest of his life
On the staff side, I was his second in command. When COVID began, he embraced the evolution of flexible work programs, and for the most part I became remote, with the exception of important meetings or events. I usually only wound up in the office twice a week for about 5 hour blocks. The shift to remote work actually enabled us to be even more productive, and the last two years were the most successful we've ever had. I personally brought in around 17 million dollars of external funding just during those two years
Up until a few days before Old Boss left, nobody knew who would be made his interim. We had two faculty members who didn't quite fit the bill, but one of the wound up being chosen and everyone thought that would be fine
However, during this time, the entire CEO of the whole entity accepted a promotion (my old bosses greatest supporter) and the only executive powers remaining were ones that he was constantly at odds with (he stood for social justice, they did not)
Three days after my bosses last day, I began to be harassed by my new boss. I started getting emails during work closure days (snowstorm that led to my house having no power or water for multiple days, and work was officially closed) demanding reports. I informed new boss I couldn't complete the work due to having no power or water, being snowed in, and struggling to keep my livestock alive without access to heat. He demanded I complete the work anyways. I stated I would do my best from what little power was left on my phone but I couldn't guarantee it would be exactly what he wanted since we had not sat down and talked about it
While still snowed in, I gave him what he asked for. A different co-worker later told me that he said to her it was excellent and exactly what he wanted. She is willing to attest to it formally
However, that didn't end the harassment to me. New demands came in. Absolutely unreasonable ones with impossible deadlines. I am a woman with a high risk pregnancy and the stress began to destroy me and I began bleeding. I've had many, many miscarriages in my life before so this terrified me. I went to my OB and my doctors and was ordered onto bedrest and told they would write up an FMLA policy for me. At this same time, my oldest son (teenager) began falling apart for his own reasons and I had to seek professional psychiatric intervention for him
I continued to try meet the unreasonable demands, however, it led to my boss making false accusations, such as me intentionally withholding pieces of information I do not have system permissions for and have never once had access to. I explained it very calmly after he sent an email where he blew up at me, caps lock and everything
He then demanded I no longer have any remote flexibility and that I come into the office on X day at X time. When I did, HR was with him. He told me he was taking away my job due to poor performance, he wrote me up for things I did not do and that I have ironclad proof that I did not do, and stated I was still employed (with no job description) but that it was contingent upon a “smooth transition of me helping train my replacement”
Since HR was there, I told them I actually had been ordered onto bedrest to save my pregnancy and that I was going to hit submit on my FMLA paperwork that day, which I did. He was extremely angry but did not lash out while HR was there, he did it in emails later
My FMLA was immediately approved by a different branch of HR. He continued to email me and make demands. He stated I had 48 hours to send him Every file I've ever had and that he could not continue operations without everything I've ever done, and HR was copied on this.
I immediately called compliance and the branch of HR that handles FMLA and they stated they would take care of that and I was not to work.
However, he had IT completely lock me out of all of my accounts and devices with a note saying I was a “separated employee” even though I'm on FMLA that was fully approved. I emailed HR and told them that my grievance response files were on my work laptop because I was in the process of filing my rebuttal to the false accusations. They refused to help. So I remade everything from scratch and turned it in
The person who turned out to be the arbitrator was the one who made the most trouble for my boss. He did not even READ my documents or address them, he simply said he was denying my grievance response as valid. This happened nearly immediately after my sending in a dossier of 20+ pages of proof that I spent over a week collecting. Again, irrefutable documentation
HR then immediately emailed me and told me I only had X business days to respond. However, I did not see that email. I had another almost-miscarriage from the continued stress and was in the hospital 2 days in a row. I missed the deadline to ask to escalate the grievance and when I came home and saw that I missed the deadline, I emailed HR and explained I could provide doctors notes but they said no, I was SOL, and they were accepting the final verdict that my write-up would remain on my permanent record, even though the head of HR said hard proof would erase it from my record
As a consequence of being written up, I lose all tuition reimbursement benefits. I take online classes to continue my degrees while also working full-time. This means I will have to drop out of school
Further, the director who rejected my rebuttal put in writing that I will no longer have any remote flexibility like I've had for 2 and a half years, and upon my return from FMLA, I immediately have to be full time M-F 8-5 in an office again
I am not the only one who was targeted, but others have already quit or submitted their retirement paperwork after identical treatment. Even my assistant turned in her resignation
It is clear that they removed my remote privileges to force my hand to quit, and/or they plan on just plain firing me upon my FMLA ending. I asked FMLA HR what would happen if they don't fire me, if I keep my pregnancy and then give birth. She said that he could fire me even the day I have a baby because FMLA can only be taken once every 12 months. It wouldn't matter that I have over 5 months of accrued leave in the system, it's not protected leave
So now here I am with only a month left on the FMLA. What should I do? Should I lawyer up?
Tl;dr flawless job history of 12 years with company utterly destroyed 3 days after new boss takes over department and targets me and the other executive management core team my old boss kept. The closer someone was to Old Boss, the quicker/harder they were destroyed
I can't sleep. I've been having an ongoing psychotic break over this. I'm the only breadwinner, almost 5 months pregnant, all of our health insurance and income comes from me
Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this