# WHat are some of the crulest things US employers can do to employees and get away with it? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 25, 2013, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252 "2013-10-25T22:24:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/101 "2013-10-29T23:25:14Z")
> [@Karrius](#): > > DarkDungeon, while I sympatize, I think you’re making useless attacks here. Sure, the sort of work-study you’re talking about can be great for students. But a lot of these “internships” aren’t for students. I have a 25 year old friend who’s working at a “internship” for no payment, producing usable work, and isn’t being paid because they were told “This is a start-up, and investors don’t like it when employees get paid before a profit is made”. That shit is starting to be really, _really_ common, and needs to stop. It’s exploitive and pretty much slavery, because people can’t find jobs, and are told “if you work as our slave long enough, we might pay you” - and when those people are fed up with waiting, and want to do something unreasonable like be able to afford food, they’re just replaced. I worked briefly at a start-up in the summer of 2011 as a contract worker, and I figured out very quickly that I did not want to sign on with them as a regular employee, the main reason being that the regular employees were having a lot of difficulty getting paid. I’m still on Facebook with a couple of people who worked there; one is still there but another has left, and I’m pretty sure this was a major reason why. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/102 "2013-10-29T23:30:28Z")
> [@Cognoscant](#): > > The whole story is so riddled with stupidity that you don’t know whether to laugh or cry about it. The incident which caused the original harassment complaint happened in _early August_. This harasser had been reported for stuff before, but this incident was so egregious (not to mention witnessed by at least four people, two of whom I supervise and who reported it to me within minutes) that HR finally had to act, which they did by passing the buck to a Title IX rep and refusing to discuss the incident further. The Title IX rep then did some kind of investigation that took approximately a month, and still failed to interview at least two of the witnesses. In late September the Title IX rep decided…well we don’t know what the Title IX rep decided because he never disclosed the results of the investigation or even what actions were to be taken following the investigation. Needless to say rumormongering in the office was at an all time high. > > At some point the CEO got wind of the “problems” in the office and made a CEO-like decision: the rumormongering had to stop. This is what prompted the “leadership skills seminar” I mentioned earlier. Left unsaid of course was firstly how the CEO heard about the problems (although the harasser went on a business trip with the CEO right before word came down on high) and secondly what, exactly, we were not allowed to talk about. The only thing everybody knew was that since the harassment victim was a part-timer who worked 1 to 5, the harasser was not supposed to be in the office during those hours and was supposed to retreat to another part of the company. Harasser was still supervising victim, but through a grown-up version of Telephone orders were made and work was done. All was relatively cool for a while. > > This lasted, oh, two weeks or so. Then the harasser decided, well, they _needed_ to be in the office from 1 to 5 and it was _too_ much of a hardship to have to be away. It shows a lot about our department head that at first he did not know this was going on, and then when he was informed about it, decided it had been going on too long to do anything about it without going back to HR. Now HR has been sitting on this for close to a month. There haven’t been any confrontations between harasser and victim yet but the harasser loooooooves to walk back and forth past the victim’s office. > > So in a nutshell: HR is “still working on things”, the department head is “still deciding what to do”, the harasser is still going around taunting the victim, and there is a slight amount of tension in the office. The harasser is a MAN? Whoa. I totally pictured it being a woman. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/103 "2013-10-30T00:18:24Z")
