Thinking back on my “working” days, I remember that I used to do something that helped me more than a few times.
This was the early 2000s, and I was on my first job in the United States (immigrated in 1999) as an IT guy at a large AEC firm.
I was called to a meeting with the head of HR for something related to my paperwork (at the time I was still a conditional resident), she said it may affect my pay and they wanted me to clarify something. She had my file and we went through it, we found the papers she had questions about, I showed and explained and clarified what she wanted to know, and that was the end of that.
My next paycheck did not arrive, so I asked finance and they told me my pay was stopped by HR because they had questions about my immigration status. I explained that I had cleared it with the head of HR herself, to no avail. The head of HR later emailed me with this attitude of “why are you saying that you cleared it with me? I don't know what you are talking about.”
I had to meet with finance and HR again, and repeat the process, this time finance made a positive update, and my pay was reinstated and that was the end of that.
My advice is this, from that point on, every time I was asked to go meet with someone, or someone would come to talk to me one-on-one, I would have my voice recorder app activated. Luckily my State is a one-party consent recording place, so I always recorded every interaction since.
It has served me well a couple of times since I started doing it, so when some boss or higher-up (or customers/clients) tells me that I did not do something, or they did not do something they agreed to, I can play the recording back to them. Usually, they complain, they get offended, they get embarrassed, but who cares.
Gotta protect ourselves, boys and girls. Especially in times like the ones we're living in.