Need help with a formal letter(Update Fri 9/03!!)

[TheOtherVillainess]

Most of you know my horrible job situation and I found the email address of a person in the company who might be able to help, or at least point me in the direction of somebody who can. I've written a letter, but not sent it yet because I'm not sure how it sounds or if it even sounds formal enough. I'm hoping you guys can help me with this. *all names have been removed for privacy reasons*

Dear sir or madam,

I desperately need help from the corporate office and am unsure of where to turn. I found your email address through Monster.com and am hoping you can help me or at least point me in the direction of a person who can.

My name is Catherine Cashier and I am a cashier at the Sonic location inside Stonebriar Centre mall. My store manager/managing partner, Little Hitler is making not only my life but the lives of my co-workers a living hell. I'm not sure what Sonic's policy is on harrassment (sexual or otherwise) but we are being harrassed. Several times Little Hitler has come up behind myself or another cashier and poked us in the back or ribs, yelling at us (in front of customers no less) to go faster, faster, faster. He has brought up in appropriate subjects for conversation which I have felt embarrassed by as well.

This man also makes it difficult if not impossible for employees to take breaks of any kind..even bathroom breaks. It is not uncommon to go 6-8 hrs without any sort of break whatsoever and when a person asks to go on break, they are made to feel stupid and weak for asking. Even if it's for a bathroom break.

Scheduling is also a problem. We do not recieve the schedule for the week until sometime on Sunday night..if then. There are times when the schedule is not finished until some time midweek. He also likes to write 'open ended' schedules where he indicates the starting time of a shift, but not the ending time which makes it VERY difficult for me to arrange child day care for my infant son, schedule neccessary appointments, etc. When I asked him politely to indicate the ending times of my schedules a few weeks ago, he agreed and did so for about three weeks. Then he just started writing open ended schedules again and I am back to where I started.

Over the recent tax holiday weekend, I worked close 25 hrs in a 3 day period. One person who works there worked over 30 from what I was told by Little Hitler. He insinuated I was not loyal or commited to my job because I didn't work 10+ hr days for the three day period. I have been extremely commited to my job over the last year and a few months since I worked there and his insinuations really hurt my feelings. I could not express how he made me feel to him however.

The reason I am coming to you and not talking directly to Little Hitler is this: if you so much as say a word against him or the way he treats employees, it is practically a death sentance for your job at his store. He has no qualms about firing anyone for whatever reason he feels is a good one, even if it is not. He abuses the Texas "at will" work policy regularly. In the time that I have worked for Little Hitler, I have seen so many employees come and go I don't even bother to learn their names any more because I know they won't be there long.

I would also like to keep this letter confidential because I'm afraid that if Little Hitler finds out it was I that blew the whistle, he might fire me. I can't afford to lose my job. I don't think Sonic is a terrible place to work for. I just think that Little Hitler is a terrible boss, a little Hitler who needs to be taken down off his pedestal and shown the error of his ways.

Please..I don't know how or if you can even help me but I'm praying that you can.



Sincerely,

Catherine Cashier

 

[Microcell]

Hold on wait, do not send yet!!

I have read your other posts and I understand- I was a victim at a Shoney's restaurant way back when, so I can talk from a position of knowledge:

1. I would first E-Mail them with a more general letter. You don't know who they are and Management can have a tendency to back up their own. They could be Little Hitler's cousin for all you know. I would make it To whom can I direct a complaint about my supervisor, the store manager, the District Manager is also not responsive to my complaints.

2. I would even get a new yahoo address with a user name that could not be traced back to you. Ask for a response to that address. Write anonamously to begin with.

3. Could the EEOC help or is that only for minorities?

4. I know you are looking, but wouldn't getting another job and then writing a scathing letter to everybody up to and including the president of the company be easier? Of course I would not expect a good reference if you do that.

5. There is not a 1-800 number you can anonamously call?

 

[PamOKW]

This isn't something that should be sent in an e-mail and it isn't something that should be sent to Dear Sir/Madam. Take the information you have and use it to find out who is in charge of personnel and the address to send the letter. Write the letter and hold it for a few days before sending it. You could post again to get people's opinions. Also, try to be specific with dates and examples. You've started to do this in some places.

Most importantly, I hope you don't really intend to refer to him as Little Hitler in the actual letter.

I found this website and it looks like the VP "People & Communications" may be who you want to contact.

Sonic Somewhere on the site there must be and address and phone number. Call and ask if she handles personnel issues.

However, before you do this I think you need to know if your store is company owned or a franchise. If it's a franchise, you need to find out who your owner is and contact their personnel.

