Monday, August 11, 2008
The Gap (Part 2 of Looking At Workplace Psychological Abuse)
(For those who expected Part 2 to be entitled "Tell Everyone!" stay tuned, it's coming.
Part one was entered on this blog on April 11).
Most large businesses and corporations today have written statements spelling out rules or standards that employees are expected to follow. These standards go by a variety of names. There is often a "Mission Statement" and a "Basic Conditions of Employment." In addition there may be "Standards of Conduct," "Customer Service Standards," Principles of Conduct," or maybe the word "philosophy" is used in the title of a statement. Frequently these statements deal with ethical guidelines, or how employees are expected to behave. These documents may govern or provide guidance for actions and speech by employees in their interactions with each other, or with customers. They are written for a variety of reasons, including attracting customers and employees, preventing conflict, and especially protecting upper level management from legal action for problems that may occur.
Over the last few decades workplaces in the United States have experienced some troubling changes. While the salaries of CEOs and other top executives have skyrocketed, wages and benefits of the average worker have gone in the other direction. The average family with two full time wage earners today actually has less discretionary income than a family with one breadwinner a generation ago (Mark Ames in "Going Postal" Page 101). In one year, 1999, the average CEO salary increased by 37% while the average worker salary increased by only 2.7% (Ames, Page 91). Health insurance, pension plans, and vacation time are also diminishing, and in some places, disappearing altogether. Lay-offs, downsizing, and outsourcing has made employment for many Americans very unstable. This contrasts sharply with the trend in most other industrialized countries. Other industrialized nations have universal health insurance for their citizens. Minimum annual paid vacation in France is five weeks, and most western European countries are, in many ways, much more pro-family than the US. One example is that they offer new parents longer maternity and paternity leave, usually with a significant percentage of their pay. The average American works 350 more hours each year than the average European.
In spite of this trend of decreasing compensation and support for workers in the US, the written statements and standards of companies are more impressive than ever. Many corporations have written policies and standards governing the interaction of employees that sound almost New Testament Biblical in their stated concern for the employee. Unfortunately those are only written statements. In reality there is a massive gap between what is written and the actual behavior of management toward employees. My own experience is a powerful example of this gap.
From 1976 until 2006 I was employed as a respiratory therapist at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center (SARMC) in Boise, Idaho. Saint Alphonsus is part of the Trinity Health system headquartered in Novi, Michigan with facilities in seven states. Trinity Health is the fourth largest Catholic Health system in the United States. For the last 28 of those 30 years I was a shift supervisor providing job assignments, and communicating changes in physician orders and many other responsibilities, usually for two to eight people per shift, as well as caring for respiratory patients myself, often in the Emergency Department.
Let me point out that I think the average person who goes to Saint Alphonsus probably gets excellent care. But that care comes from the employees who directly care for the patients. The vast majority of those employees are committed, dedicated, hard-working people who sincerely care about their patients and often go above and beyond the call of duty to provide timely and appropriate care, and they usually do it without necessarily expecting anything in return, often not even charging for overtime if they miss lunch or stay over to complete their care. In the thirty years I worked there I did that thousands of times, just out of commitment to the cause, to the place, and to my job, and I know many others have done the same. But with management, especially upper level management, the story is somewhat different.
In January of 2004 I became the target of a workplace "bully," an adult version of the school yard bully that many of us had to deal with in grade school, junior high, or high school. This psychologically abusive co-worker began to target me with chronic misbehavior that included among many other things, withholding information I needed to do my job and refusing to communicate with me. Refusing to communicate with a co-worker in a hospital setting endangers patients, since clear, succinct communication between health care workers is necessary to provide timely and appropriate care. In so doing she intentionally created and maintained a hostile, high-stress work environment.
To keep this entry as short as possible I will simply add the following three facts about this ordeal. First: Her "bullying" continued for over two and half years until I was forced to resign because I was seriously injured and becoming disabled by the chronic abuse. Second: She adamantly refused to participate in any kind of resolution process to try to resolve the problem. I offered to participate in any kind of process involving either direct or indirect communication including the use of a professional mediator, but she refused to participate and continued to behave in an abusive manner toward me, jeopardizing patient care and causing serious injury. Third: Management intentionally gave her permission to refuse to participate in any resolution process. At no time did any member of management require her to discontinue the abuse, or change her injury-causing behavior toward me. Therefore nothing was done to address the problem or to provide me with a safe working environment, relative to the occupation.
The problem should have been very easy to resolve. The bully was violating multiple "Customer Service Standards" every shift we worked together. These standards include encouraging employees to discuss problems with co-workers before reporting them to management and instructing employees to listen to anyone who wants to talk to them. The "standards" include strong statements such as "treat each person the way you want to be treated," and treat each person as if he/she is the most important person in the facility." Anyone who acts as a bully is violating numerous Customer Service Standards as well as the Basic Conditions of Employment.
Trinity Health has their own Standards of Conduct with equally clear and positive emphasis on respect, kindness and also requiring honest and clear communication. However for the purpose of this entry I want to look at just a small portion of the 20 plus pages of the Standards of Conduct which you can find at http://www.trinity-health.org/ under "Organizational Integrity."
This section is on Page 13 and entitled "What Should I Expect from Trinity Health?"
It includes the following statements.
...you should also expect Trinity Health to:
1. Treat you with honesty, dignity, fairness, and respect.
2. Provide you with a meaningful work experience.
3. Provide you a safe and supportive work environment free for harassment, intimidation, or
violence
4. Provide a respectful work environment that allows you to freely ask questions, seek
clarification when needed, and raise issues and concerns in good faith without fear of
harassment or retaliation
5. Have your requests for information, input, or assistance responded to in a timely manner.
(I added the numbers for easier reference)
Sounds great, doesn't it? Reading that list would give any employee a sense of security, hope, and optimism about working for Trinity Health, right? Now read what happened to me and you will recognize the significant gap that exist between these promises and the actual practice of management at Trinity Health.
I was the target of a bully for over two and a half years. By the time I left I was partially disabled by the chronic psychological abuse. Although I'm no longer dealing with any disability I still have to cope with the effects of PTSD over four and a half years later. The bully jeopardized patient care every shift we worked together. Her intentionally malicious behavior toward me started abruptly when she found out that I did not share her religious and political beliefs. A year after the problem began I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of the work abuse. The diagnosis of PTSD was made by Saint Alphonsus, as occurring on the job at Saint Alphonsus, and I have that in writing from Saint Alphonsus. There was never any question about the cause of the PTSD injury.
I reported the patient endangering behavior of the co-worker and the discrimination against me to management numerous times. Nothing was done to address those problems. I reported the PTSD injury to management more than two dozen times over a period of approximately two years. The respiratory care department manager specifically told me, both verbally and in writing, that my injuries were "petty," even though PTSD is a potentially life threatening and disabling injury, as any veteran of Vietnam or Iraq can confirm.
The CEO and the chairperson of the Bioethics Committee never responded to my reports of being abused and injured, this in spite of the fact that the Bioethics Committee chairperson was a surgeon whose patient I had been at least three times in the past!
All three managers from department, human resources, and senior management ordered me to not talk about the injury with co-workers, even though telling others what happened to me is an excellent way to raise awareness and thereby help prevent others from also being injured.
A vice-president told me to just let the abuse "pass over me;" whatever that means.
The employee relations manager was especially toxic in his behavior toward me. I met with him three times to try to discuss this problem, and the injury, but he refused to listen to my side of the story even before I met with him the first time! He conducted two investigations, both clearly manipulated to obtain pre-determined results. He promised me a written report of the first investigation, then refused to provide it even though I requested it several times. He promised me a meeting with the department manager to discuss the results of the first investigation. It was never scheduled. He promised me I wouldn't have to work with the abusive co-worker anymore. The promise was broken in two months. In July of 2005 he even threatened to fire me for reporting the PTSD injury to him! In the third meeting with him on October 4, 2005, red-faced and bellowing at me across the table in a tiny office, he ordered me to lie about the PTSD injury if anyone asked, and threatened to fire me if I reported any more problems with the abusive co-worker to either him or the department manager, or if I discussed the PTSD injury with anyone in the department.
Those traumatic experiences with the employee relations manager demonstrate a few facts about Saint Alphonsus and also Trinity Health. One: at that point not just the co-worker, but management also was engaging in the abuse and aggravating the PTSD injury. Two: denial is a chief tool of St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health when it comes to dealing with problems management does not want to address. Three: this experience also demonstrates that Saint Alphonsus is a "punitive authoritarian system," that is a system of management in which one or more people in management actually derive pleasure and satisfaction out of hurting those in the hierarchy below them.
From my experience that's the reality of how Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center and Trinity Health responds when problems occur in the workplace. The statements above are the promise and the ideal, but there is a massive chasm or gap between the promises in the written statements and the actual reality that one experiences in the workplace. The gap is so large that, in reality, there is no connection between the two. From my experience there was no sincere attempt made by anyone in department or upper level management to address the abuse I was targeted with, and provide me with a safe working environment. The statements and the entire Standards of Conduct are just a public relations stunt to attract employees and customers. I know of others who've been treated the same way at Saint Alphonsus including people who were fired for reporting unethical and patient endangering behavior by a physician, for being injured on the job, and also terminated for having to be on bedrest due to a difficult pregnancy. Firing someone for those reasons may not be illegal, but it is injury-causing behavior and should not be a part of any Christian organization, or the part of any responsible health care business. It also violates their own standards. Even before I reported the abuse and the PTSD injury to the employee relations manager, another employee warned me that I would be retaliated against, simply for reporting the problem. That's exactly what happened. I also reported the problem and the PTSD injury to a vice-president at Trinity Health and received no assistance, not even a response for months.
I was abused and injured on the job at Saint Alphonsus and it occurred with the knowledge, approval, and participation of upper-level management, including senior management.
The problem of management at Saint Alphonsus and Trinity Health not only allowing employees to psychologically abuse and injure their co-workers, but actually participating in the abuse and adding to the injury is every bit as serious a problem for the Catholic Church as the pedophile priest problem. Texts on bullying and psychological abuse in the workplace document that the emotional harm done when one is the target of a workplace bully as I was, can be just as severe as the emotional harm done when someone is raped, tortured as a prisoner of war, or shot at repeatedly in a war zone.
Let's look at # 5 above for a minute. That's the statement that promises "a timely" response to requests for assistance. I first reported the PTSD injury to management the first week of January, 2005. It's now more than three years and eight months since and I have yet to receive a written or verbal response from any member of management addressing the PTSD injury. See what I mean by a "gap. " Or perhaps they just have a different definition of "timely."
Leonard Nolt
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57 comments:
Tough stuff, Leonard. I'm in the exact same situation on the east coast working for a school district. No one listens and/or they do the cover-up routine. I'm trying to hang in there, but I also have PTSD symptoms, I believe. There is an e-book online from the Undercover Lawyer website (which I just bought) that may help you in the future should you ever find yourself in a similar situation again. It has strategies to use to place yourself in a "protected class" and possibly even benefit by using FMLA or ADA to control your work environment rather than the other way around. I'm just starting to employ the strategies, wish me luck. And good luck to you also, brother-in-arms.
I was directed to your blog through a comment you made on a letter to the editor in The Statesman. Right now, I work at the outpatient pharmacy at St. Al's. I am an employee of MedNow, which is owned by Mercy Medical Center in Nampa. As I'm sure you know, Mercy is becoming part of Trinity Health soon, and I presume I will end up as a St. Al's employee myself. Fortunately, I have great co-workers and a great boss, and I hope it stays that way. However, I could relate to your experience because I spent 25 years (not 2 years) being abused and manipulated by my boss at a different job. I was foolish enough to stay there and take it, and hated every moment of it. I was a single woman at the time, and had fairly low self-esteem. He got away with paying me a paltry wage for a lot of years until I think he got scared that I was beginning to realize that I didn't have to work for him, and he gave me quite a substantial raise to keep me there. What it did was enable me to begin saving money, which I did. My father was seriously ill but I wanted out of that job so badly I could taste it. I didn't want to quit and be job hunting in case my Dad needed me, but less than a month after he died I gave my notice. After 25 years. The best part about it is, my boss was entirely blindsided. He never even suspected that I would quit. That was the one revenge I got on him. Since then I have come to understand that I am very good at what I do, and that I can work anywhere. He had me convinced that I couldn't get a job anywhere else, and that I shouldn't even want to work for anyone but him, even if he did resent like hell when I took vacation, or thought I was faking it if I called in sick one or two days every year. I went to work sick as a dog more times than I can count just to avoid his bitching. Walking out of there for the last time was one of the happiest days of my life, even though I did not have another job lined up. I had saved enough money to not work for 3 months before I started looking for work. Then, when I found a job, it was with one of his most hated competitors!! Revenge is sweet.
Nowhere in part 2 do you say or mention, that you tried to approach and talk with Linch about this problem. You didn't evan offer to apologize for taking about religion and politics. It's covered in the employee handbook not to talk about those topics.So you must at least acknowledge you brought this on yourself. Nowhere in your writtings do you mention you tried to sit down with Linch or evan emailed her back to try to resolve the problem. Not in this blog or that flimsy first report you sent out to people, and still distrubuting on your campus.
Bill, perhaps you should send me a mailing address to my e-mail at LeonardNolt@aol.com and I will send you a copy of the two reports I sent out after leaving St. ALs since apparently, as indicated by your comments, you haven't read them yet. I'll also include a copy of the ten page report I've been giving to people the past three years whenever anyone asks about it. I would also encourage you to read the information I have on this blog as well as the books about workplace bullying that I recommend. If you're in management and care about your employees that should be incentive enough to generate a substantial amount of enthusiasm for educating yourself about the very serious and very common problem of workplace bullying.
I've never distributed any reports on any St. ALs campus. All the ones I've given to people have been by hand, e-mail, or the US postal service. None of the hand-delivered ones were left, or given at St. Als (because I haven't been there). One of the recipients was an individual I met while working at St. Als but he left there years before I gave him a copy of my report. One person told me that he had a similar experience as I had at St. Als, with being the target of bullying and harassment.
