What can I do if I am working in a Hostile enviorment and am being targeted by my assistant manager?

I have been working for a property managment company. I have some question's about Hostile work enviorment. I have been working with my company for about 2 months now, and am now faced with a assistant manager that is makeing my job hostile. One insident was when I had a lease that was to be signed and had the resident come in and initialed our qualification criteria. About 2 days later was told by my assistant manager that it didn't look like her initials and that i needed her to come in and re-initisl. After I had her come back and re-initial the assistant manager brought me into her office and said that if these mestakes continue that she would have to withhold my commision, in fact the next day i noticed that she had allready took 1/2.The second insident is when I wore a non company shirt to work and she told me that I had to wear the company shirts, But every day after that all the other employee's wore non company shirts and obviously have not been told because they continued. Third she is always hovering over me and makeing remarks like "are you eating company cookies your not susposto do that"...All the employees eat them and iv never heard her say that before. After i realized that she took my commision I wanted to talk to the manager about it, so one day I want in to his office and asked him why she took 1/2 my commision and I then tried to explain to him what happend. He was verry unsuportive and said "your lucky that she didn't take it all" and then he was rushing to leave and would not listen. This all happend about 2 weeks ago. Yesterday my assistant manager called me into her office again. She had writen me up for the same file that the initials were missing on, she also wrote me up for being 2-5 minuts late. And put that my hours are 9-5 and they are 9-6. Then wrote me up for a apartment that doesn't exist. Please e-mail me on what I can do.

1 answer  |  asked Dec 4, 2004 9:44 PM [EST]  |  applies to Arizona

Answers (1)

Francis Fanning
Hostility is not a hostile environment

Your question seems to assume that the law prohibits an employer from allowing or maintaining a hostile work environment. This is not the case.
The term "hostile environment" was developed by the courts to describe a form of unlawful discrimination that is not based upon one act or decision by an employer, but rather a series of actions, no one of which rises to the level of an adverse employment action, but the sum total of which can alter the terms and conditions of your employment. The key to the concept is that it is a form of unlawful discrimination. It is not unlawful for your employer to dislike you or single you out unless it is done for a prohibited reason. The unlawful forms of discrimination include discrimination on account of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age and disability.
The missing element in your narrative is why this manager is picking on you. If it is on account of one of the unlawful reasons I have listed, you should complain to someone higher up in the company, or to a human resources person if the employer has one. But it is not enough to complain about your mistreatment. You must identify the unlawful discrimination that you believe is behind it. If you don't have any reason to believe that your race, sex, age, religion or disability is the reason she has singled you out, then you probably have no legal recourse. If you have reason to believe that unlawful discrimination is involved, and if the employer does not resolve the problem, you can file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

posted by Francis Fanning  |  Dec 7, 2004 5:40 PM [EST]

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