 

[mudnuri]

I think maybe you better count to 15000000000 and then retype that letter-

You call him 'little hittler" hows that for making his job a "hostile" one...

Now let me fill ya in on a few things.

I filed a sexual harrasment claim against a "big wig" at my company...now we are a municpality, and they cant afford to mess around..HOWEVER I know the laws on this.

1st off- you MUST have a district manager....gotta have one..

2nd, federal law requires that the sexual harrasment policy be posted in the work place- WHERE IS IT? Whose name is on it as the "contact"

There must be 2 different contacts- in case the 1st is the "harrasser"..

3rd- you are doing yourself NO GOOD by emailing ANYONE.....you havent a clue who thats going to..

I really didnt read your whole letter, and Im sure that whoever you email that to wouldnt either....in short- you need to be very short and to the point in the initial claim....Then the person who does the reporting- will take a statement from you, they will probably tape record the meeting with you- LET THEM..that helps make sure when they type the report its accurate..

I could go on and on- but please dont even think about sending that as an email!

Brandy

 

[janette]

Is Sonic corporate or franchise? Do you not have district type managers come in to the store? When I worked in a restaurant I knew who the managers were pretty far up the line. Each store had a general manager and above them a district and then regional. Start at the bottom and go up, I wouldn't send anything to an address on monster.com unless you are sure it is the Human Resource for your store.

Use a specific complaint that will get noticed, sexual harrasement is a hot button to most in the corporate world. If you generally unload it just looks like you are an unhappy employee.

Do not include anything about your child or your difficulty in meeting the schedule.

TX is an at-will state, that can't be abused he can fire anyone he wants for whatever reason. It doesn't have to be fair.

 

[Pugdog007]

The part about keeping it confidential is not going to fly. He has a right to know who the complainant is so that he can respond.

If you haven't addressed the situation with your Manager, it would be ill-advised to send a letter of this nature to a corporate office.

 

[binny]

The OP said that all names had been changed to protect privacy, I think " little hitler" was for our benefit only.
As was Cathy Cashier.



I think it needs a bit of work, Im sorry but im just about to go to bed right now, I would be glad to help you tomorrow though

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

Ok..first off..this was just a draft to blow off some steam and to see what ya'll thought. I've never written a complaint letter to ANYONE before and I'm not even sure how to do it right.

Most importantly, I hope you don't really intend to refer to him as Little Hitler in the actual letter.

All names in the letter have been changed to protect the innocent, the guilty and the stupid.

If you haven't addressed the situation with your Manager, it would be ill-advised to send a letter of this nature to a corporate office.

Pugdog--I am scared to death to say something to my manager. I'm afraid if I say something to him, he will fire me. That's why I am considering going over his head straight to his district mgr, provided I can find out who that is.

He has a right to know who the complainant is so that he can respond.

And respond with a lawsuit of his own about how I am being discrimanatory (sp???) because of his origins and possibly his religion although to be honest that has NOTHING to do with it. He is simply a bad mgr.

Is Sonic corporate or franchise? Do you not have district type managers come in to the store?

This particular Sonic is a franchise. My store manager is also a 'managing partner', he is the 'managing partner' in several other area Sonics as well. If we have district mgrs that visit the store..well..I am unaware of it. The only other mgr type that I KNOW visits the store is one of the other managing partners who brings in our checks every 2 weeks.

federal law requires that the sexual harrasment policy be posted in the work place- WHERE IS IT? Whose name is on it as the "contact"

If there is one, I haven't seen it and I've been in his office a thousand times getting supplies, watching a mgr count my till and what not. I'll have to look more carefully the next time I'm in there but I'm betting there isn't one.

PamOKW--I have searched the corporate site backwards and forwards. I couldn't find jack squat. Perhaps you can..I don't know...*sigh*

I really want to tell SOMEBODY up there who is higher than this ******* what's going on but part of me is scared to death to do so. I'm afraid he'll find out it was me and then fire me which I can't afford to have happen right now.

I'm also afraid that this time will be like the LAST time I had to report sexual harrasment at work. At a former job, I reported a co-worker who was calling me a 'biotch' in Spanish and I didn't know it until somebody told me. When I DID report him, all that happened was HR told my mgr not to schedule us together and that we weren't allowed to speak to each other. But my mgr went even farther than that. He decided I wasn't promoting team unity and promoted the offender over myself when I was more qualified. Oh well...served the mgr right. I ended up leaving the dept after that and several months later I quit that job altogether. About 8 mos after the event, I find out from the mgr in that dept that the offender was deported back to Mexico for being an illegal alien.