Also if anyone is paying you to communicate with me, you might want to let them know that they are not getting their money's worth. It seems that you still refuse to do any homework or research on the topic of workplace bullying or, as indicated by your comments and questions, even read the reports I've written about my experiences at St. Alphonsus.
Bill, the strongest evidence I have that you are a part of the same management that exists at St. Alphonsus, is the fact that you, like them, refuse to listen to, pay attention to, or accept the historical facts about this problem.
I mention numerous times in my writings about my attempts to talk to Linch about her bullying. In Part two here I mention in paragraph 6 about Linch "...refusing to communicate with me." I mention it again in the next paragraph about her refusal "...to participate in any kind of resolution process." You can't talk to someone who refuses to communicate with you. Why is that so hard to understand?
I mention it again in Part 3 (Tell Everyone!). Paragraph 2 mentions Linch's refusal to communicate with me. I also mention her ostracism, that is pretending that I didn't exist. Later in Part 3 I mention and quote from Hirigoyen's book "Stalking the Soul" which strongly documents the fact that workplace bullies refuse to discuss or talk about the problem, or communicate with their targets. I mention it again in the Jan. 15, 2014 comment to Part 4. How many times do I have to reapeat the same information before you and members of management at Saint Alphonsus and Trinity Health absorb it? Like Dwello, Wedman, and Gibson at St. Als, your response to this violence that take space in your institutions is one of denial.
The first time I asked Linch why she was behaving like that to me, she said. "It's just my medication making me cranky." I knew that wasn't true since I was the only one being targeted with that "crankiness." The second time I asked about her bullying and harassment (I think I used the term being "hateful") toward me, she turned around and walked away without a word.
I asked her to call me when she wasn't busy because we needed to talk. She never called. I paged her to try to talk to her, and she would have other people, usually nearby nurses, answer her pager. I e-mailed her addressing the problem and requesting a conversation. She responding by refusing to communicate with me and by threatening to continue the bullying. I regularly made multiple attempts to try to talk to her, (before reporting the problem to Kelly), but she refused to communicate with me, and only escalated her bullying, eventually resorting to ostracism. You can't communicate with someone who pretends that you're dead, Bill.
When I made the communication request through management, she still refused to participate, and management wholeheartedly supported her refusal which I'm sure she interpreted as complete support for her bullying also.
In a Jan. 2005 meeting, Wedman ordered me to NOT talk to her about the bullying. At the end of that meeting with Wedman and Dwello, Dennis said, "Now we'll meet with Rhoda and get some answers to your questions." I was hopeful, but management refused to give me any information, or any answers to my questions, even if they ever met with Rhoda. So I was left in perpetual limbo, not allowed to ask the bully why, and refused the same information from management.
But of course they didn't do anything to put a stop to Linch's bullying. They still scheduled me to work and interact with, and supervise Linch even though she was harassing me, refusing to communicate with me, and pretending that I didn't exist. And keep in mind, Bill, that this communication problem was entirely about work; nothing else. When I first reported the problem to Dwello I told him, via e-mail, that Linch and I were having a communication problem. She refused to communicate with me about patient care. That, of course, jeopardized patient care, so I've never been able to figure out why management didn't give a damn, either about patient care or about my safety.
I don't mind answering questions and responding to comments, but it gets frustrating when all I'm doing is simply repeating information I've written numerous times before.
(Continuing)
(Continuing)
Also, Bill, I didn't talk to her about politics and religion. I gave her copies of published articles I had written, most published in religious publications, but we didn't discuss them. I felt uncomfortable with all the personal information about herself that she was unloading on me shortly after we started working together. So I tried to balance it with some information about myself, in the form of the articles I had written. She would occasionally make brief critical comments of a religious or political nature, a fact confirmed by others, but I didn't engage her in conversation about them. There was nothing for me to apologize about.
I didn't bring the bullying on myself, Bill. That's absurd. The literature on workplace bullying is unmistakable. The bully selects the target. The target has nothing to do with it. The Employee Assistance Program counselor, Paula Brown, told me: "This is not about you, Leonard. If she wasn't doing this to you, she would be doing it to someone else." That was echoed by my psychologist and other professionals I talked to about the bullying. I wrote to Chauncey Hare, the co-author of "Work Abuse: How to Recognize and Survive it" describing my situation, and he responded by saying that the bully has a "mental issue" and has brought some problem from home or childhood and is using it against you. I also wrote to Noa Davenport, author of "Mobbing, Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace," describing the problem, and she responded stating that it sounded like a typical bullying situation in which management does not know how to respond, or does not want to have anything to do with it.
In a typical workplace bullying situation, the bully selects the target. The target is usually a loyal, first rate, high quality, productive employee who the bully is trying to get fired or drive out of the workplace, which accurately describes my experience.
I went to the medical library after work to do some reading and then returned to the department to get my backpack, jacket, etc before going home. Linch would see me and complain that I was waiting to walk her to her car after work. But I had been going to the medical library at least once a week ever since St. Als first had a medical library which I would estimate was about 1980, give or take a couple years. I was a regular reader of JAMA, the Lancet, and some other journals.
I went to work on my night off to complete some documentation I didn't have time to complete on my regular shift and also to talk to John Morgan, the other night shift supervisor. I thought it was important that John and I occasionally touch bases about our shift and see if there were any issues we needed to discuss. I had also been doing that for decades. But Linch saw me there one time and claimed that she was the only reason I was there, lying to management again. A narcissistic person will assume that everything that happens is about her. In 1980 which is approximately when I first started regularly going to the library, Linch was 4 years old.
Management could have confirmed my visits to the medical library and then confronted Linch about her dishonesty and narcissism. But they never tried. I know because I specifically went to the librarians and asked them if Kelly or Dennis had contacted them to ask about me and my regular visits there, but neither had bothered to confirm my reports and actions, and provide some support and safety for me. It seems to me that they decided to support Linch's bullying and every effort made after that was to try to generate evidence to blame me for the problem. There is no question that was what the HR manager did.
(Continued)
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Bill, the written reports I distributed to the public were ALL done after literally dozens of reports to management about the bullying and the PTSD injury including visits to HR and senior management. There was at least half a dozen visits to the department manager, 9 visits to the EAP counselor, plus additional visits to professionals I selected when it became clear that management was refusing to do anything about the bullying and was actually interfering with my attempts to get assistance and to get treatment for the PTSD injury.
If management would have promptly addressed the problem, there never would have been any written reports to the employees and public. I never received a response from management addressing the fact that I was being seriously injured on the job by a co-worker. Those reports became necessary only because management refused to do anything. The reports were a requirement of Trinity Health standards and American Association for Respiratory Care ethical standards.
It's been more than 10 years since the bullying began and I am still on medication and dealing with symptoms of the injury imposed on me by a workplace bully at St. Alphonsus, with management knowing it was happening and refusing to do anything about it.
To this day there has been no accountability from management, but there is ongoing retaliation, as you know Bill. But Bill you already know all the information in these last 3 paragraphs. Isn't it time management at St Alphonsus and Trinity Health show some responsibility and accountability for the bullying and injuring? As I mentioned before you can't change what happens in the future if you have no commitment to be accountable for those who were permanently injured in the past.
There are some inconsistencies in your writtings Leonard.1st you wrote numerous times. That in your first two meeting with Wedman. He didn't let you get a work in or a sentance. But yet later on you wrote, then dennis said,"now we'll meet with Linch and get some answers to your questions."If you never listened to you or let you talk. Then how can he make such statement etc? 2nd you wrote many time, that Dwello only cared about making money. Simly put, that is Only your opinion and Not a fact.You wrote several times saying Linch was a short term uncommitted employee.Again half of your statement is entirely your opinion. Dwello emailed Wedman telling him that you like to Ramble on and on. There Leonard, thats why he didn't listen to you entirely. That you talk in circles and start from the beginning again.Kelly claimed you did that to him too. Thank goodness for Kelly's warning because your meeting would last 5 or 6 houra apiece.
Bill, you wrote that Kelly told you I tended to "ramble" which is talk or write for a long time, perhaps somewhat aimlessly, and also "talk in circles," which probably has a similar meaning as aimlessly. Is that correct? Does that mean the person who bullied me was always concise, composed, calm, unemotional, etc. when she talked to Kelly?
Bill; I entered the Jan 14, 2005 meeting with Wedman and Dwello, in Wedman's office (although Dwello was late in arriving) carrying a list of 20-22 questions written on 4 pages of note book paper that I wanted to ask Wedman. At the beginning of the meeting, before Dwello arrived, I showed Wedman the e-mail I received from Linch. I told him that some of the information in it was vague and incomplete, that I didn't know what Linch was writing about.
But I specifically told Wedman that her accusation about me waiting to walk her to her car after work was a lie, since I had never done that, or even considered doing it. When I first received that e-mail from Linch, I was at home, and was shocked by what it contained. This was at that time the strongest evidence I had that Linch was deliberately trying to get me fired.
The first thing I did was show Linch's e-mail to my wife, Karen, who knew about the bullying. We both hoped that this e-mail was the beginning of the communication needed to resolve the problem. But that e-mail was not just the beginning, but also the end of communication about the health damaging bullying I was experiencing (except for a few comments Linch and I exchanged).
At the beginning of the meeting I showed Wedman the e-mail from Linch with the false accusation. At that time Wedman said nothing about the e-mail, but months later in the Oct. 4, 2005 meeting, he repeated Linch's false accusation back to me as if it were factual! At no time between Jan. 14 and Oct 4 did Wedman ask em for my side of the story. Not once did he give me an opportunity to defend myself against any of Linch's lies.
I asked Wedman a couple questions I brought along, but was only able to do so by interrupting him since he did not invite me to report what was happening, or indicate any interest whatsoever in wanting to hear my side of the story. I interrupted him hesitantly, fearfully, and cautiously because I knew his reputation, as told to me by other employees. I was afraid he would get angry.
He did not get angry, but neither did he show any interest in listening to me. Remember that several days before the meeting I had contacted Wedman offering to send him a written report about the problem I was having with Linch bullying me, thinking that would make the meeting run more efficiently, but he refused my offer, indicating that he was not interested in hearing what I had to say.
He confirmed that lack of interest by his actions in the meeting. That behavior along with reports from other employees, was part of the reasons I was fearful about interrupting Wedman to either ask questions or get the topic back on the reason for the meeting.
(Continued)
During the meeting I distinctly remember thinking that Wedman sure likes to listen to himself talk. I also remember part way through the meeting consciously giving up on asking Wedman any more questions, in part simply because there was no opportunity to do so, and because asking him any question about the bullying I was subjected to would have made it necessary to change the subject, because Wedman was talking ceaselessly about an unrelated topic. I reasoned that this was his department and his time, and also figured that I could ask him the questions later via e-mail. So I relaxed and waited for him to finish.
I never e-mailed those questions to Wedman because in the following weeks it became increasingly clear that he was not interested in helping me but was only trying to silence me, and get me to quit reporting the bullying. Management across the board seemed to have this "let's bury our heads in the sand and pretend this problem doesn't exist," approach as proven by the fact that NO ONE in management - Dwello, Wedman, Gibson, etc - EVER contacted me to see if the problem had been resolved, or to see if I was doing OK. That, even though they all knew I had been diagnosed by a St. Alphonsus professional with an on-the-job injury, caused by Linch's bullying, that had the potential of being permanently disabling.
That January 14, 2005 meeting with Wedman and Dwello was the same as every other meeting and interaction I had with members of management trying to report the bullying and the PTSD injury, and requesting help. It was worthless. I received no help from Wedman or anyone else and nothing was done by management to put a stop to Linch's harassment.
I still maintain that if those who cared for the patients at St .Alphonsus treated them with the contempt and callousness I received from management, St. Als would be out of business in a few months and the Curtis Road facility turned into a potato or sugar beet warehouse.
Remember, Bill, that the words, "Now we'll meet with Rhoda and get some answers to your questions," were Wedman's, not mine. That they were somewhat strange in light of Wedman"s refusal to listen to me and my questions is only one of the many aspects of this ordeal that was and continues to be irregular, unprofessional, unethical, and downright harmful to employees, patients, and to people in our community.
At the end of that meeting Wedman also ordered me to not try to talk with Linch about this problem, something I had already been NOT DOING for SIX MONTHS. It wasn't working. Linch's behavior, if anything, was getting worst. Patient care was still being compromised, I was required to work in a toxic environment that was causing injury to me. Woodman clearly did not know what to do, and was not taking the problem seriously.
Yes Linch was calm and composed when she talked with Dwello.Leonard, Kelly emailed Wedman and expressed concern, that you over dramatized this conflict. Also that when you came to him to report the problem. You liked to start from the beginning EACH TIME.why is that? you mentioned every detail and relished in talking about it. You admitted you brought along 4 pages of questions, totally unnecessary. Kelly filled Dennis in ahead of time about this ordeal.If not those meeting would have lasted 5 or 6 hours apiece.
Bill;
Would you please explain to me specifically what I "over dramatized" in this conflict? Was it the fact that Linch was jeopardizing patient care? Was it that she was withholding information I needed to do my job; that she was lying about me to management and co-workers; that she was maintaining a hostile and toxic workplace environment? Was the "over dramatized" aspect the fact that she was trying to get me fired and thereby jeopardizing my housing, family, and literally my family's survival, since it's not easy for a 57 year old who loses his job to find another, or to begin training for another career?
And explain to me just how being bullied can be "over dramatized" since as Wyatt and Hare report in their book "Work Abuse" it is a "life-threatening event" (Page 158).
