AITA So I 22m have been struggling with harassment at work for over a year now cause I’m the only gay man on the shift w blue collar workers. Anyway I like collecting evidence. I show up early every day and warm the trucks so everyone has an easy transition to the work day. They show up 20 or 30 minutes after the shift starts on an almost daily basis and today I had an issue and I had to return home
After driving back to work the supervisor who dislikes me and shows up late daily, sent me home for the day for being late, knowing I’m tryna stay caught up on shit at home. Medical bills etc.
Anyway, I have no problem with the fact that I got reprimanded for not doing what I needed to do the first time, that’s entirely fair. My problem is the wishy-washiness of their enforcement of the rules. I’m the only one they’re so hard on and I know it’s because I’m gay. They literally never stop talking about it.
Anyways. We’re not supposed to be on our phones at work unless you’re doing the timesheets for the end of the day. These coworkers don’t care and have their phones out whenever it pleases them, and then when I did my timesheet yesterday my head supervisor told me he’d have to write me up for being on my phone at work. I told him no lol, I said if you wanna write me up for doing my timesheet explain to the office why it ain’t done (if they’re not done daily you can get written up for it, only reason to have it out at work). Then he gave me a "warning" instead. Despite me doing exactly what I was required to do
Anyway I have videos of all of them on their phones religiously. With one of the supervisors present and also on their phones. And today I kinda snapped and sent the most recent ones to the corporate office and reported most of the stuff I was dealing with. So am I foul as hell for that? I’m pretty sure it’s reasonable and I’m probably not gonna wanna hear anything else but if y’all can give me honest feed back on if I’m an ass and what I should do I’d be so thankful.
Edit– ik I don’t have the right to get treated special cause I’m gay. I fucked up showing up late. I get that. The issue is a standard of equality. They’re not holding anyone to these rules and writing me up for things I’m doing in which I’m supposed to. Other than the late incident. And while I understand holding a "standard" of showing up on time, these guys literally show up every day late and never held accountable. When I report them screwing with me. They’re never held accountable. That’s my issue.
I reacted this way cause I’ve spent months to a couple years getting non stopped harassed. Called a faggot, worthless moron, sissy, bitch, etc. They’ve defaced my property with lgbtq and gang shit, and they’ve consistently refused to allow me to work without asking what it’s like to take it up the ass and like dick. It’s horrible.
Bro you gotta work on your paragraph breaks 😭
Got you, I’ll edit. Was low-key heated when I wrote this lmao🙂↕️
NTA for wanting to stand up for yourself. That said, if the policy is not the being phones while working then the immediate issue with your plan is “sure, they were breaking the rules, but you had to have been on your device to record them, so you’re also breaking the rules. Bye, Felicia.” So your plan has some flaws
YTA for your heinous formatting of the post. Please use some line breaks occasionally.
That’s reasonable, I had explained to the head that it’s a consistent issue and that it’s typically a “his word vs yours” situation and I didn’t wanna have to deal with that.
And the paragraph breaks were needed, I just got heated and typed it all out😭 ain’t happening again trust
You’re good, man. Just had to give you some shit for the abysmal formatting. I sincerely hope it works out for you at work
NTA I mean, they’re all asshole bigots. How is it okay you get in trouble for doing the same shit everyone else does? You went balls out and sent proof so there will be repercussions but fuck it. If they continue to mess with you, write down everything they fucking say and then you have a law suit.
I guess NTA but the reason is that the other people are being AHs to you and you’re just being kind of a petty doofus about it haha
If you have a corporate/head office, you have HR. It’s that simple.
Edit — Nope, no HR. I clarify/expand in my reply to OP’s reply.
It’s not that big a company, it’s a literal head office where the people who own the company sit. There’s no HR. It’s a dudes personally owned business in Kentucky
In that case you basically did the most official thing you could have and are still NTA, but also still kind of a doofus for doing this impulsively.
I wouldn’t expect this to go particularly well for you. You’re bullied at work in a schoolyard bully sort of way. That’s not going to get better when everyone finds out you snitched on them collectively. People like that aren’t really inclined to empathize with your situation, especially when they’re the ones causing it.
TLDR : NTA. LAWYER NOW. YOU JUMPED THE GUN. TRUST NO ONE.
NTA – but you shot yourself both feet. You’re young. You need to learn patience and how to play the game better.
They’ve barely flicked you on the wrist if at all, and you’ve gone nuclear already man.
Gone and made yourself an even bigger target and now you’ve outed your awesome plan (no pun or sarcasm intended). Not only are they gonna likely fuck with you more, it will be on the downlow. They’re gonna tighten up and be more determined.
You gotta save your Ace cards man.
It’s gonna be that much harder to maximize positive outcomes from this.
Severance deals. Lump sum settlement payments. Guaranteed reference letters. Sweetheart promotions and raises quid pro quo.
Or even if you wanted to just ruin their lives. It’ll be that much harder to collect good evidence.
Anyway. You should find a lawyer and start looking for a new job just in case. Get your ducks in a row ASAP.
It needed to be reported sooner or later, im just saying you should have prepared first.
LAWYER, NOW. I would say union, I’d be concerned about conflict of interest for one since they rep your co workers and two them also being homophobic. Can you trust corporate? Can you trust HR?
**LAWYER NOW!**
OP, I see you providing more details in the comments and added it to your post as well so let me just say – I’m very sorry that you had to go through this and please save your time and energy with the few idiots in the comments who clearly have it out for you by somehow doing mental gymnastics to twist your situation into one where you were somehow the unreasonable one who wanted extra accommodations due to your sexuality. It’s simply ridiculous and does not need any more of your attention. You are clearly not the asshole, even less so based on the extra detail you provided about the slurs and harassment you faced. If you have evidence of the verbal harrassment/defacement, that will go a long way in a lawsuit, but the others are right in that it will be difficult to argue discrimination against a technicality of a rule even if the norm is that most people don’t follow it.
I’m more than fine with that, I have no desire to sit there and make a lawsuit over something like this. That’s not my goal. That’s the reason I went to the head of the company. Because I hope that they will do something over it. I just wanted to make sure the heads knew that there’s blatant favoritism and disregard for the rules they put in place. Whereas I’m getting “written up” for doing the required part of my job
I wish you the best of luck, but be prepared for the worst – you never know if they’ll just brush it under the rug or give them a slap on the wrist which will just make the working environment worse for you. As the first comment said, I’d consider thinking ahead about what you’d expect the head of the company to do: Are you expecting them to just be reprimanded? To be fired? Because tbh I’m not sure if anything short of them being fired is going to make the working environment better – it’ll only make them angrier, please look out for yourself