TOV

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

Via the company website, I was able to find the email addy of the person in charge of public relations. I emailed her asking for the email or a hotline number for employee relations because of a sensitive subject. She forwarded my msg to someone at HR who emailed me back with the correct phone number. So...I guess tomorrow first thing I will call the number and see where it goes from there. I feel so...nervous I guess. I'm scared to death my boss will fire me over this and I know I can't afford to lose my job right now. I don't want to deal with the reprecussions of calling in a sexual harrassment claim against my boss, but I'm not sure if I can even deal with him poking me and leaning on me and crap any more. Today he came up behind me and leaned on me and I scooched over as far as I could until I couldn't move over any more. It really freaked me out but I tried not to show it. I HATE it when he does stuff like that. It makes me very, very freaked out and nervous.


So anyway..wish me luck with the HR people tomorrow. I'm going to need all the courage I can get to call these people and tell them what's been going on.


TOV

 

[NC Belle]

Sending you a bunch of PD to you and lots of good vibes for a new job with perks. Good luck.

 

[Dan Murphy]

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

I called the ph. # given to me by the HR person at corp. and got an answering machine. I left a msg with my name and ph. # and hopefully they will call me back soon. I am so nervous about talking to them but I want to know what corp.'s stance on my boss's behavior is. I'm really hoping they don't back him up and say I'm being silly or just overreacting or something.

*sigh*I am so nervous. I hope I don't start stuttering during the phone call. I stuttered a little when I was younger and when I get nervous or overly excited I stutter sometimes.

TOV

 

[SandraM]

Take nice deep breaths to help you calm down while you're on the phone; don't try to talk too fast, it's too easy to mix up your words if you do that! Best of luck.

 

[Rajah]

Sure sounds like harassment to me.



Best wishes, and let us know what they say?

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

I'm praying that when they call me back, corp will be willing to tell me they will back me up if there is retaliation from what I am going to talk to them about. I'm sure there will be SOME retaliation. This guy is a nutjob.

Yesterday, he was talking to a girl who is a college student about her schedule and she has some kind of 'fast track' course she's going to take that severely limits her schedule for one month. The boss asked me if I was ok with not having any days off that month to cover for her. He seemed a little miffed when I told I had to have days off. Those are when I do my housecleaning and bonding with DS (who is napping at the moment. He's so CUTE when he's asleep!).

TOV

 

[disneygals]

My advice...make a list of your complaints in bullet form, not so wordy.... ie:

insufficient breaks
example... 6-8 hours without a break

touches employees
example... poking

harasses employees
example... yelling, hovering

This can help you on the phone, too.

Good Luck!

 

[KristaTX]

hey TOV -

If you don't hear back from Sonic in the next day or so, call them back. What a freak - no days off for a month??? He's a nutcase and they need to get rid of him. This could turn nasty for Sonic, so I don't think they'll ignore you. Just hang in there. Is he just a manager, or like a franchise owner?

Krista

 

[Keli]

If you do need to send a letter which is likely to be exactly what the corporate office will request when they call you back, then I would do a lot of editing to the original letter. First, I would make the letter concise. Second, I would approach it from the angle of a loyal employee that wants this manager to clean up his act because that's what is good for Sonic as a whole. Sonic has worked hard to become what they are and they don't want some bozo manager hurting their progress any more than you want him hurting your personal progress within the company. I'm not an expert at these types of things by any means but I hope this helps.

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

What a freak - no days off for a month???

That's what he said..I'm not sure if he was serious but he SOUNDED serious. He wouldn't have any qualms about it either, I'm sure. One of the mgrs recently complained to me that she had ONE day off in 2 wks. ONE.

Is he just a manager, or like a franchise owner?

Sadly to say, he is both. He is the 'managing partner' of our store, the one at Willowbend Mall, one either in or near Collin Creek mall (which I've never been to, been to the one at WB) as well as one other one I believe.

disneygals--thank you for the advice. This guy just makes me so mad it's hard to think clearly to write a concise letter that lets them know what is going on.

I am really hoping this turns out well..although I can't see how it could. It's going to end up a long,bloody battle I'm sure. I can't help but feel I'm going to be on the losing end,too.

I think I'll go do something with all this nervous energy and go clean out the fridge. It needs it..badly.

TOV

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

I've been in contact with a person in HR for the last few weeks and I've decided not to file a formal complaint against my boss. I know it's cowardly of me not to, but I cannot risk losing my job over this. I feel it's more important for me to just put up with his bull puckey than it is for me to file the complaint. If I put up with his crap, I still have a job. If I say something and get him in trouble, I might not have a job anymore. If I don't work, we don't eat. Period. If I don't work, we might lose the house. At this point in time, I feel the risks of reporting him outweight the benefits.


TOV