Or as Hirigoyen in"Stalking the Soul" writes, precisely describing what I experienced from Linch and St. Als management:
" The fact remains that these are evil assaults. This aggression arises from an unconscious psychological process of destruction consisting of either hidden or overt hostility on the part of one and sometimes several abusers toward a designated person: a real target in every sense of the word. It is effectively possible to destabilize or even destroy someone with seemingly harmless words and hints, inferences, and unspoken suggestions; usually those close to the situation will not intervene. A narcissistic abuser grows in stature at the expense of the other; he (she) also avoids any inner or spiritual conflict by shifting the responsibility for what is wrong onto the other person. If the other is responsible for the problem, wrong-doing, guilt, and suffering don't exist. This defines emotional abuse" (Page 5).
The reason I had to repeat the story over and over again to Dwello is because he seemed to think that it wasn't a serious problem. He refused to successfully address the problem with Linch. He refused to make it a part of her performance plan. He refused to acknowledge that I was being injured. He didn't care that patient care was being jeopardized. Also when I went to report it to him and ask for help again and again, his eyes would glaze over and he acted as if he hadn't heard of the problem before. He seemed to not know what to do. In fact, one time he exclaimed to me, "I need help with this!"
No, Bill, Kelly did not "fill Dennis in ahead of time about this ordeal." He could not possibly do that. For one thing he didn't have the list of questions I prepared for Dennis. I didn't give them to Kelly. The other point is that Kelly could not have "filled Dennis in:" because, as proven by his lack of action, he didn't understand the seriousness of the problem. Remember he claimed that my complaints and the potentially disabling PTSD injury were "petty" and "no issue." I don't think Kelly was necessarily malicious or mean-spirited. I think he was just way in over his head into something that he didn't understand and had no training or experience to deal with. So he responded by trivializing it and hoping it would go away. That response was very harmful to me, of course, but it was fine with HR and senior management who responded by threatening me and trying to silence me, which you and St. Als and Trinity Health management are still trying to do, instead of acknowledging the harm that was done, taking the necessary and relatively simple steps to, as much as possible, undo it, and to prevent others from being similarly abused and injured.
(Continued)
You over dramatized that patient care was in jeopardy. Everything is charted Leonard. Simply put, you let her little tactics get the best of you( or worst, depends on how one views it). You both needed to move of from this like adults. Kelly noted that when you reported the problem to him. Each time you would make a statement like " my life is in danger". Kelly told Dennis your complaints ahead of your january meeting. He also told him what Rhoda has been saying about you. This was a classic He vs She said issue, a small one at that. Dennis didn't need your flimsy papers with questions to know what was going on. Physical injuries are documented and can be proven. PTSD claims can be easily disputed and are NOT covered in the employee handbook. You have already been told that. If you want to do something about it. Change the state law Leonard. Other then that, find a new hobby and quit writting about this.
Keep in mind, Bill, that if Linch's bullying had been addressed by management when I first reported it in March of 2004, there never would have been other meetings with Dwello. There never would have been any meetings with Wedman or with Gibson. If management had been properly trained and educated about workplace bullying and knew that bullying is initiated by the bully (not the target); if management knew or cared about the destructive nature of workplace bullying and realized that not only would it adversely impact productivity, but also has the potential for causing permanent injury and disability; if management knew that and responded immediately, putting a stop to Linch's harassment, it wouldn't have necessary for me to report what happened to hundreds of other St. Als employees to protect them from similar abuse and injury. No one would have been injured and no one would have lost their job. You and I would not be communicating with each other.
Everyone involved or connected with this in any manner, including you, Dwello, Wedman, Gibson, and other members of management know that management failed miserably at responding to a serious threat in the workplace. All of the above people know that management repeatedly violated their own Standards of Conduct and Customer Service Standards and ignored multiple violations of the same standards by Linch.
Let me also note that these violations by management were not simply one person having a bad day, but repeated intentional violations of civilized behavior and written standards occurring at multiple levels of management, repeatedly from 2004 until this day.
Writing about this is not a hobby, Bill. It's my obligation as a responsible citizen and health care professional. It's also what I'm required to do as ordered by Michael R. Holper, Senior Vice President of Organizational Integrity and Audit Services at Trinity Health when he writes in the Trinity Health Standards of Conduct; "MOST IMPORTANT, you're responsible for speaking up about behaviors or actions that may be inconsistent with the Standards of Conduct" (Page 1).
That order is echoed on Page 17 with; "Ultimately, it is your responsibility to report issues and concerns," and on page 16 with," Remember: the MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do is to keep asking questions until you are comfortable with the answer."
I can assure you that being threatened with termination for reporting the on-the-job PTSD injury to Wedman (July, 2005); that being ordered to lie about the injury by Wedman (Oct. 2005); that being threatened with termination by Wedman if I talked about the injury to anyone in the RC Dept (Oct, 2005); that being told by Dwello that the injury was "petty" and "no issue;" that being told by Gibson (Aug. 2005), to just let the abuse "pass over me," are not answers that I am "comfortable" with. Those answers are not even within telescopic range of "comfortable." Those first 4 answers from Dwello and Wedman represent acts of retaliation against me for reporting the problem. At least 4 times in the Standards of Conduct retaliation against someone for reporting concerns is forbidden (Pages 2, 7, 14, 17). Yet management's retaliation against me for reporting concerns started in 2005 and is ongoing with each letter I receive threatening me with arrest for trespassing if I enter the St. Als property on Curtis St. And all I ever did to become the target of management's fury is go to them in March of 2004 to report behavior by a co-worker that was creating a toxic workplace and jeopardizing patient care.
Bill, if management had responded in a responsible manner and stopped the bullying when I reported it the FIRST TIME, there wouldn't have been any other reports or requests for help; no articles or comments on blogs or Facebook, nobody getting locked up or forced out of St. Als; forced out, seriously injured and partially disabled, simply for telling the truth. There would be no dialogue between you and I.
You would not now be embarrassing yourself and management by trivializing bullying in the workplace, which is known as a major health and life-threatening form of psychological abuse, with effects similar to the psychological effects of rape and torture. That information is well documented in the literature on workplace bullying.
I have to give you credit for one thing, Bill. At least this time you admitted that being bullied in the workplace is an "ordeal." Thanks for that one tiny bit of honesty in your comment.
However I'm surprised that you would stoop so low as to write that management would not even consider a few "5 or 6" hour meetings with an employee who was being injured on the job by a co-worker and concerned about the safety of patients and other employees. I spent at least 50 hours in meetings trying to get help and get the problem resolved. If you add travel time that would be closer to 100 hours. When I was refused assistance, (as required by Trinity Health and St. Als' standards as well as the AARC (American Association of Respiratory Care) Code of Ethics), I reported the safety issue to many co-workers, for which, in retaliation from St. Alphonsus, I was locked up for 144 hours. I worked at St. Alphonsus in a toxic environment for over 2.5 years; that's over 5,000 hours, out of a total of 30 years which is more that 62,000 hours. And you're telling me, Bill, that management doesn't even have 15 or 20 hours to deal with an issue threatening the safety of an outstanding employee. That says volumes about the contempt and disdain directed at employees by management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health.
There shouldn't be any limit on the number of hours management would have to assist an employee being bullied and harassed by a co-worked and threatened with permanent injury and disability; the same dangers anyone being bullied is facing. I'm surprised that even you would admit such lack of concern for employees. Your comment acknowledges what I and others learned the hard way, that management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health sees their employees as being disposable.
The Trinity Health Standards of Conduct also states that individuals will be "held accountable for actions and behaviors inconsistent with the Standards of Conduct" (Page 2 - 3 times!). After violating multiple Customer Service Standards and Standards of Conduct every shift we worked together for 2 years and 8 months, and after driving me out of the workplace, Linch received a significant promotion from night shift staff person to day shift supervisor. Dwello presided over the same abuse and mistreatment and also received a significant promotion after I was injured and forced to leave.
After the Oct. 4, 2005 meeting with Wedman, Dwello, and Linch, I retreated to my car in the parking lot, in a state of shock at the way I had been treated and denied any opportunity to defend myself, pulled my worn and dog-eared copy of the more than 50 Customer Service Standards out of my back pack, and counted 18 violations by Wedman in less than an hour. I had carried those standards with me to and from work every shift for over a years and a half. I had followed them to the letter, only to find out that no one else, including dept. HR, and senior management was making any attempt to follow or enforce their own standards. When I am asked, my recommendation now to those who are bullied at St. Als, is to NOT follow the Customer Service Standards, since I followed them and that is one reason I was injured and lost my job.
Even though the Trinity Health Standards of Conduct clearly state, and state repeatedly, that "individuals will be held accountable for actions and behaviors inconsistent with the Standards of Conduct" (Page 2), no one was held accountable for the bullying aimed at me. In fact Linch and Dwello were both rewarded with promotions. Wedman repeatedly retaliated against me for reporting the bullying and the PTSD injury, retaliation that is ongoing. He clearly embraced a "kill the messenger" response to my reports and requests for help.
The reason I have to keep reporting this problem and writing about it is two-fold. First, it's a necessary part of my therapy, necessary to keep the hounds of PTSD at bay, along with several others sources of therapy I'm required to utilize.
The other equally important reason is that there has been no accountability from anyone in management at St. Alphonsus acknowledging that mistakes were made and I was abused and injured by a toxic co-worker. That determination was first made by a St. Alphonsus professional who diagnosed me with symptoms of PTSD as a result of an on-the-job injury. That diagnosis alone is proof of the abuse. But management ignored the diagnosis and refused to do anything about the abusive co-worker. Management refused to protect me from additional injury. Management refused to facilitate a resolution to the problem. Management refused to address and put a stop to the abusive behavior of the co-worker. Management refused to offer me any treatment for the injury and management intentionally interfered when I sought treatment at St. Alphonsus and elsewhere for myself.
The lack of accountability from management and the ongoing retaliation is proof that the problem of bullying in the workplace at St. Alphonsus continues to be unaddressed and a threat to the health and safety of people in this region.
In your most recent comment, Bill, from Oct. 8, 2014, you admitted that I went to Dwello numerous times to report the problem. Why did I have to report it more than once? There is no excuse for not addressing the problem the first time it was reported. I'm sure the previous Resp. Care Dept. Manager, Connie Leavitt, would never have let one person in her department harass and bully another in the same department for months and years, as Dwello did.
We need to have a meeting and get together and discuss what happened and what can be done to prevent a reoccurrence of this bullying ordeal. Management must come to me and offer to be accountable for what happened. Those things that can be changed must be changed. That would include the phony psych record which you admitted was falsified, Bill. Why is St. Als and Trinity Health content with having falsified documents in their possession? It also includes my incomplete and falsified personnel record, the phony disciplinary records created by Wedman and Dwello, plus other actions that need to be discussed and addressed.
I was an outstanding employee at St. Alphonsus for 30 years and I deserve to have correct documentation in my records. Those falsified documents can be used against me at any time so they represent an ongoing threat to my health, career, and to my family.
In your comments, Bill, you repeatedly confirm the truth of what I have reported and also further incriminate St. Als and Trinity Health with your attempts to trivialize the bullying problem and dismiss my reports and concerns. In other words, Bill, although you seem not to be aware of it, you keep putting your foot in your mouth. I will demonstrate how in future comments.
However I do appreciate your honesty in referring to this as an "ordeal." Such honesty from management at St. Alphonosus and Trinity Health is as rare as a Bachman's Warbler.
Recently I read the article "A Cause of Failure in Addressing Workplace Bullying: Trauma and the Employee" by Ruth McKay and Jae Fratzl from the International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol 2, No. 7, Apr., 2011. It can be found on the internet and is app. 9 pages. It contains some worthwhile quotes.
The article says: "The event can be considered less important than the person's perception of the event as each person is impacted differently by life experiences." I think this is quite true and it also affirms what I have been saying and what management at Als and Trinity Health keep disputing. That what matters in workplace bullying is what the target is reporting. Obvious the bully should have no credibility. If you want to know what happened in a rape case you don't ask the rapist, you ask the victim. If you want find out what happened to a tortured prisoner of war, you don't ask those who did the torturing, you ask the prisoner.
The person causing the problem is not going to be a reliable source of information. Also the opinion of managers is irrelevant. This article reports; "Well-intentioned managers can cause more harm than good. Not only does the manager have previously formulated opinions about the employees but also 'managers may not be able to recognize the types of behavior that need a more formal approach' versus those that do not. Workplace bullying may be perceived as just a personality conflict or a case of poor communication skills that further exacerbates the problem"
That is written Bill in response to your ill-informed and repeated attempts to trivialize the problem as in your most recent comment from Oct 8, 2014 using terms such as "over dramatized," "little tactics," and mocking my treacherous situation. I reported that I felt "my life was in danger" because as the following quotes confirm, it was.
"For some the impact of workplace bullying is severe and debilitating".... "It (workplace bullying) may also be life-threatening." NOTE BILL, THAT THE LITERATURE ON WORKPLACE BULLYING SAYS THAT BEING BULLIED IN THE WORKPLACE IS LIFE-THREATENING, exactly what I reported to Dwello. That was NOT over dramatized. That was the state of the toxic workplace I was forced to occupy. As long as you and management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health continue to deny that, you are lying, and you know that you are lying. The quote goes on to say that: "For some the impact on the employee of the bullying and the potential to lose a job in a manner that may make finding another job very difficult, can threaten the employee's security. Extreme cases of workplace bullying...have resulted in large payments to the victims in recognition that the employee will likely never be able to work again due to the impact of the workplace bullying on their state of being. This indicates how traumatizing and LIFE THREATENING workplace bullying can be."
My reports were accurate. Management's responses were foolish, irresponsible, ignorant, and contributed to the problem. Management, including Dwello, Wedman, and Gibson showed no empathy, compassion, or concern for a long-term highly-productive employee who was being injured on the job by a co-worker. The same people showed no concern for the patients whose care was obviously being compromised. Some of those responses, especially from D. Wedman, were intentionally malicious, like when he threatened to terminate me for reminding him of the PTSD injury, when he ordered me to lie about the injury, and when Wedman, in front of Linch, the bully, told me I would be fired if I reported any more problems with her behavior to him or Dwello, thereby giving her official permission to continue bullying me. However simply refusing to stop the bullying made Dwello, Wedman, and management accomplices to the bullying.
