Posted 2016-11-19
Know how to expose and hold abusive management accountable and know what can be done when facing abusive managers. For example, Terry Carlson, the "manager" of Architecture at Alberta Blue Cross is a dishonest and incompetent, with no background in the area that he is supposed to be the manager for. He scapegoats others to cover his incompetence, sabotages the work of those who he feels threatened by, and he will be exposed for the fraud that he is. I had thought about filing a harassment lawsuit but employers are fully aware that they have much deeper pockets than any individual in the case of a lawsuit. Workplace bullying and abuse is actually only illegal in Quebec, but there are no laws against this in the rest of Canada, again something that abusive employers count on. As far as the employer claiming any kind of defamation, I have spoken to lawyers extensively, and the "absolute defense" for defamation is the factual circumstance that will end the litigation. I have a documented paper trail and first-hand witnesses all of which prove everything I am saying and precludes any and all mitigation or collateral attack. In summary: Employers depend on the fact that there are very few laws around workplace bullying and abuse and know that although harassment lawsuits are possible it is a multi-million dollar corporation against an individual. You can however communicate with the executives, engage an investigative news/journalist team if you want, and hold the company and abusive manager socially accountable as long as you have your proof and can prove everything.
This is one form of the letter that I wrote for three executives at Alberta Blue Cross:
Hi ██████████,
As you know, I no longer work at ABC. I am writing to you so that you know that ABC's own policies, values, and Code of Ethics are being violated. I am appalled by the way I was treated there by one manager in particular and the way he directed his subordinates to treat me. I believe that an employer owes a duty to its employees to provide a civil and respectful workplace, whereas it has been the opposite of that in the environment created by Terry Carlson. Since it is not technically illegal for a manager to be abusive, unethical, disrespectful, and malicious, Terry Carlson is counting on that and counting on his actions to be covered up. I can prove that during the time I was ABC, Terry was directly responsible for sabotaging my work on projects, telling others not to work with me, and he was the supervisor of those that had yelled at me, threw temper tantrums, and called me derogatory names in meetings, all of which I did nothing to retaliate to. The part that is the most infuriating is I did absolutely nothing to retaliate, yet I'm the one that lost my job.
As you know, the ABC Code of Ethics details acting with respect and integrity, and when violations occur they are to be reported to the VP of Human Resources with the commitment that no retribution shall occur. I don't have access to the ABC Code anymore but the reason I know these things by heart was that I was documenting Terry's violations at my desk in order to report them to you as per the Code. I believe that he found my documentation. I tried my best to deal with him directly prior to submitting my report to you to try to avoid jeopardizing my career. My first and only performance review with Terry Carlson to document on record, review, and try to resolve my concerns was supposed to be on August 19. It is no coincidence that I was let go on August 17 as an act of retribution and to cover up his actions. As a result, I have not had one single performance review with Terry Carlson yet he made up a bogus claim that *I* didn't get along with others 2 days before the review to fire me. I will let you form the conclusion.
I have worked in this industry for over 20 years and have worked for mid-size companies to fortune 500 companies. Even without that, I deserve, at the minimum, even basic professional respect, yet I have never seen a manager as disrespectful and abusive as Terry Carlson.
From 2013 to 2015, I noticed that the project managers of specific projects would include everybody in the project in project meetings and emails except for me, which is very abnormal. After over 10 noticeable occurrences, and discussions with my managers, there was no resolution, making it almost impossible for me to do my job or have productive relationships with the project managers. I told my manager in 2015 (██████████) that it was as if someone was telling those project managers not to include me in any meetings or communication right from the beginning and sabotaging my work. As it turns out, ██████████ found out that Terry Carlson instructed Project Managers not to communicate with me as a Technical Architect even though I was assigned to the project. This can be verified with ██████████. Terry sabotaged my ability to work and his abusive actions led to an inevitably toxic and uncooperative work environment. Terry's sabotage of my work is additionally supported by him taking away my access to software tools earlier in 2016 behind my back without telling me while I was using the tools on a daily basis in my specific area of expertise as recognized by all of my previous managers.
Terry's actions demonstrate the definition of harassment in the workplace as per the Government of Canada: "Harassment may come from an individual or a group of persons, managers or employees, creating a hostile and poisoned work environment that quickly becomes intolerable. Harassment also includes abuse of power through the injurious exercise of authority for the purpose of compromising a person's employment or damaging their performance at work."