In Texas, you aren’t required to carry Worker’s Compensation to cover your employees. About two years ago, I was a service technician installing security and fire alarm systems (still am today.) For whatever reason, my boss decides he wants to go hang out and the field and be helpful. So I am on top of a ladder with my hand in a hole in the ceiling we just cut out, and he wants me to “tap on that wall header there, I wanna make sure I am thinking this is the top where I think it is, just keep tapping on it while I go over there.” I started tapping, and was tapping for about 10 seconds. Then a 3/8" flexible bit drives through the wall, up inside of my right wrist, deflects off of the bones right by the major arteries, and about two inches inside of my palm. Gets ripped down in a different location. I start to bleed out. I tell the boss he drilled me, he says, “Oh, shit. Can you finish the job?” So like a moron, I bandage my hand with paper towels and electrical tape, and, after I pass out for a little while, get enough of my bearings together to help pick up some tools, and then fall over. While I was passed out, the property owner tried to call 911 but was asked not to by my boss because “I don’t want to get in trouble.” So I have to drive us back to the shop, because my boss was too shaken up to drive. Somehow we make it. He wants me to complete the day, to which I tell him no because I needed to go to the hospital. I get to the hospital and discover that since my injury happened at work my health insurance wouldn’t cover it, it needed to go through my employer’s non existent Worker’s Compensation Insurance. I leave the hospital with new gauze on my 3/8" hole and head to a clinic to try to get stitches. So I go to my doctor, bleed everywhere there, she makes 5 phone calls and finds a clinic that will let me do some insurance fraud to cover the 29 stitches I need, but I have shitty insurance through my employer so I had to fork over the entirety of my checking account to start a payment plan to pay off my $3000 deductible. Meanwhile, back at the office, there is a fight that erupts because the company plan was to fire me. The office manager threatens to quit and my cousin, the other technician on staff, threatens to walk out leaving a government contract unfinished. So they call me and tell me that, against their better judgement, they are going to keep me as an employee, even through “I am raping their insurance premium and I had better not use it again for the rest of the year.” My doctor told me that this is a common occurrence and I should expect to get fired. Standard operating procedures in this circumstance involve me paying for the entirety of the medical bills up front and out of pocket, and suing the employer to get the funds compensated. Turn around time to be expected was up to two years. I called two of my lawyer friends, they offered to take the case up for free, but warned me that going after the funds will cause me to get fired and probably black balled out of my industry. Recovery time was 4 weeks, which I got way behind on my rent, utility bills, and insurance payments. Oh, and I didn’t get paid a dime for the time I had to take off of work. And keep in mind, I single-handedly brought in 4 million dollars revenue for a company of 7 for that fiscal year. Cost of business for that 4 million was something like $800,000. To say I was a drag on the company that relied on my efforts to stay open would be false. And I got septicemia and almost died. I also used to work for a gas station in college that was broken into “two separate businesses” so that you would clock into two different time clocks, each four hours apart. They did this so you would never get over 40 hours with one “business” so when you were required to work 72 hours a week because of the creative business arrangements. Gotta love Texas. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/104 "2013-10-30T00:22:32Z")
> [@DarkDungeonDenizen](#): > > We were at a Community College with limited research opportunities. I worked hard to find my students research opportunities, on campus and off, to give them the same research opportunities that those of us at R1 institutions had as undergrads. I partnered with universities, state and private research institutions, small tech companies etc for every opportunity to put my students at the bench. > > If they had to be paid it never would have happened. Only the large industries paid. > > Anyway, I think I’ve explained my peace on this subject. I’m sure your internships were fine.Plenty of them are in certain academic fields - and that would include the field placements or externships that are graduation requirements for some degrees. They are generally at non-profit organizations , benefit the student at least as much as the employer and don’t replace a paid worker. What seems to have become common over the past 20 years or so is for profit- making companies (particularly in the entertainment or publishing industries) to hire “interns” to do exactly the type of gofer work ( getting lunches, making copies) paid workers used to do. Which isn’t actually legal (see the Fox Searchlight case) but it can’t be enforced until someone complains. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/105 "2013-10-30T01:28:32Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > Gotta love Texas. God bless California. Can you still fire a gun? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/106 "2013-10-30T01:35:36Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > God bless California. Can you still fire a gun? 🙂 :smack: ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/107 "2013-10-30T02:18:59Z")
Order their salespeople to greet shoppers “Happy Holidays” instead of … ---