And St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health are supposed to be "Christian" organizations?
Recently I read the article "A Cause of Failure in Addressing Workplace Bullying: Trauma and the Employee" by Ruth McKay and Jae Fratzl from the International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol 2, No. 7, Apr., 2011. It can be found on the internet and is app. 9 pages. It contains some worthwhile quotes.
The article says: "The event can be considered less important than the person's perception of the event as each person is impacted differently by life experiences." I think this is quite true and it also affirms what I have been saying and what management at Als and Trinity Health keep disputing. That what matters in workplace bullying is what the target is reporting. Obvious the bully should have no credibility. If you want to know what happened in a rape case you don't ask the rapist, you ask the victim. If you want find out what happened to a tortured prisoner of war, you don't ask those who did the torturing, you ask the prisoner.
The person causing the problem is not going to be a reliable source of information. Also the opinion of managers is irrelevant. This article reports; "Well-intentioned managers can cause more harm than good. Not only does the manager have previously formulated opinions about the employees but also 'managers may not be able to recognize the types of behavior that need a more formal approach' versus those that do not. Workplace bullying may be perceived as just a personality conflict or a case of poor communication skills that further exacerbates the problem"
That is written Bill in response to your ill-informed and repeated attempts to trivialize the problem as in your most recent comment from Oct 8, 2014 using terms such as "over dramatized," "little tactics," and mocking my treacherous situation. I reported that I felt "my life was in danger" because as the following quotes confirm, it was.
"For some the impact of workplace bullying is severe and debilitating".... "It (workplace bullying) may also be life-threatening." NOTE BILL, THAT THE LITERATURE ON WORKPLACE BULLYING SAYS THAT BEING BULLIED IN THE WORKPLACE IS LIFE-THREATENING, exactly what I reported to Dwello. That was NOT over dramatized. That was the state of the toxic workplace I was forced to occupy. As long as you and management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health continue to deny that, you are lying, and you know that you are lying. The quote goes on to say that: "For some the impact on the employee of the bullying and the potential to lose a job in a manner that may make finding another job very difficult, can threaten the employee's security. Extreme cases of workplace bullying...have resulted in large payments to the victims in recognition that the employee will likely never be able to work again due to the impact of the workplace bullying on their state of being. This indicates how traumatizing and LIFE THREATENING workplace bullying can be."
My reports were accurate. Management's responses were foolish, irresponsible, ignorant, and contributed to the problem. Management, including Dwello, Wedman, and Gibson showed no empathy, compassion, or concern for a long-term highly-productive employee who was being injured on the job by a co-worker. The same people showed no concern for the patients whose care was obviously being compromised. Some of those responses, especially from D. Wedman, were intentionally malicious, like when he threatened to terminate me for reminding him of the PTSD injury, when he ordered me to lie about the injury, and when Wedman, in front of Linch, the bully, told me I would be fired if I reported any more problems with her behavior to him or Dwello, thereby giving her official permission to continue bullying me. However simply refusing to stop the bullying made Dwello, Wedman, and management accomplices to the bullying.
And St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health are supposed to be "Christian" organizations?
(Continuing) Let's look at some more crucial information from this article. In your 10/8/14 comment which I tried 5 times to "publish" on my blog without success, you wrote, "You both needed to move on from this like adults." The article by McKay and Fratzl says: "Recent advances in imaging such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (Haas-Cohen, Carr, 2008) have shed light on what occurs in the brain during and after traumatic incidents. It suggests that the idea of 'Just get over it' is useless."
From another source, Chapter 4, "Stress Versus Traumatic Stress: From Acute Homeostatic Reactions to Chronic Psychopathology", by Arieh Y. Shaley, from the book "Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, edited by van der Kolk, McFarlane, and Weisaeth, is the following: "The resistance of PTSD to most treatment modalities likewise suggest that the disorder is most often immutable and resistant to change. Theory also predicts that neurobiological scars of psychic trauma create irreversible changes in the brain structure. PTSD symptoms, therefore, may reflect different underlying processes at different stages of the disorder. Future research should focus on the ways in which stress responses are indelibly transformed and BECOME A PERMANENTLY DISABLING DISORDER" (Page 95).
PTSD is a permanent injury that has the potential of lasting disability. Psychiatric injuries can be just as disabling as physical injuries. A PTSD injury can disable someone as effectively as a severed spinal cord. Telling someone suffering from PTSD caused by workplace bullying, who is still being injured on the job by the bully, to "just move on like adults" is rude, medically inappropriate, and malpractice. It's like mocking a quadriplegic for not being able to walk after he suffered a spinal cord injury. And Dwello and Wedman were telling me this when they knew I was being injured on the job by an abusive co-worker, while at the same they were refusing to do anything about Linch's destructive bullying.
This kind of gross misbehavior by management at St. Alphonsus reflects an abysmal lack of current medical knowledge. The most recent article I just quoted from was published in 1996. The McKay article was published in 2011. This is not cutting edge medical news. We've known it for years, even decades. Why is management at St. Alphonsus, Trinity Health, and you, Bill so far behind in current medical knowledge that you are making fun of people suffering from PTSD and condoning and supporting the further injuring of people with workplace bullying?
The McKay article also reports: "A study by Leymann and Gustafsson (1996) evaluated the symptoms of 64 patients subject to workplace bullying. The diagnosis showed a severe degree of PTSD FULLY COMPARABLE WITH PTSD FROM WAR OR PRISON CAMP EXPERIENCES."
Being bullied in the workplace at St. Alphosnsus was like trying to survive in a war zone, at least as far as the psychiatric injuries sustained are concerned. That, Bill, cannot be "over dramatized." It can only be under-emphatized or trivialized as you and management are, in a very dishonest and un-professional manner, trying to do. When are you and management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health going to start telling the truth and respond appropriately, first by apologizing for the trauma and injuries I suffered, then by keeping the promises you made, then by offering to, as much as possible, correct the intentional mistakes made, then by offering to be accountable for the harm you did? Only after that will you be able to change the culture at St. Alphonsus from toxic to healthy. Perhaps an equally important question to ask is this: when will management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health start to follow their own standards as well as enforce them for all employees? That would be a big change for the better also.
Leonard, we are not behind the research or times about PTSD. When you look at Micron or St. Lukes, or any other big company.They don't list PSTD as on the call injuries. Why is that Leonard? Sounds like your words and claims are without marit. Kelly Dwello was hoping this problem would fix itself, or just go away on its own. Obviously that didn't happen, because you and Linch made this ordeal personal.
Bill;
I don't know what you mean by "on the call injuries." Whether or not Micron, St. Luke's, Trinity Health, or St. Alphonsus "recognizes" PTSD as an on-the-job injury is irrelevant, and just a statement of how far behind the times they are.
The military didn't used to recognize PTSD either. That doesn't mean that soldiers weren't suffering from it. In fact soldiers suffering from "shell shock" as PTSD used to be called, were, decades ago, retaliated against for having that injury and reporting it, in much the same way that I was and am still being retaliated against by St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health for reporting the abuse and PTSD injury.
Don't forget that a St. Alphonsus professional counselor, Paula Brown, was the first person to diagnose the symptoms of PTSD I was suffering from as a result of being targeted by a bully. If St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health refuse to recognize PTSD as a legitimate diagnosis requiring prompt treatment, that makes it impossible for them to be able to provide adequate care for millions of Amercians including war veterans, rape and sexual or physical abuse victims, as well as bullying victims.
That puts you far behind the "research and times about PTSD," at least several decades behind the cutting edge of current care in this health category.
When an employee targets another with bullying and psychological abuse, trying to get that person fired or force him to resign, it's personal from the moment the abuse begins. It does not "wait" until later to become personal. As the literature on workplace bullying repeatedly confirms the target is innocent and not responsible for the abuse. When management just sits back and allows the abuse to continue to the point where the target is injured with PTSD, as St. Alphonsus management did, then the employer is not only responsible for the problem, but also responsible for the therapy needed to treat the victim. Failure to provide that care is unethical, irresponsible, and malacious.
Even worst is retaliating against the target who reports the abuse and injury as management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health did to me, and are still doing with repeated threats of arrest for trespassing and phony trespassing charges. The retaliation is including in retaining documents that were falsified by management at St. Alphonsus in an attempt to justify their ongoing retaliation.
When he started working at St. Als, Dwello seemed to be an intelligent and competent leader. I found and continue to find it amazing and appaling that a diagnosis of PTSD for one of his employees, caused by the abuse of a co-worker in the same department, was not recognized by him as a very serious emergency requiring immediate attention starting with protecting the injured employee from additional injury, and then providing the injured person with a guaranteed safe working environment, relative to the occupation, as well as treatment for the injury. The proper response never occured.
Bill;
A bullying problem will not "just go away on its own." The reason the problem was not resolved is because management refused to do anything about it, and actually encouraged the bully to continue bullying me.
I went to management numerous times requesting help. I went to Kelly requesting help either in person or by e-mail at least a dozen, possibly 2 dozen times. I went to Wedman also, a couple times in person and more by e-mail; I went to Susan Gibson also requesting help.
I never received any help from anyone in management. There was never any appreciable or lasting change in Linch's behavior toward me, the only criteria determining whether on not the problem had been responsibly addressed by management.
Kelly refused to do anything as you just admitted in your comment. Before I ever met with him to report the problem, Wedman apparently decided that he didn't want to respond approprately and responsibly, and indicated in an e-mail to me that he wasn't interested in hearing about it. Later, with Linch present, he encouraged her to continue bullying me, by angerly telling me I would be fired if I reported any more bullying from Linch to him or Dwello. I don't know if his encouragment of Linch's bullying was intentional or unintentional but the end results were the same.
Gibson seemed incapable of doing anyone. She violated the chain of command and destroyed any hope I had for a solution by dumping the problem back on Wedman and Dwello, two people who had already proven that they were either incapable or unwilling to address the problem.
The reason the problem didn't "fix itself" or just go away is entirely because management refused to do anything about it. They refused to address a serious case of bullying in the workplace, which as documented in the literature severely cuts productivity and can cause permanent disability and injury.
Until it happened to me I would not have believed that management at St. Alphonsus could act so irresponsibly and incompetently.
Note that third to last paragraph should start with the sentence: "Gibson seemed incapable of doing anything," not anyone.
I hope you had a good Thanksgiving Leonard. You must be reasonable Leonard. You did admit to using up all your alotted time at EAP. So why is it not okey for HR to set a time limit when they have meeting? If we didn't, we would have to hire like four Dennis Wedman's to grand everyone's requests.
No, Bill. All St. Alphonsus management needs is one person who does his job responsibly; who is willing to listen when an employee has to report a problem; one person who listens when an employee is being injured on the job by an abusive co-worker. One person who follows the Customer Service Standards, the Basic Conditions of Employment, the Mission Statement, and the Trinity Health Standards of Conduct in his interactions and communications with other employees. One person who keeps the promises he makes and who does not respond to an employee reporting a problem by retaliating against that employee.
All HR and management needs is one person who is knowledgable about bullying in the workplace and recognizes it as the threatening behavior that it is; and realizes that unaddressed workplace bullying not only severely cuts productivity, but also results in people being seriously injured, injuries that sometimes result in permanent disability. In my experience it is clear as well as unfortunate and dangerous to everyone in this region that neither St. Alphonsus nor Trinity Health employs anyone in management who is qualified, willing, or capable of addressing the problem of workplace bullying.
I witnessed the HR manager actually encouraging the bully to continue bullying and harassing me! That occurred ten months AFTER it was documented by a St. Als professional that I was being seriously injured on the job by the bully, an injury that had the potential of being permanently disabling. Because of that it is imperative that I continue to publicize that problem of workplace bullying at St. Als and Trinity Health
The only request I was making was the request for a safe working environment free from harassment and bullying directed at me by a co-worker. That was a perfectly reasonable request to make and I should have had to make it only once. There was no reason for me to have to meet with the Resp. Care Dept. manager more than once, and no reason for me to ever have to meet with HR or senior management.....if management had done their job. The only reasons for multiple meetings was the complete failure of management to listen to and promptly respond to a serious safety issue in the workplace.
There is no evidence that management ever addressed the bully's behavior with her since there was never any lasting or appreciable change in her harassment toward me. When I left St. Als in Aug. 2006, seriously injured and partially disabled, her bullying toward me was just as bad that last month as it had been in Jan. 2004 when the problem started. In fact it was worst.
There was nothing unreasonable about my request for a safe working environment. However it is very unreasonable as well as extremely dangerous for all employees and customers when management knowingly does nothing while one employee is being targeted and seriously injured by a co-worker. That would be a serious dereliction of duty at General Electric, Toyota, or any place on Wall St. But when it happens in a health care facility it's even worse, because health care facilities are supposed to be experts at detecting and addressing threats to human health and safety.
At the responsibility of providing a safe and healthy workplace for their employees, free from bullying, management at St. Alphonsus has been an abysmal failure. You admitted that failure earlier when you wrote that the dept. manager was waiting for the problem to "fix itself our just go away on its own," and a senior manager also admitted it when she thanked me for the information about bullying I sent indicating that it was new information for her. St. Als will be unable to address the problem of bullying in the future unless they are willing to admit and be accountable for past failures. Unfortunately their egos and lack of concern for the health of the people in this region prevents them from doing that.
Have a nice Christmas.
Bill. I want to respond to a couple comments you made earlier.
On Aug. 21, 2014 you wrote and this is an exact quote;
"Dwello emailed Wedman telling him that you liked to Ramble on and on. There Leonard, thats why he didn't listen to you entirely. That you talk in circles and start from the beginning again. Kelly claimed you did that to him too."
Then on August 28, 2014 I responded with the following quote:
"Bill, you wrote that Kelly told you I tended to "ramble" which is talk or write for a long time, perhaps somewhat aimlessly, and also "talk in circles," which probably has a similar meaning as aimlessly. Is that correct?" (and then I asked the following question, which I did deliberately). "Does that mean that the person who bullied me was always concise, composed, calm, unemotional, etc. when she talked to Kelly?"