In my first direct meeting with Terry Carlson in 2014, it was my effort to act as a bridge between Technical Services and Application and Information Services. However in this meeting, Terry was not familiar with very basic Enterprise Architecture concepts even though he just became the manager of that department, so he proceeded to attack me, denigrate me disrespectfully and abusively, telling me things like if I were to talk to the Application Architects about the area of expertise that I have worked in for 18 years, that they would just get up and leave the room because they knew more than me (in reality they had a maximum of 2 years of experience in my field). He then accused me of being sent by Technical Services to tell him what to do. I told this to Dave Miller at the time and he verified that Terry had made similar attacks on others. These similar attacks can be verified by ██████████, ██████████, and members of the ██████████ team.
Terry Carlson's aggression, hostility, and animosity to those "below" him breeds the same in those that work for him and choose to follow his example. In 2016, two of his employees made verbal attacks on me with yelling, slamming doors and tables, and uttering derogatory names. One was ██████████ (this can be verified by ██████████ and ██████████) and the other was Ky Nguyen calling me derogatory names during business meetings whenever he doesn't understand something being explained due to his lack of experience in this specific field (this can be verified by ██████████ who also knows that Ky has had other outbursts in similar situations). I did nothing to retaliate and reported one to HR and to Terry Carlson and planned to report the second one on the August 19 meeting, which Terry prevented from happening. Word had already gotten around. He did not want word about the abusive behaviour of him or his staff to be documented or reported.
Terry Carlson has shown a provable history of denigrating and dismissing anyone whose experience exposes his own incompetence. I have 18 years of experience specifically in Enterprise Architecture whereas he is supposed to be the manager of Enterprise Architecture but has 5 years of experience in the actual area. The motivation for Terry Carlson to act out against me was because he felt threatened; the exact same thing happened with Terry Carlson letting go of a subject matter expert in databases where the disparity in experience was the exact same, where the subject matter expert also respectfully expressed different professional opinions, which others saw as productive. This exemplifies the Government of Alberta policy on bullying in the workplace by managers: "Managers who bully do so to hide their own inadequacy. They may excuse their bullying behaviour by claiming they are trying to encourage better performance. In fact, bullying causes underperformance (or makes it worse) because it distracts employees from their duties."
As documented above, with sources that can all be confirmed, the challenges I've faced at ABC for the past 3.5 years were caused by Terry Carlson. For the past 3.5 years, Terry Carlson knew nothing about me other than the fact that I was a Technical Architect with 18 years of experience, yet he has been nothing but attack me, be disrespectful, abusive, and malicious towards me.
Terry Carlson became my direct manager around March 2016. We were supposed to have a half hour status update meeting once per month but often those were cancelled due to his schedule. When we did have meetings my workload utilization was always proven to be at 120% or higher and I worked additional nights and weekends that nobody else on the team did. My track record speaks for itself. In February 2016, my previous manager ██████████ had just told me that I was doing great and that all of the managers that I worked with had reported that. Managers such as ██████████ have also attested that I "over-deliver" on my projects. Managers such as ██████████ can attest to my integrity and ethics.
Yet despite having less than 5 total hours of contact with me, Terry Carlson dismissed me from my position the first chance he could, as an act of retribution for reporting his previous actions and a pre-emptive attack for raising the issue of his disrespectful and abusive behaviour to you, the VP of Human Resources.
There are multiple employees and managers who can attest to his lack of integrity. I can provide a list of managers within IT at ABC that can verify, confirm, and know Terry to be and act exactly as I have described: abusive, malicious, disrespectful, dishonest, lacking in knowledge and skills, while attacking people every chance he can. When talking to managers within ABC, you will commonly hear that they "hate him", "despise him", and "stay away from him". If you have been following what has been going on in ABC IT over the past several years, you already know that everything I am saying can be verified.
I did everything right, and it cost me what I thought was going to be the job that I would have for the rest of my career because of one manager's malice, contempt, and abuse. He acted in retribution for reporting that his subordinates were disrespectful, and to prevent me from bringing to light his disgraceful, disrespectful, and appalling behaviour. It goes against all of ABC's own Code of Ethics and values that are on every wall. My ask of you is to not promote a double standard by which a manager can sabotage an employee's work, be abusive towards an employee, create a toxic situation, and then use that as an excuse to dismiss the employee as soon as he becomes the employee's direct manager. Even with a cursory investigation, you will find that Terry will be exposed for his behaviour, deserving of being exposed, reprimanded, and dismissed. There is a hell of a lot more reason for his dismissal than mine.
I can prove everything that I'm saying. It depends on how importantly or how seriously do you take the ABC policies. I will leave it in your hands. Thank-you for your consideration.