**Author:** ![Karrius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71c47a/32.png) [@Karrius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karrius)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/108 "2013-10-30T02:31:33Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > Order their salespeople to greet shoppers “Happy Holidays” instead of … Clearly, acknowledging new years, thanksgiving, and non-christian people exist is a cruel, nasty fate, far worse than literally drilling a hole in somebody’s hand and trying to fire them for it. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/109 "2013-10-30T04:51:39Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > :smack: Not quite your forte, eh? Have you considered drilling a hole through the other hand and telling everybody that you’re the Messiah? There’s good money in that, or so I hear. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/110 "2013-10-30T05:52:23Z")
> [@Karrius](#): > > Clearly, acknowledging new years, thanksgiving, and non-christian people exist is a cruel, nasty fate, far worse than literally drilling a hole in somebody’s hand and trying to fire them for it. Oh that’s their reason? Greeting Happy Kwanzaa (one black person to another on either side of the counter) is not to acknowledge other peoples and their stuff? I pity people dumb enough to be taken in by this and deprive themselves of a heartfelt greeting, the kind they’ve known since childhood. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/111 "2013-10-30T17:55:25Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > In Texas, you aren’t required to carry Worker’s Compensation to cover your employees. In Missouri, employers aren’t required to give meal breaks. I never wished people “Happy anything” when I worked behind a counter, whether it was as a fast food worker or a pharmacist, because you don’t know what their beliefs are, and maybe that holiday isn’t a happy occasion for that person, unless they wished it to me first. More than once at the pharmacy, I worked on Mother’s Day and was wished that, and when I replied that I didn’t have any children, she would reply, “Good. Stay that way.” ☹ ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/112 "2013-10-30T18:33:17Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > Oh that’s their reason? Greeting Happy Kwanzaa (one black person to another on either side of the counter) is not to acknowledge other peoples and their stuff? I pity people dumb enough to be taken in by this and deprive themselves of a heartfelt greeting, the kind they’ve known since childhood. Right. It’s the “happy Kwanzaa” people who are upset about it. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/113 "2013-10-30T23:12:36Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > In Texas, you aren’t required to carry Worker’s Compensation to cover your employees. > > \ > > Gotta love Texas. How long ago was this? The upside to not having workers’ compensation coverage with your employer is that you can sue them in tort - meaning you could get a pot of money for his negligence, including pain and suffering, whereas workers’ compensation would only cover your lost wages and medical bills. Plus, it’s a lot easier to prove negligence against an employer - when you are not barred from doing so, as here - because the owe you a higher duty than a random citizen would. Unless it was like 10 years ago, I strongly recommend that you discuss this with a lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/114 "2013-10-31T20:14:15Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > Oh that’s their reason? Greeting Happy Kwanzaa (one black person to another on either side of the counter) is not to acknowledge other peoples and their stuff? I pity people dumb enough to be taken in by this and deprive themselves of a heartfelt greeting, the kind they’ve known since childhood. I’ve never in my life partaken of or witnessed a “happy kwanzaa” in the wild. Are you being serious? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/115 "2013-10-31T22:25:52Z")
> [@DarkDungeonDenizen](#): > > Right. It’s the “happy Kwanzaa” people who are upset about it. Well, if you’re really (half-assed) multicultural clued in, you might thoughtlessly offer a “Happy Tisha B’Av” to an Orthodox Jew. That would be a serious faux pas. Like “Happy 9/11” except heavier. As to the cruelest thing… I say ordering soldiers into a pointless suicide mission knowing that no one would ever hold you accountable for their wasted deaths, and their knowledge that refusal would be charged as a capital offense and result in a brief visit before a firing squad as cowards before the enemy. I don’t know if there are any documented cases of this, but it seems in the millennia of combat and command, this had to have happened at least once. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/116 "2013-10-31T22:52:35Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Not quite your forte, eh? Have you considered drilling a hole through the other hand and telling everybody that you’re the Messiah? There’s good money in that, or so I hear. I called my dad when it happened, and it was a long pause on the other end, and he said, “Quit playing Jesus, dammit!” Haha. Honestly I haven’t tried a gun, I used to have to keep one for a job I had and the fun with guns was done when I had to use it. Once guns go from toys to “you vs. them” they lose their appeal. Even for a Texas boy. I used to have six, I don’t own any anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/117 "2013-10-31T22:53:48Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Well, if you’re really (half-assed) multicultural clued in, you might thoughtlessly offer a “Happy Tisha B’Av” to an Orthodox Jew. That would be a serious faux pas. Like “Happy 9/11” except heavier. > > As to the cruelest thing… I say ordering soldiers into a pointless suicide mission knowing that no one would ever hold you accountable for their wasted deaths, and their knowledge that refusal would be charged as a capital offense and result in a brief visit before a firing squad as cowards before the enemy. > > I don’t know if there are any documented cases of this, but it seems in the millennia of combat and command, this had to have happened at least once. Google “Gallipoli.” Or, really, most of the trench warfare in World War I. A lot (hundreds of thousands, maybe millions) of troops got sent to die in machine gun fire simply because the generals couldn’t believe machine guns had changed the rules of warfare. Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” is a really powerful indictment of World War I’s generals, on both sides. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/118 "2013-10-31T23:02:35Z")
> [@Really Ate All Those Braiiins](#): > > How long ago was this? The upside to not having workers’ compensation coverage with your employer is that you can sue them in tort - meaning you could get a pot of money for his negligence, including pain and suffering, whereas workers’ compensation would only cover your lost wages and medical bills. Plus, it’s a lot easier to prove negligence against an employer - when you are not barred from doing so, as here - because the owe you a higher duty than a random citizen would. Unless it was like 10 years ago, I strongly recommend that you discuss this with a lawyer. I have two friends that are lawyers, one actually specializes in Workers Compensation Cases. The problem with taking the company on is that when I get fired, its essentially black balling me with everyone else I would try to get a job with in the area (I am a commercial fire alarm technician, even in a large area like Houston, we all know each other.) I am planning on moving up to the Pacific Northwest in March or April, so I might consider it then, but as of now I can’t afford to be without a job. My lawyer friend actually came to my house the day after it happened, and checked on me. He said I had a hell of a sure fire case, but it was probably going to get drug along in court for at least a year and a half, and he was afraid that the big pay day was going to make me homeless in the meantime. If I was a single man, I would be sitting on top of Mount Money right now, but as I had a wife and mother-in-law to feed, it wasn’t really an option. My other friend that is a trial lawyer in the Dallas area had the same feeling, and he talked to the first lawyer friend for about an hour. They were both really, really, really mad and if I was going to take the case, they would not have taken a cut of any settlement I was to receive. My hand surgeon was really surprised on my second visit that I wasn’t fired already. He felt so bad about my situation that he had called the first doctor and called in a favor to drop the charges that I would pay out of pocket, saving me about $750. It happened in April 2012. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/119 "2013-11-01T22:23:56Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > In Texas, you aren’t required to carry Worker’s Compensation to cover your employees. > […] > > And I got septicemia and almost died. > > . Wow! Just wow! :eek: Every single sentence depicts something so outlandishly outrageous that any of these element would deserve a very long pit thread. That’s unbelieveble. Wow! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: ---
**Author:** ![Mrmanface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mrmanface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrmanface)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252/120 "2013-11-01T23:57:15Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I worked briefly at a start-up in the summer of 2011 as a contract worker, and I figured out very quickly that I did not want to sign on with them as a regular employee, the main reason being that the regular employees were having a lot of difficulty getting paid. I’m still on Facebook with a couple of people who worked there; one is still there but another has left, and I’m pretty sure this was a major reason why. Haha. Employers got sick of paying any wages at all. SO they just stopped paying them. People are so stupid for accepting those conditions. I say they deserve it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-crulest-things-us-employers-can-do-to-employees-and-get-away-with-it/672252.md?page=7)