You responded on Oct 1, 2014 with the following, also an exact quote:
"Yes Linch was calm and composed when she talked with Dwello." After writing that you went on to emphasize that I "overdramatized" the conflict. Also that I repeated what had happened to me by starting "from the beginning EACH TIME."
I would like to respond to those comments since they, like some other comments you made supports my reports of being bullied and seriously injured on the job at St. Alphonsus.
The following is from the www.bullyonline.org web site: I have edited it for space limitations.
"BULLYING IS: "constant criticism, nit-picking, fault-finding, undermining, isolation, exclusion, being singled out, marginalized, hypocrisy, duplicity, fabrication, distortion, twisting everything you say and do, abuse of disciplinary procedures, imposition of verbal/written warning for trivial reasons, etc. (All of these happened to me at St. Als, some from the bully, some from management, and some from both bully and management.)
BULLYING CAUSES: stress, anxiety, sleeplessness, waking early, fatigue, trauma, tearfulness, irritability, anger, headaches, frequent illness, poor concentration, palpitations, panic attacks, obsessiveness, fear, embarrassment, shame, hyper vigilance (feels like but is not paranoia), hypersensitivity, fragility, isolation, reactive depression, shattered self-confidence, etc. (I experienced all of these as a direct result of being bullied at St. Alphonsus and still have to cope with some of them on a daily basis today, more than ten years after the bullying started and was reported to management).
THE SERIAL BULLY: Jekyll and Hyde nature, control freak, compulsive liar, charming, verbally facile, selective memory, devious, manipulative, evasive, spiteful, vengeful, arrogant, fraudulent, doesn't listen, can't sustain adult conversation, denies everything, lacks conscience, shows no remorse, is drawn to power, also cold, humorless, aggressive, disruptive, divisive, selfish, glib, insensitive, insincere, immature - BUT ALWAYS PLAUSIBLE. (I think you know who that describes).
From "Bully in Sight" by Tim Field from the chapter on Symptoms and Effects of bullying starting on page 122 is the following from under the heading "The symptoms which are seen most often include: "an overwhelming urge to talk about what's going on.."
Marie-France Hirigoyen in"Stalking the Soul" reinforces that on page 96 where she writes: "When confronted with a refusal of direct verbal communication, it is not unusual for the victim to try written communication." and again on page 142: "Victims can't tolerate misunderstandings and awkwardnesses, which they try to clear up. When difficulties pile up, they increase their efforts, feel overtaken by events..work harder and harder, get exhausted, become less efficient..."
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Hirigoyen also writes; "Emotional abuse in the workplace goes through different stages, all of which have the refusal to communicate as a common theme." page 62. "Withdrawal from discussion is an effective means of aggravating the conflict while simultaneously gaining influence" also page 62. And from the same author "Abuse is perpetuated by the refusal to acknowledge what is happening, discuss the situation, or jointly find solutions." "An effective way of aggravating the conflict is avoiding dialogue, which silently imputes blame on the other person. The victim is refused the right to be heard." page 96.
All of these quotes Bill accurately describe what happened to me and also describe the behavior of the bully. Management supported her refusal to communicate and is so doing management and the bully jointly aggravated the abuse and increased the injury to me.
In "Bully in Sight" under chapter 4 on The Bully are listed the following; Unwillingness to cooperate, communicate, and apologize, as Bully characteristics. (page 54).
As you can see my behavior in trying desperately to resolve the problem and get help and Linch's behavior in refusing to cooperate and communicate so we could resolve the problem makes it clear who was responsible for the bullying and who was targeted by the bully.
David Kinchin in "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" writes in addressing the symptoms of PTSD on page 112, "The long term solution is to "talk it out," and become so at ease with discussing the trauma that the chemical messages of panic are no longer triggered." If you don't want victims of bullying at Trinity Health facilities requesting multiple meetings with management and counselors then you better address the problem promptly before anyone is injured and suffering from PTSD. Retaliating against or trying to silence the target or victim of bullying as management at St. Alphonsus did to me is also not an option for responsible and caring managers.
There are some inconsistencies in some of your writtings Loenard. In your most recent comments. You wrote that the last month you and Linch worked together (Aug'06). Her bullying was as bad as in (jan 04) when you first reported it. But in some of your others writting I've read. You claimed that the last few month, you and Linch worked together. Her bullying had eased and was more " covert". See Leonard, something was done and you admitted it.
Bill. I wrote that Linch's bullying was more covert, but more covert does not mean less insidious, less malicious, or less frequent; just less visible. And of course it was less visible to others, not to me as the target of the abuse.
If something was done, Bill, what was it? Do you have a response to any item on this list?
1. There was no appreciable or lasting change in Linch's behavior toward me.
2. Nothing was done to protect me from injury, disability, or job loss.
3. I was still scheduled to work and interact with the bully for the duration of my time at St. ALs, even after it was determined that by doing so, I was being seriously injured.
4. I was never offered any treatment for the PTSD injury.
5. When I sought treatment, management interfered with and blocked my attempts.
6. Management responded to my reports of being bullied and injured, and my requests for help, with silence, threats of termination, and by mocking me and making fun of me.
7. Even though they (Dwello, Wedman, Gibson) knew that I was being injured on the job, NONE of them EVER contacted me to see if the problem had been resolved, to see if the bullying had ended, to see if I was getting the treatment I needed for the PTSD injury, or to offer any assistance.
8. To this day management (especially Dwello, Wedman, GIbson, you, and anyone else who want to participate) and Linch refuse to listen to me, to have a conversation about what happened, to offer to be accountable, or to take the necessary steps to correct, as much as possible, what happened.
9. Management still is comfortable with having falsified documents (and you admitted this, Bill) about me in their possession, information that could be used against me in the future.
10. I guess you could say that I was "Linched."
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Bill, it does't really matter if there are so-called "inconsistencies" in my writings. It's clear that you have to strain to find one and twist what I said to call it an "inconsistency."
What matters is that at St. Alphonsus in 2004 one employee in the Resp. Care Dept. (for reasons not entirely clear) decided to target another employee with bullying and harassment, trying to get him fired or forced to resign. After a year of that bullying, (and more than six months of inaction by management) the targeted employee was diagnosed, as a direct result of the bullying, by St. Alphonsus with symptoms of PTSD, a potentially disabling psychiatric injury. And all this time patient care was being compromised by the bully.
I was the targeted and injured employee and I reported the PTSD to management in Jan. of 2005. Still nothing was done. Now you, Bill, tell me that Dwello and Wedman were just waiting to see if the problem would resolve itself! That confirms what was obvious to me at the time; that nothing was being done even though an employee was facing a permanently disabling injury! Can't you be honest and acknowledge how irresponsible management behaved in light of the documented injury and the literature on workplace bullying which proves how extremely harmful it is, and how it drastically reduces productivity?
If there was a fire in a building, would you simply sit back and wait to see if it resolves itself? The literature on workplace bullying repeatedly confirms that bullying is very destructive, yes, a life-threatening behavior in the workplace, much like a fire.
I find it difficult to believe that everyone in management at St. Als and Trinity Health really think that they made no mistakes in dealing with this bullying problem. Isn't it an awful burden for you, Dwello, Wedman, Gibson, and others to continually pretend that you never make mistakes, when the only people you are deceiving are yourselves?
I understand that you and others probably wish this problem would go away. I certainly do too, but that won't happen as long as St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health refuse to be accountable, not only for an employee who was injured on the job there, but who management knew was being injured while it was happening, and did not nothing about it - and since then has been retaliating against that employee for doing exactly what he was required to do by St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health standards, and required by any sense of responsibility to the community; and that is report the problem to reduce the chances of others being injured.
After you were accused of paying all much attention to Linch, and waiting to walk her to her car. You brought evidence to Dwello and Wedman to dispute her claims. Wedman noted you claimed to ride the bus to and from work each day. Also that you frequently went to the library after your shift. It was noted by Dwello that the " April incident", when you came to work on your day off. To do some extra charting and talk with the other lead John. You choose to hang out in the department where you knew at some point Linch would be. You could have easily gone to the library to do that. Also, you could have taken other measures like asking john to talk with you on the phone or by email. You simple said those things to cover your tracks.Later after sending out your report to cowrkers, management was able to obtain a copy of that 50 page report.(From a person in your dept.) In that report you side stepped to talking about riding the bus to and from work. Instead you claimed to have gave Linch a ride to the airport and to her house. So your explanation about that April incident seemed less credible to Wedman and Dwello. Evan before your last report came out, because of what Linch had to say was more probable. You later confirmed it by your own contradictions. Evan on this block (near the botton). You claimed that it doesn't matter if you have contradicted yourself Leonard, and in your own writtings. But it does matter Leonard.
Thank you for your response, Bill. Let me clarify a few things from your last comment.
I didn't say I took the bus to and from work every day. I used the bus regularly, but it was probably an average of once a week. Some background information might be helpful. Linch and I both worked 3 12-hour shifts a week. We worked the 7 pm to 7 am shift. Sometimes our schedules overlapped on all three shifts, sometimes we worked together on only one shift a week. The average was probably two, meaning that we worked together no more than 9 or 10 shifts a month.
That's one reason why it would have been easy to solve this problem. There are seven days in a week. Linch and I worked three each. It would have been easy to schedule so our paths didn't cross at any time during the week. If fact management was obligated to do that after it was determined that I was being seriously injured by working with Linch. Changing the work schedule was the only logical solution short of terminating her. I wasn't trying to get her fired, but there is no doubt that she was trying to get me fired. I know that she didn't want to be scheduled for shifts when I wasn't working, just like she didn't want to go to the day shift (more on that later).
I went to the medical library after work at least once a week. The library opened at 7:00 am. I regularly read several publications there including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which is a weekly, the Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine, which our medical director, Dr. Crowley, said is the best, and occasionally read some others also. If I spent much time there at all it was 8:00 am or later when I returned to the department to get my backpack, coat, etc to go home.
Once I asked Linch why she was accusing me of waiting to walk her to her car after work when I had never considered doing that. Her reply was, "Because you're still here at eight o'clock when I 'm getting ready to leave." Sure I was there because I had just returned from the library, as I had been doing at St. Alphonsus ever since the library opened which I would estimate was about 1980, give or take a year or two. My presence there at that time of the day in 2004-2006 had no more to do with Linch than it did in 1985 when she was ten years old.
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I told Dwello and Wedman about my regular visits to the library and then, months later, checked with the librarians to see if either man had consulted with them to confirm my reports. The said no one had, so I felt that Wedman and Dwello had simply rejected my reports without even checking to see if they were true. That was a significant depressing step in the ongoing alienation and lack of support from management that I experienced. However the literature on workplace bullying consistently reports that management and human resources, more often than not, support the bully.
Sometimes it took until 8:00 am for me to finish up the work I was doing, complete my charting, and give report to the next shift. When I was there at 8:00 am or later it wasn't always because I went to the library. At least as often it was because of the work load. The work load was such that it was unusual to be be able to leave at the earliest time possible.
Concerning the "April incident;" I had a patient who had angerly insisted on using his own CPAP machine that he brought from home, which was not permitted, instead of one provided by the medical center. Kelly told me that I needed to fill out an incident or occurrence report on that event. I went to the medical center to do that on a night when I was not scheduled to work, and also intended to use that opportunity to talk to John, the other night shift supervisor, which I tried to do every month or so, just to keep in touch with him about work. I had to make an extra trip there on my night off because it was the beginning of four days off and I wanted to do it before the patient went home and his medical record was not as easily accessible. The only unusual aspect of this was the uncooperative patient.
I think I probably completed the report in the Resp. Care Dept. but I did not "hang out" there, as you put it. I didn't know that Linch was working that night. I knew my own work schedule, but I have never in my career made it a practice to memorize the work schedules of my co-workers. This was in the morning, probably at one or two am so the library was not open at that time, and even if it had been, I don't think an employee could access a patient's chart from there. At least I never did.
I called John from the department to find out where he was and he was in ICU. So I went there to talk to him, and Linch was there also, with a few other people, nurses and/or respiratory therapists. I said hi to her as I walked by, but did not stop and talk to her. I talked to John for a short while, no more than fifteen minutes, then went home.
Later Kelly called me into his office and said that Linch was threatening a lawsuit against St. Als because of me, apparently because I was being responsible, and committed to Als by getting mandatory charting done on my own time. He cautioned me, but I really had no idea what he was talking about, or what I could have done differently. In going there to complete that paper work I was following a direct order from him. I didn't do anything wrong. At the time this happened, I had 27 consecutive years of outstanding performance plans for my work at St. Alphonsus. Not just satisfactory, but much better than satisfactory. Why should I start doing things differently?
I am constantly fearful for the safety of my former co-workers and others at St. Alphonsus, because I know if HR and management will not respond to, protect, or assist a 27-year outstanding employee who is being injured by an abusive co-worker and requesting help, it's unlikely anyone requesting help for any reason will get it.
Kelly should have told Linch that I was doing exactly what he told me to do, but it is my impression that management consistently, not just tolerated, but actually supported and encouraged the bully.
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I didn't do this communication by e-mail or phone for the same reason that I don't do that now at work. Now in my job, if I have to contact a physician who is in the medical center, unless it's an emergency or I'm very busy, I always communicate with them in person. Sometimes that means walking to another floor, unit, or building. One can learn a lot more face to face than through electronic media. The face to face contact is a much more personal and caring way to communicate. If I need to talk to a patient to find out what kind and size of mask he needs for his CPAP machine tonight, I never call the phone in his room. That seems rude and inconsiderate. I go to see him. The face to face contact is needed to better communicate caring, empathy, and understanding. The same is true of communication between health care professionals in the workplace. It also helps to build or maintain strong positive working relationships.
