Worker Scolded By Management For 'Complaining' After Reporting A Safety Hazard That Nearly Injured Them
"I'll be looking for a new job tomorrow."
Yuri A / Shutterstock.com After months of toxicity, unsafe working conditions, and numerous health concerns, one employee texted her boss about a concerning safety hazard.
It's a boss's responsibility to ensure the safety of their employees. However, this woman's employer clearly disagrees. The response the employee received was downright absurd and left her searching for a new job.
The worker was scolded by her managers for ‘complaining’ about a safety hazard.
“This might seem kind of petty but this is just one instance in a long series of horrible business practices I’ve witnessed,” she wrote in her Reddit post.
“For context, I’m 5'2, and lots of stuff in our kitchen is high up," she explained. Recently, she needed to get a heavy box off a high shelf, which required her to kneel on the line — the station where the cooking is done — something she described as both "unsanitary" and "dangerous" since it was on wheels.
mariakray / Shutterstock
"I [had] to reach above my head and be able to support this box's weight as I [lowered] it down without dropping it all over the food I'm trying to pack up," she continued.
Although she managed to get the box down with the help of a co-worker, the employee decided to message her boss about the safety hazard anyway.
"I never want to be put in that situation again," she wrote. However, the conversation with her boss didn't go as she hoped.
“In the future, if we could not store heavy [expletive] boxes where I have to stand on the line to get them,” she wrote in a Discord message — their primary means for communication — to her boss.
Despite what many commenters refer to as “crude” language, the poster admitted their previous conversations have been similarly casual — it’s a small local business with similarly aged employees.
Photo from Reddit
However, the manager’s response didn’t reflect that same casual relationship, in fact, it turned relatively hostile. “Normally you don’t have to get them.” they wrote, “not really anywhere else to put them either, so if you have a suggestion instead of a complaint I’ll hear you out.”
Not only did her manager acknowledge that they were aware of the safety concern prior to the text, they sent a condescending message to let her know.
“It was more of a safety concern,” she replied.
Of course, she admitted she’s not the only employee to have noticed all of these safety hazards and health concerns. Another employee quickly weighed in on their Discord conversation, adding, “I have a bad back, and the amount of times that box has fallen on me while pulling it down is frustrating … And now it’s a problem of ‘complaining’ about something that we view as a safety hazard?”
Of course, health and safety organizations like OSHA advise employees to always bring concerns to their managers prior to filing a complaint, as many times they’re prompt about fixing them. However, instead of addressing their concerns, this woman's boss instead labeled them as “complaints” and went on the attack.
“It’s complaining because at no point do you voice a solution,” her boss wrote. “If anyone has a suggestion, I’d love to move them to a safe place … We also have a dress code that’s not being followed, which is a bigger hazard than boxes we can’t reach.”
Photo from Reddit
Her boss responded with hostility and now she is contemplating filing a report and finding a new job.
Her boss threatened action against alleged dress code violations, argued that they were being "ganged up" on over discord, and accused the employees of working while “impaired” — all things that had never been brought to her attention before. And yet, the manager denied any hostility on their part.
“There is no hostility; what [you’re] reading is your management team being stronger and setting an example that we’re no longer being walked all over,” he wrote, as shown in a follow-up Reddit post.
As many commenters immediately called out, this manager seemed to be prepping these employees to be fired — whether for a “dress code violation” or something entirely different. They urged the pair to file a complaint with OSHA for the safety hazards and health concerns immediately before they’re unwillingly pushed out.
While there are wrongful termination standards, many people admit they’re incredibly vague, meaning these employees could be fired with no means to reap benefits from health and safety reports.
“The owner jumping in at the end and trying to claim dress code violations… It's a clear attempt to deflect their own failures and to set you up," one commenter wrote. "Even if those dress code violations are happening and cause an issue, bringing them up as a threat after a safety concern is voiced is blatant retaliation.”
In the comments, the woman shared that she has since talked to the labor board and HR, reported the issues to OSHA and is filing for unemployment. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like a job she will particularly miss — "That place was a dumpster fire that I should have walked out during the interview."
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.