I was fired recently after reporting an incident where a coworker attacked and threatened me. It's a small food-packaging company, and I was left alone in the warehouse with this coworker who I'll call Steven. I'd had some previous issues with Steven — when managers weren't around he liked to shout orders at me, even though he'd started several months after me and wasn't my “superior”. I'd asked Steven to speak more respectfully to me and told the manager about Steven shouting at me, but nothing was done.
Anyway, one day we're left alone and Steven starts in on me again. He wants me to help him with something he's working on, even though I'm busy with another task I was assigned to complete before helping him. He calls me a lazy bastard and a stupid f-ck. I tell him to watch how he talks to me. Then he gets in my face and bumps my chest and points his finger at my eye and asks what I'm gonna do about it. I tell him he needs to back off. He shoves me and walks away, hurling insults over his shoulder. At this point, I take out my phone and begin recording, so that I can show the manager his behavior and maybe something will finally be done about it. When Steven turns around and sees my phone out, he gets livid and rushes at me, shoving me and trying to rip the phone out of my hand. I wrestle it from him and walk away, and go outside and call my boss. While I'm on the phone with the boss, Steven again comes up to me trying to grab the phone from me, grabbing onto my arms and shoving at me, shouting at me and trying to shout to the boss through the receiver not to believe what I'm saying. I hang up and put the phone in my pocket and Steven gets in my face again and tells me how if he loses this job because of me, he'll have nothing else to lose and nothing to stop him from coming to my house and “f-king killing” me.
So I formally report all this to the boss. Then, the next day I come into work and the boss takes me aside. He asks if I really want him to investigate the issue, and explains to me how much work it'll make for him, and how busy he already is. I say yeah, I want him to do whatever he needs to do to make sure Steven's held accountable. He says, “It's not like he boxed you in the nose or anything.” I inform him that you don't need to box someone in the nose for it to be assault. He says, “In the past we've had situations where employees had a fight and they were able to work it out between themselves, like men.” I'm flabbergasted by this. I tell him I think Steven's behavior was unacceptable and that I don't feel safe being left alone at the warehouse with Steven and that I sincerely hope they'll consider disciplary action for him. The boss, as if he hasn't heard me, says, “OK, well why don't you take a couple hours to consider what you want to do and meanwhile I'll call the HR company and see what I'm supposed to do.”
So I go about my day, stunned by the response. Then, on my lunch break, the boss comes up to me and hands me a sealed envelope and tells me to take the rest of the day off to cool down.
I open up the envelope and it's a formal letter saying that I have a mandatory performance review meeting scheduled for the following day, and informs me that if my performance is determined unsatisfactory I may face discipline including dismissal.
I'm five months into working there at this point. My probation period is six months. Up to this point, I've never had a review meeting. I've never been given any negative feedback or points I've needed to improve on. So a sudden performance review meeting on such short notice, just after I've reported an incident at work, is highly dubious. It's clear to me it's a pretext to fire me in retaliation for reporting the assault.
Which is exactly what happens. When I show up to the meeting the next day, the boss reads off a script, reminding me of the terms of my probationary period, and telling me that they've observed unsatisfactory performance on my part. I ask for specific examples. The only example he gives is that I was observed using my cell phone at work and breaking company policy by recording a coworker. I ask him if he's referring to the video I took of Steven while he was attacking me. He says yes, that was a breach of policy. “Even though I was recording for my personal safety?” He says yes and tells me I'll hear from them about their decision in the next couple days.
The next day I get a letter terminating my employment.