My reports about being bullied in the workplace at St. Alphonsus are the same as they were when I initially reported it or warned others. I haven't said anything to "cover my tracks," as you put it. That's another false accusation. And, Bill, you have yet to describe any contradictions in my writings. The previous "inconsistency" you mentioned concerning the work "covert" was not an inconsistency at all but simply your misunderstanding of the meaning of the word. If there are any inconsistencies or contradictions I would like to know what and where they are. I'm not the one trying to cover up or deceive others. I'm not now and never have tried to hide my identity from others. I've signed my real name to everything I've written. I've offered to talk to anyone, anytime, about anything I experienced or written. I've invited anyone who has a different account to tell their own version of the story. No one has. I've asked for an opportunity to discuss the problem with the other people involved, but that discussion has always been blocked by management. I've asked for more information about why I was bullied and why management didn't do anything about it, but all I've received was and is silence or false accusations. There has been no professional or responsible behavior or response from the bully or from management at St. Als regarding the abusive behavior I was targeted with there for 2 years and 8 months.
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I haven't given you or anyone else all the details about what happened. Initially I didn't because I felt that if I told Kelly all the details about how Linch was treating me she would be fired on the spot and I wasn't trying to get her fired. I was just trying to get the problem solved. So I just told him that we were having a communication problem. I don't regret acting to protect her job, even though if she had been terminated, I would still be working there. I'm not interested in being vindictive, but I am concerned about the lack of ethical behavior, accountability, and responsible actions by management at St. Alphonsus, which is ongoing; and also concerned about the bullying problem there which represents a public health and safety hazard to this whole region.
There are other inaccuracies in your latest comment. I sent copies of the longer report to management, including Sandra Bruce and Susan Gibson. They did not have to get one from someone in the Resp. Care Dept. I sent copies of the shorter report to each one of the 84 department managers. I was still looking for help. A couple department managers had been supportive so I was hopeful for some help from others. I knew that other employees were being bullied and felt that the department mangers needed to know about the bullying problem since they were in a position to possibly do something about it. The main reason for those reports was my concern for the safety of others, especially employees at St. Als.
I did not send one to Wedman. His responses to my previous requests for help were so vicious and threatening that I didn't dare send one directly to him. I was afraid of Wedman. His refusal to listen to me; his multiple threats to terminate me when I asked for help; his dishonesty in promising me that I would not have to work with Linch anymore and then breaking the promise in two months; the phony investigations he conducted; and his bellowing at me, face red as a beet, when ordering me to lie about the PTSD injury, made me think that he was a possible threat to my family as well as myself. I figured he would see it sooner or later, but I wanted others in management and other employees to see it first and have a chance to respond.
Of course my concern about Wedman was confirmed when he ripped what I wrote out of context in order to intentionally misrepresent what I was saying, so he could then retaliate against me and have me locked up in the psych hospital for six days and nights. Dr. Estess deserved to be terminated for what he did, but he was simply doing what Wedman and management wanted him to do.
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My concern about Wedman is also confirmed by the ongoing retaliation against me including phony trespassing charges and written threats.
Some of your comments, Bill, don't make sense. On the Thanksgiving weekend I picked Linch up at her home and took her to work, then to the airport so she could fly to CA for vacation. Her husband was already there, so she didn't have a ride to the airport. She had originally planned to take a taxi from St. Als to the airport and leave her vehicle in the medical center parking for a week. Not long before that there had been a notice for employees about parking, the details of which I don't recall, but it led me to believe that a vehicle left in the parking lot for some time would be ticketed and towed. So I offered to give her a ride to work and to the airport after work, which is what happened. That was 6 months before the so-called April incident, so I'm not sure why you're trying to connect them. That was before she started her bullying campaign. I don't see how that has anything to do with the April incident or how that could make the "April incident seem less credible to Wedman an Dwello," as you put it.
Sharing rides was not that unusual. On another occasion I took a co-worker and her two children to the airport one morning, picking them up at their home. For some time while employed at St. Als I frequently got a ride home with a co-worker who lived nearby, and sometimes gave rides to others.
Now back to the third paragraph where I mentioned that Linch did not want the schedule changed to working either shifts or days when I was not scheduled. I know she told Dwello that she didn't want to work with me anymore, or at least that's what Dwello told me. I told him that I didn't want to work with her anymore either. The difference was I meant it; she didn't. When Teresa made out the work schedules for our department she would first post a tentative schedule for a week or two before posting the finalized one. That would give dept. members time to check it and indicate on the schedule if they wanted any changes in their assigned work shifts. Frequently I would check it and breathe a sigh of relief to see that I was only scheduled to work with Linch a minimal number of shifts a month. A few days later I would check again only to find out that Linch had altered her tentative schedule, crossing out some of the nights scheduled to work when I was not scheduled, and assigning herself to nights when I was scheduled to work, making it clear that I would have no respite from her bullying.
It's possible that some of those changes were for reasons that didn't have anything to do with me, but this happened month after month, making it certainly seem that it was deliberate, so she could continue to bully me. Also there were numerous times when she would leave her work area and show up where I was working, often in another building or on another floor where she had no work assignment, and just hang out for a while. In 2004 I asked Dwello to change the work schedule so I didn't have to work with her anymore, but he didn't do it.
Her claims that she was trying to avoid me and didn't want to work with me anymore were not supported by her actions. When she was required to switch shifts, she angrily complained about it to others, so everyone knew it was not her idea, even though Dwello lied to me and said that she had volunteered to go to days.
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You commented about me being accused of paying too much attention to Linch. When she started bullying and blocking communication with me in 2004, naturally I became concerned about the care she was giving her assigned patients. Were they receiving the therapy ordered? Since she was not talking to me, in order to find out, I would have to go to see the patient, or the patient's nurse, and inquire of them.
That may have made it appear as if I was spending more time in her work area. But that was my job, and a crucial part of my job description. As shift supervisor I was responsible for patient care, and Linch's refusal to communicate with me, her refusal to answer phone calls and pages I sent, and her refusal to respond when I spoke to her about a change in a physician's order or some other aspects of patient care, certainly raised concerns about whether or not she was doing the work assigned to her.
None of the other therapists I supervised were blocking communication with me, so I didn't need to take those extra steps with them. Checking the charting would not have been helpful because half or more of the charting was not done until the end of the shift, and if a patient had been ordered on therapy every 2 or 4 hours, waiting until the end of the shift to check and see if the work was done would have been too late for the patient.
As shift supervisor I also had a responsibility to try to resolve the problem since Linch was jeopardizing patient care every shift we worked together. I asked for help from management but didn't receive any. I asked for a mediated resolution process to try to end the communication blockage, but management refused and allowed Linch to continue to block communication with me. So Linch's threat to patient care was supported and encouraged by Dwello and management. I was left to try to resolve the problem by myself with no help from management. I made countless efforts to try to communicate with Linch. All of them failed.
It certainly may have appeared that I was spending more time and attention focused on her behavior, but that was my responsibility and a part of my job description. It was also a direct result of her bullying and harassment. When I called her requesting information I needed to do my job and she refused to tell me, I would have to call her again later in the shift. She was not trying to avoid me because her actions made it necessary for me to try to contact her more often and spend more time in her work area. All the alternatives I sought were denied including any help from management.
During that time we as supervisor throughout the medical center were being instructed to do more "rounding," that is going around to check on the people we supervised multiple times throughout the shift, seeing how they were doing, seeing if they needed assistance, and being supportive.
I soon realized that rounding created some problems for me when I was working with Linch, since she would use any such actions by me to accuse me of paying too much attention to her. I mentioned to Kelly that I wasn't sure I would be able to do much rounding when working with Linch. I said it specifically hoping he would excuse me from those contacts with Linch, but he did not. So that, combined with her ongoing threat to patient care, meant that I didn't have the option of not spending time in her work area. Let me repeat again I frequently requested help from management, but DID NOT RECEIVE ANY.
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I think I know one of the answers to the question about why I received no help from management even after multiple requests and a diagnosis of a potentially disabling on the job injury. When Sandra Bruce became the CEO the emphasis at St. Alphonsus changed from caring for patient to making money. It was fairly obvious. I believe Dwello was hired to replace Leavitt as department manger because upper level management wanted more profits. He was not hired for his ability to resolve problems within the department and perhaps, (not necessary his fault) did not have the training, skills, or experience to recognize or cope with a bullying problem, which he admitted to me once. He was visibly uncomfortable talking about it, an observation noted by the EAP counselor. That's probably one reason why he didn't do anything. He didn't know what to do.
On the other hand Wedman responded with a kill-the-messenger response, probably his typical response to the kind of report and request for help I made. He clearly was not able or willing to recognize and identify a bullying problem, and it was obvious that he didn't care. He only wanted me to be quiet, and he used the phony discipline reports plus multiple threats to try to silence me. The fact that I refused to be silent about his unethical behavior toward me explains his ongoing retaliation against me, the latest of which was a letter I received a couple days ago threatening me with arrest if I go on St. Als property. This is one of several I've received. The letters are very unprofessionally done. They refer to the date on the letter when the letter is not dated at all!
Kelly Dwello told me a couple times to just let someone else supervise when Linch was working, so I would not have to communicate with her as much. Asking someone to change their job description to avoid being injured on the job is inappropriate. It's just one way of blaming the victim and refusing to address the problem. It does nothing to stop the violence of bullying in the workplace.
One more comment about Wedman. In the Oct. 2005 meeting attended by Linch, Wedman, Dwello, and myself (when I was told ahead of time by Wedman that I would not be allowed to speak), Wedman said, and this is an exact quote, "There was no report of any unwanted physical contact..." (between Linch and myself). I think that's a very revealing comment on how Wedman operates. He NEVER asked me if there was any unwanted physical contact between Linch and myself. If he asked Linch that question then he was deliberately conducting an unbalanced investigation. He was making extra and additional efforts to try to find something to use against me. If he asked Linch that question and didn't ask me, then he had decided, before investigating anything, that I was to blame for the problem; he decided that I was at fault before giving me a chance to defend myself (which he never did).
This is typical of the dishonest and unethical way that HR at St. Alphonsus works. It's one of the main reasons that employees there get no help when they go to HR or upper level management to report a bullying problem. There is no support or commitment for employees to be found anywhere in HR or upper level management. Your continual refusal, Bill, to acknowledger the harm that was done and your refusal to be accountable, as well as your continual manipulation of what I wrote to try to blame me for being the target of a bully follows the same unethical and unprofessional behavior.
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You have yet to demonstrate or accurately report any contradictions in my writings, Bill. If there are any I would like to know what and where.
And in fact it doesn't really matter. The heart of the matter and the problem, as you know, is that an employee in the Respiratory Care Department at St. Alphonsus was being seriously injured and disabled on the job by chronic abuse from a co-worker in the same department. The abuse continued for two years and eight months, and for most of that time management knew it was going on; management knew an employee was being seriously injured; management knew the injury had the potential of being permanent disabling; and management knew that patient care was being jeopardized.
Yet management did nothing to successfully address the problem, nothing to stop the abuse, and never acted to protect the injured employee from additional injury. They also never offered the injured employee treatment for the injury that was first diagnosed by their own professionals. No one in management ever contacted the injured employee to see if the problem had been resolved and the toxic nature of the workplace (poisoned by the bullying) had been changed into a safe workplace. Management never helpfully responded to more than two dozen reports of the injury and even more requests for help from the injured employee. Management actually supported the abusive bully, encouraged her, and gave her official permission to continue her abuse. After she succeeded in driving the injured employee, with 30 years of outstanding service at St. Alphonsus, out of the workplace, the abusive employee received a significant promotion, as did the department manager, who (according to you, Bill) did nothing about the problem but just sat back and waited for it to resolve itself. Management also made fun of the injured victim by claiming that his injury was "petty" and "no issue."
If the problem had been addressed when it was first reported there would not have been any seriously injured employee. There would be no writings and reports of the abuse I experienced and had to deal with at St. Als. There would be no ongoing retaliating against me for reporting the bullying. We wouldn't be having this conversation, Bill. I would still be working there and not having to cope with the disability and injury caused by the bullying; and Rhoda Linch, (if she hasn't discontinued her bullying ) would be doing it somewhere else.
(The last few lines of your comment, Bill, are not clear. What was it Linch said that was "more probable?" And I have no idea what you mean by "Evan on this block (near the bottom)." )
Have a nice day.
It was more believable what Linch was saying Lenard. That you were paying to much attention to her. That's what usually happens in these situations. It fits the stereotype. Dwello was right, this is what happens in the workplace. Also Leonard, in your long report, you took a cheap shot at Linch. You said, that she looked older then her age. That's a cheap shot at any female Leonard. You evan sent that to all your coworkers, Why?.
Bill;
In response to your first sentence about the phony charge that I was paying too much attention to Linch, I already addressed that in my most recent comments from Jan. 19, so I'm not going to repeat that here. Everything I did was a requirement of my job description. An impaired and malfunctioning employee requires more supervision. Let me remind you again that I reported the problem and requested help from multiple level of management literally dozens of times and never received any. Nothing was ever done by management to successfully address the bullying, and you admitted that when you wrote that Dwello was "just waiting" to see if the problem would fix itself; doing nothing even though an employee was being seriously injured and disabled by an abusiive co-worker. How irresponsible!
In response to your "cheap shot" accusation; you seem to have forgotten (or maybe you never read them) that I never mentioned the bully's name in my two initial reports. I didn't mention her name on this blog either until after you did. If my co-workers recognized who it was from my report, one reason is that they were probably witnesses to the bullying. The reports were to warn them and other employees of the danger since management refused to do anything about the problem. Again (as I've told you many times before) if management had addressed the problem, there never would have been any reports. The reports were and are necessary because what I experienced at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center the last three years I worked there represents a public health and safety hazard, that to this day is not taken seriously by Trinity Health or St. Alphonsus management.
I did quite a bit of research and was under the impression that the bully's behavior toward me might have been, at least partially, a result of her extended illness and treatment. Most people look older when they are sick. It was a temporary condition as I sure the bully realized. That was a compassionate observation that came out of my concern and empathy for her. I included quite a bit of detail in my longer report because I had spent more than 2 years trying to get help from management without success, and I believed that the more information and detail I included, the more likely something would be done to take the problem seriously. Before reporting the problem the first time, it never occurred to me that management would refuse to do anything about it.
In retrospect now I realize that I went through the last two years of my employment there in a constant state of shock at the way I was being treated, not only by the bully, but by management, and their cold, callous, and even malicious responses to my requests for help.
And speaking of "cheap shots." Bill, what do you call threatening an employee with termination for reporting a potentially disabling, on the job injury? What do call ordering an employee to lie about an on the job injury? Isn't it a cheap shot to call someone's report of a PTSD injury, "petty" and "no issue?" Actually "cheap shot" is fairly neutral compared to the responses I received from management. If I took any "cheap shots" which is doubtful, it's probably a response I learned from management.
Bill;
You wrote, "It was more believable what Linch was saying," and "that's what usually happens in these situations. It fits the stereotype."
I had 27 years of outstanding work at ST. Alphonsus and an impeccable record of honesty and integrity. That management refused to believe my report and instead believed an employee who was there for less that a couple years and was having chronic problems with some co-workers, is an example of extremely poor mangement and very offensive behavior toward me. It also may be an indication of some inappropriate behavior between some of the people involved.
"What usually happens in these situations," is irrelevant and has nothing to do with this issue. What matters is what actually happened. Whether or not it fits a stereotype has nothing to do with it. We'er discussing a specific case here, not a fictitious theoretical textbook situation.
In a nutshell what happened was as follows. An abusive toxic employee targeted me with bullying and harassment apparently because she did not approve of my political and religious beliefs. She tried to get me fired or force me to resign by repeatedly lying about me to management and co-workers, ostracizing me, withholding information I needed to do my job, blocking communication with me which jeopardized patient care, and other harmful and unprofessional behaviors.
I followed the standards provided and first tried to resolve the problem with the co-worker, which was impossible because she refused to communicate with me. I reported the bullying to management, requesting assistance. Management refused to help. I reported it repeatedly, especially after I was diagnosed with symptoms of PTSD, reporting the on-the-job injury and requesting assistance.
Management not only refused to help, but began to retaliate against me for reporting the problem. They retaliated by threatening to terminate me, by making fun of me, and by filling out phony disciplinary action reports. Like all abusers they repeatedly tried to silence me. As you admitted in writing, "They want you to quit telling your story," they are still trying to silence me.
Management never responsibly addressed the problem. I was never offered any treatment for the PTSD injury and no protection from additional injury.
Management openly encouraged the bully to continue harassing me by telling me I would be fired if I reported any more problems with the bully and telling me right in front of her. Now you, Bill, represnting management, are trying to tell me what happened even though neither you nor any member of management were ever present to witness her acts of bullying, except once, and that time Dwello and Wedman simply ignored the behavior and acted as if it was perfectly normal.
To this day, more than ten years after the bullying began, no one in management has ever apologized for the way I was treated and there has never been any accountable behavior or response from management.
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Those disciplinary actions forms were legit Leonard. You went around and spread confidential information, about a personal conflict. A conflict you and Linch both fueled. In some of your writings. You claimed Gibson showed compassion and seemed to care when you first reported to problem to her. But on this blog(oct. 17 2014 at 4:56PM, your last paragraph) near the bottom. You said, Dwello, Wedman, and Gibson showed no empathy, compassion, or concern. There is another inconsistency on your part Leonard. Now please explain that? You also wrote numerous times that, when you received your employee file. There was nothing in there such as write ups or disciplinary action forms. We cleared those up for you Leonard.
Bill;
You wrote, "Those disciplinary forms were legit Leonard. You went around and spread confidential information. About a personal conflict."
No, Bill those disciplinary action forms were phony. They were done to try to silence me and to discourage me from reporting the bullying and requesting help. At first I didn't say anything about the problem to co-workers. It was only after management was informed of the problem, and ignored my requests for help, and refused to do anything to stop the bullying, that I started to warn others, as I was required to do.
If the problem had been addressed by management when I first reported it, there would have been no need for me, out of concern for their safety, to tell others. When the health and safety of employees is being compromised, what might have been "confidential" information at one point, needs to become public knowledge. I was experiencing repeated acts of violence from a co-worker that jeopardized and eventually damaged my health. Bullying is an act of violence. If there was anything confidential about it, that confidentiality ended when I reported the problem to management the first time, and nothing was done. Bullying in the workplace is a public health hazard especially at a medical center. To protect the public, public health hazards have to be publicized.
I also publicized it because the Code of Ethics of the American Association for Respiratory Care as well as the Trinity Health Standards of Conduct require it. For more reasons read my blog "The Cambium Level" under the heading Workplace Psychological Abuse, especially part 3 entitled "Tell Everyone."
I reported what was happening to me and warned others of the danger because I was being injured on the job by an abusive co-worker who was trying to get me fired because she did not approve of my political and religious beliefs. Not warning others about that is like not pulling the fire alarm if you see a blaze in the medical center. However the number of co-workers I told at St. Als was relatively small. Most co-workers, even in the Respirator Dept. did not know about it until after I left and sent my reports. I was obligated to warn others. I had already reported the problem to management numerous times with no change in the bullying and harassment from Linch (now Heaton). You confirmed that, Bill, when you wrote that Kelly and/or Dennis were just "waiting to see if the problem would go away or fix itself."
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One of the disciplinary action reports claimed that I had entered the work area of the bully when I was not supposed to. It referred to the night I went to St. Als to complete some mandatory documentation. I've already written about that recently on this blog. I was fulfilling a job requirement. I didn't know the bully was there at that time. I didn't try to initiate a conversation or dialogue with her. You, Bill, like Kelly and Dennis seem to conveniently and intentionally forget that she was the bully, the aggressor, the one targeting me; she was the one who had started the problem, the one jeopardizing patient care, the one responsible for the PTSD injury I sustained and am still dealing with eleven years later.
One disciplinary action report accused me of not resolving this conflict issue with Rhoda Linch. It was not my issue to resolve. As the literature on workplace bullying reports, the bully selects the target. THE TARGET HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. And in addition to that, Linch refused to communicate with me, so there was no way I could do anything since a communication problem requires communication to obtain a resolution.
Both disciplinary action reports were fake, containing phony accusations that were intentionally falsified by management, since management knew I was being targeted and injured by Linch.
Your comment about Gibson and compassion is correct, but incomplete. When I first met with her I though Gibson was compassionate. But unfortunately her repeated "I'm sorry" was not backed up with any action. She didn't do anything to try to undo the harm that was done. So now it seems as if her apologies were insincere. And no one else has ever apologized to me, indicating how callous and insensitive management at St. Als, Trinity Health, and bullies are.
If Dr. Estess was fired for creating a phony record on me, as you wrote, than that record should have been legally and promptly declared invalid. I, or my representative, should have been contacted immediately by management, received a sincere apology, and invited to participate in the process. There is no way any employee or former employee who has been bullied and injured on the job for over two years with management's knowledge and approval, could have any confidence whatsoever in the ability and willingness of that same management to honestly address the problem and correct the phony records. That those records are still intact represents an ongoing threat to me and tells the world that Trinity Health is just fine with having phony documents in their possession.
In my future reports about this ordeal, one of the topics I will focus on is the willingness of Trinity Health and St. Alphonsus to falsify documents and create and keep phony records of their employees and former employees.
There is no inconsistency there, Bill. I actually believed Gibson would respond and correct the problem, not violate the chain of command as she did and dump the problem back on Wedman and Dwello, two people who had already proven that they were unwilling or unable to do anything.
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It's true that there was nothing in my personnel record about the bullying ordeal. That's the problem. A document can be falsified by omitting factual information as much as it can by including false information. It should have been noted in my record that for the last two years and eight months of my employment at St. Alphonsus, I was the target of a workplace bully, a co-worker who repeatedly lied about me to other employees and to management, withheld information I needed to do my job, and engaged in harassment and abusive conduct toward me, apparently because she did not approve of my political and religious beliefs.
It should be noted in my personnel record that I was diagnosed by St. Alphonsus professionals with symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of the bullying, and experienced increasing disability during the course of my last couple years employed there. It should be noted that I had multiple, more than 20 symptoms of PTSD, some of which I still have eleven years later. It should also be noted that management never offered me any protection from additional injury and never any treatment for the injury.
My personnel record should note that when I reminded HR manager Dennis Wedman of the PTSD injury and requested help, in July, 2005, he responded by threatening to fire me. My record should also note that when I reminded Respiratory Therapy manager, Kelly Dwello of the PTSD injury and requested help, also in July, 2005, he responded in writing by saying that my injuries were "petty" and "no issue."
It should definitely be noted that I was scheduled to work and interact with an abusive co-worker for nearly two years AFTER it was documented and reported to management that by doing so, I was being seriously injured. It should be noted that co-workers, as many as twenty of them, witnessed the bullying and some of it's after effects and claimed that I had undergone a personality change and was "no longer the fun person to work with that I used to be," a change that is noted in the literature on workplace bullying, and common in bullying victims. But management, in their infinite maliciousness and ignorance, used that personality change as an excuse to hurl more accusations at me, as if I was responsible for it.
It must also be noted that in spite of all this trauma, injuries, and increasing disability, I still preformed my responsibilities in a professional manner, providing high quality care, assisting the people I supervised including the bully, putting patient care first, and did not engage in any retaliatory action against the bully or anyone else. If anyone deserves to have an accurate record of his performance at St. Alphonsus it's a 30-year "outstanding" (Susan Gibson's term to describe my performance) employee. St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health management's cavalier attitude toward accurate documentation is appalling and represents a threat to employees and patients. (Note that the list above of items that need to be documented in my personnel record is incomplete and just a sample of what needs to be a part of my permanent personnel record at St. Alphonsus.
Now Bill, would you please answer a few questions for me? What specifically was this so-called "confidential information" I spread around? How did I "fuel" this conflict? Why was nothing done about Linch's bullying when I first reported it, before anyone was injured? Why was I not offered a safe working environment free from harassment after it was documented by St. Alphonsus that I was being injured on the job? Why is Dennis Wedman allowed to threaten an employee with termination for reporting an on the job injury? Why was the Customer Service Standards never enforced, or even followed by management? It's time for you and management at St. Alphonsus to start answering these questions and others.
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Keep in mind, Bill, that I was the only one who requested and advocated a non-retaliatory, conflict resolution process that would have been a winning proposition for everyone involved. Unlike Linch and management at St. Alphonsus I did not try to get anyone terminated or take legal action against anyone. I requested and am still requesting an opportunity to discuss the problem with anyone and everyone involved. The discussion should be professionally mediated. I think the discussion should be open to the public, videotaped and placed on YouTube. I have nothing to hide so why not have a conversation and publicize it?
Why wouldn't you, Wedman, Dwello ,Gibson, Linch, and other members of management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health want a conversation about this unaddressed bullying problem at St. Alphonsus? What are you trying to hide? In my written report I invited anyone with a different perspective to tell their side of the story. If anyone did, I did not see it or hear about it.
I waited for years to hear from Linch or management what I had done wrong, but Linch repeatedly lied about me, and management simply parroted Linch's false accusations. There was never any evidence of any wrongdoing on my part. The proof of that was in Wedman's refusal to put Linch's complaints in writing and sign his name to them. He didn't even believe they were true! Proof of it is also in the false disciplinary action reports completed on me. If I had done something wrong they would not have had to complete phony disciplinary action reports.
This obsession you have with so-called inconsistencies in my reports is irrelevant for two reasons. First, there really aren't any inconsistencies there. The other reason is that I was subjected to horrible abuse, by far the worst and most debilitating experience of my life time, inflicting a permanent injury on me, and management knew it was happening, when it was happening, and did nothing about it. That's the issue. That kind of grossly irresponsible and intentionally malicious management poses a dangerous threat to everyone who goes to St. Alphonsus for any reason. It cannot get too much publicity.
Leonard Nolt
In July 2005, Wedman in a email simply suggested you should look for employment elsewhere. That is all that was written. You turned that around and said he threated to fire you, not so. At that point is was noted by K. Dwello in May, 2005. That this conflict with you and Linch had becme a cancer in the RC department. He asked the HR department for help. By the summer of 2005, it was reported by several people that, there is a divisive spirit in the RC department. With rumors, chaos and people taking different sides on this conflict. D. Wedman at that point did another more in depth investigation into this ordeal. I have the notes in front of me Leonard. You did your part in Fueling this conflict. Your constant infatuation with Linch. The April incident, you hanging around before and after work spying on her. This conflict was a personal one. You and Linch both violated the employee handbook, by talking about political and religious beliefs. As you admitted before. You both violated the customer service standards, you by the examples above. You both should have been terminated. By Oct. 2005, all avenues of resources that were available then were used. You have to be stopped Leonard. This conflict had to end for the good of the whole department.
(Continued)
I've already explained the so-called "April Incident." In using the word "infatuation" you, like Dwello and Wedman, are simply parroting Linch's false accusations. I think she used the word "obsessing" also. Did you forget about that one? There never has been any truth to those accusations. Wedman and Dwello simply took what she said at face value and repeated it back to me and apparently documented it as if it was factual. I was never given an opportunity to defend myself.
And what's this about "hanging around before and after work spying on her?" That's a new one! I haven't heard that before! Is Linch still making up this stuff like she did when I worked with her? I never spied on her, although after she quit communicating with me and I was still assigned to supervise, work, and interact with her, I had to put more effort into making sure her patients were receiving the ordered therapy. And when I would call her asking for information I needed to do my job, and she refused to give it, I would have to call her again later in the shift.
Of course I was there before and after work many times. Nine meetings with the EAP counselor, Paula Brown, three meetings with Wedman, numerous meeting with Dwello, a couple meetings with Susan Gibson; at least half a dozen meetings with the managers of other departments who, unlike Dwello, were trying to be helpful. Since I worked the night shift all of those meetings were on my own time and at my own expense, with no help from St. Alphonsus.
Of course bullying is always a personal attack on a person. So in that sense the conflict was a personal one. When someone at St. Alphonsus suffers injuries and disabilities as the result of a psychological attack from a co-worker as I did, the effect is personal, and also permanent.
I never violated any Customer Service Standards. I carried a copy of the Customer Service Standards with me to and from work every day for over a year and a half. I read it frequently and followed it to the letter. I still have it. Linch and I did not discuss politics and religion.
You still haven't done your homework, Bill. The bully selects the target. The target has nothing to do with it. Linch was bullying me and all I did was go to management asking for help, and because of that we've come to this point where you, a complete stranger, who has no first hand knowledge of what happened, are throwing rocks of completely inaccurate criticisms and accusations at me, as if I caused or contributed to the problem. This case is a textbook case, typical of the way defective management deals with bullying in the workplace. All you have to do is a little study by reading a few texts on the subject, and then you will realize how abysmally wrong you and others in management at St. Als are.
And the only reason we are still discussing this is not because you and management at St. Als are concerned about the problem of bullying in the workplace there; it's not because you are concerned about the safety of patients and employees; it's not because you are concerned about myself and others diagnosed with PTSD from bullying at St. Als and are offering to assist in treatment and recovery. It's because when I left St. Als, I did as any responsible citizen and health care professional was required to do; I reported what happened and how I was treated by Linch and management to a relatively small portion of the public. Ever since St. Als management has been retaliating against me with repeated threats, illegal imprisonment, public lies and defamation, etc. All I did was report severe long-term bullying and the injury it caused, PTSD, with symptoms and with some permanent implications, the kind of thing that a responsible health care employer would be willing to address in a healing manner...... but St. Alphonsus never has.
(Note that this entry was supposed to be published before the previous one, dated June 24, 2015 at 11:18 pm)
Bill;
Thanks for your comment. I'll try to keep my response short because I've already addressed most of the comments you mentioned. Concerning the note from Wedman telling me to "reconsider my employment at St. Als," I received that after one and half years of having to work with a co-worker, Rhoda Linch, who was trying to get me fired or force me to resign; who was telling me by her actions that I was not supposed to be working at St. Als. So I contact Wedman again; again requesting help as I had before, and he responds, exactly like Linch, by also suggesting that I should not be working at St. Als. Do you have any idea how discouraging that is - to be under regular attack at work from an abusive co-worker, report the problem to management and get a response, not offering any help or a safe working environment, but the same message I was receiving from the abusive co-worker. There is no question about that being a threat of termination. In the toxic context that I was working in, that was the only possible interpretation, That's exactly what Wedman intended it to be. When one is suffering a serious, potentially disabling injury, reports the problem, and is denied help and instead receives a strong suggestion that he resign, he is being threatened by management in exactly the same way the bully is threatening him.
In his response and refusal to help, Wedman was also identifying himself as an accomplice of the bully. The Zogby Survey reported that, "in 62% of cases, when employers are made aware of bullying, they escalate the problem for the target, or simply do nothing." That's exactly what Wedman did when I reported the bullying to him. Instead of helping, he made the problem worst by trying to silence me and by retaliating against me for reporting Linch's bullying and requesting help. The Zogby report goes on to say, "It must be said that doing nothing is not a neutral act. When a person asks for relief and nothing is done, the employer becomes the bully's accomplice, whether deliberately or inadvertently, by allowing it to continue" (The 2007 WBI-Zogby Survey).
I was awarer that this was a serious problem and threat to the Resp Care Dept. That was the main reason I sent reports to my co-workers in the department after I left. I knew that if I could be targeted for years, seriously injured and disabled, and driven out of the workplace with management knowing what was happening and doing nothing about it, (in fact actually encouraging the bully and facilitating her workplace violence against me), the same could happen to anyone else in the department. I cared about the people I worked with so there was no way I could leave and not warn others. Especially after finding out that other St. Alphonsus employees were having similar traumatic experiences and receiving no help from management, I never considered not telling what happened to me and how I was treated by Linch and management. Failing to report the bullying would be unconscionable and totally irresponsible.
I contacted HR in January of 2005, five months BEFORE you said Dwello contacted them for help.
No Bill I did not "fuel' this conflict. In the workplace bullying phenomenon, the bully selects the target. The target has nothing to do with it. I have notes too, Bill. My notes are not second handed from people who refused to listen to the reports of bullying and refused to take the problem seriously. My notes are not from someone who tried to silence an employee who was being injured on the job by an abusive co-worker. My notes are first hand observations and in many cases word for word quotes from the front lines. My notes are complete.
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Bill, you wrote that Wedman suggested that I should look for employment elsewhere. That's quite revealing and, if true, raises some important questions. Why would Wedman be sacrificing an "outstanding" employee with over a quarter of a century of experience and commitment to Saint Alphonsus, for an employee who only was there for a couple years at the most, and displayed little or no commitment to St. Als, as evidenced by her threat to sue Als? Was there something else going on that gave Linch the ability to do some serious damage to management, if she didn't get her way? It sure looks suspicious. Why would management ask an employee injured on the job by a co-worker to leave, and keep and promote the abusive co-worker? If there was nothing underhand going on then it's clear that management has no concept of or commitment to healing, which is really strange and contradictory to the whole purpose of a medical center.
I reported the PTSD injury to management 25 times and never once received a response addressing the fact that I was being injured. I don't think you ever mentioned it in any of your comments here. No one ever offered me any protection from additional injury or any treatment for the injury. Once Kelly claimed that my injuries were "self-generated," thereby demonstrating a pathetic lack of knowledge and concern about PTSD and the safety of people working in health care and in his Respiratory Care Dept. I was locked up by management and Drs Estess and Novak, and told, in writing on the phony chart, (not to my face or to my family), that I had multiple serious psychological problems, but was never offered any treatment for those problems. Estess and Novak both created a phony GAF score (Global Assessment of Functioning) to support their phony chart. The score they gave me, if correct, would have me unable to get out of bed and function in any normal manner, and the day they kidnapped me I was partying and visiting with family at a daughter's home. I was holding down a full time job. The entire admission to the psychiatric hospital was another attempt to retaliate against me by Wedman and to try to silence me into not talking or writing about my experience of being injured by a bully and management at St. Alphonsus. Management and the psychiatrist who engineered the admission knew they were retaliating against me and they knew that they were lying by generating a phony record which St. Alphonsus is still in possession of and can use against me whenever they wish. If you have any integrity and any commitment to healing and quality health care, Bill, you have an obligation to address that issue.
The deafening ongoing silence from St. Als about the PTSD injury is clearly one area in which you know St Als is guilty of a serious dereliction of duty. PTSD is a permanent injury that can cause permanent disability. Management was obligated to recognize such a diagnosis as requiring an emergency response, regardless of the cause. Since PTSD is a permanent injury that obligation is ongoing. The absence of any accountability from management toward me, is proof of a lack of concern for the health and safety of Trinity Health employees, and a serious lack of commitment to healing.
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As long as management at St. Als and Trinity Health refuse to educate yourselves about workplace bullying, you will not understand the problem, ask the right questions, or do anything to make the work environments in your institutions safe for employees and other customers.
No, Bill it is not correct to say that by October, 2005 "all avenues of resources that were available then were used." At that point no one in management had even listened to what I was reporting. No one had responded to the serious on-the-job injury I was experiencing. No one had offered me a safe working environment. As you confirmed earlier, no one had addressed Linch's bullying. No one in management had educated themselves about workplace bullying so they could understand and respond properly. Months later when I met with her, Susan Gibson admitted that to me. You, Bill, acknowledged it in your most recent comments when you wrote, "You have (had) to be stopped, Leonard." If you understand workplace bullying, you don't try to "stop" the victim or target of the bullying; you try to stop the bully. The only "stopping" management was doing was trying to stop me from reporting the bullying. That was obvious beyond the shadow of a doubt in the Oct. meeting with Wedman, Dwello, and Linch, when Wedman threatened to terminate me if I reported any more problems with Linch's bullying to either Dwello or himself, and he bellowed it at me right in front of Linch, thereby giving her official permission from management to continue bullying me since I wasn't allowed to report it any more, unless I wanted to lose my job. No attempt had been made to engage in a conflict resolution process, which I believed then and still believed would have resolved the problem in an hour or less, had it been done soon after I first reported the bullying. The list of "nothings" in this paragraph about management's inaction could be much longer.
You wrote that both Linch and I should have been terminated. I guess both Dwello and Wedman disagree with you because they promoted Linch. Terminating someone for reporting health and safety hazards at a medical center is crazy and as completely contrary to the purpose of the medical center as are those hazards. You may have a right to terminate people, but you have no right to injure them, or knowingly allow them to be injured by an abusive co-worker, as Dwello, Wedman, Gibson, and others in management did me. For that they need to be accountable.
You wrote that I "hung around before and after work spying on her!" So you're saying that I showed up at work early just to spy on Linch? I guess that means she showed at work early also so she would be there for me to spy on, otherwise your accusation here, ten years later, would be a lie. Keep making things up, Bill. Your fiction is not quite as good as Linch's yet, but keep trying. You have potential!
I hope you realize that we can never have a productive conversation about what happened to me and about bullying in the workplace at St. Alphonsus, if the foundation of that conversation is lies. So first you and management at St. Alphonsus have to quit repeating Linch's lies, as if they are facts. We could limit the discussion to just talking about the PTSD injury since management's obligation in that was to immediately respond regardless of who was responsible for the injury. We could just talk about the psych admission and the phony medical record which must be dealt with in a responsible and just manner. We've been communicating in circles for some time, actually for years. It's time to do something and make some progress in resolving the issue and correcting, as much as possible, the mistakes that were made. Have a nice day.
Leonard Nolt
Bill;
Where does management at St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health get the idea that it's OK to just sit back and do nothing when one of their employees is being injured on the job by a co-worker? In what policy or standard is that written down?
Leonard please close down these workplace icons on your website. SHOW YOU can forgive and forget about this matter. It happened a long time ago. We will not document anything negative in your employee file. Yes we would like to correct your medical file. But you must know what a crap shoot that is. It take an act of congress to get that stuff changed Leonard. You know that, so stop all of this. Find a new Hobby.
Bill;
On Saturday morning I was awakened at 4:00 am by a nightmare about St. Alphonsus. In the nightmare I was there trying to do my work as a respiratory therapist, but was continually blocked in my effort. For one thing the elevators weren't working correctly and I couldn't get one that was going where I needed to go. The elevator door would not open, or if opened it would open part way from the bottom up. The shift was about over and I still had a lot of work to do. Suddenly I realized that I had completely missed one patient who was supposed to get therapy every two hours for the past 12 hours. Eventually I make it to the respiratory therapy department only to find out that every one there was a stranger. Then I realized that I haven't seen the department manager for several weeks and also realized that he doesn't even know I'm still working there.
I went back to sleep within half an hour only to have another nightmare about Als. This time I was outside the facility trying to find the parking lot and my car to leave; only to find the campus surrounded with an electrified fence that will shock anyone who touches it. I never did find the parking lot or my car. I had another nightmare about Als the night before.
Earlier today I had conversation with a young woman who was bullied in junior high. She had to eat her lunch in the bathroom because in the cafeteria, other students would steal her food and eat it, or throw it in her face, and call her names, and tell her that no one likes her. Even though that was several years ago, she still has trouble talking about it and gets visibly upset when talking about it. But she also is eager to talk about it because, like me, she knows that talking about it is part of the necessary therapy essential for recovering from, or successfully living with that kind of traumatic history. Even though the abuse I was subjected to was different, it had a "junior high" level of maturity to it. That includes the behavior of the bully as well as the behavior of management. And the effect on me was very similar in terms of causing permanent injury.
PTSD is a permanent injury, Bill, and when an employer knowingly allows an employee to be bullied and harassed to the point of causing PTSD, that employer has an obligation to be accountable to that employee. That's especially true when, as in my case, management actually participates in the bullying. I have yet to receive any accountability from St. Alphonsus or Trinity Health; no sincere apology, no acknowledgment that I was mistreated and injured, and no attempt from management at either Als or Trinity to even follow their own standards, in relating to or communicating with me, as well as no evidence of any caring, or any commitment to healing.
As you know I sent the reports to management and co-workers because I was concerned about their safety. On page 42 of the longer report I wrote " As from the beginning I'm committed to a peaceful civilized resolution of this conflict issue, and will continue on that path, a resolution that I hope will result in no losers, but everyone a winner..." In that report, more than 40 times I expressed concern for the health and safety of people at St. Alphonsus. I sent the written reports out because, after dozens of verbal reports and requests for help to management, nothing had been done to address the problem. The information on my blog is my history from 2004 and since. Management at St. Alphonsus had literally dozens of opportunities to change that history into something more positive, I don't know why they refused to do so, but I'm sure you can find out by asking them because that refusal is still ongoing.
On Page 48 of the report I wrote.. "What I've experienced at St. Alphonsus since January of 2004 is forgivable..." Bill I started the "forgiveness process" before leaving St. Als. When are St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health going to start to be accountable?
Bill;
I've lost count of how many times you have asked me to shut down my website or at least delete the information about being bullied, harassed, and injured at St. Alphonsus, even though nothing has been done about the problem of bullying at St. Als, and even though people have contacted me thanking me for the information on the website and indicating that it's been helpful to them in their own traumatic setting at St. Alphonsus or elsewhere. That it has in fact offered protection and been a source of healing for them as well as myself. I thought St. Alphonsus was committed to healing. If that is true they might want to connect my web site to their's so people can find out what happens when someone reports bullying at St. Alphonsus.
Would you follow the instructions of an anonymous person on the internet; a person who refuses to identify himself, state who he is and what his interest is in this topic and situation; a person who refuses to say what company he works for and what position he holds; a person who refuses to report why he is trying to help a massive, insensitive, health care corporation cover up behavior from employees and management in their institutions and on their campuses, behavior that jeopardizes the health and safety of employees and patients?
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