My restraint has begun to melt away
Flack back two weeks ago, if you will...
While out in Boston, there was previously mentioned work drama that was never fully elaborated on, but is now becoming relevant.
The Monday morning after I arrived in Boston, Ruthie called me early in the morning to tell me that her desk had been cleaned out, her computer moved, and no one would tell her what was going on. Several hours later, she was told to come back and was subsequently told that there was proof that she and I had falsified timecard information and that she was fired.
First off, this was a massive lie. Number one, our timecards are server-based and require a user-specific password to log on. Secondly, she was out of the office at home in bed. Thirdly, they told her that "someone" had logged her off from my computer 2 minutes after I had clocked out for the day.
She called back later that day and the doctor refused to return her calls. He finally did (with the business manager in his office) and told her that "yes" she was indeed fired and told her to ask her roommate (me) about why she was logged off the timeclock that way.
She then told them that she had retained one of the top attorneys in the cities area and that she was planning to pursue a wrongful dismissal lawsuit.
Magically, after the business manager had left for the evening, the doctor called her and begged her to come back. He said they would just chalk the whole thing up to a "computer error".
So, after a long talk, she and I were able to figure out what almost positively happened there.
The business manager has wanted us both gone for quite some time. We found out later that she was clocked out from my computer actually 6 minutes after I clocked out. I saw the business manager on my way out the door that Friday. From what we can tell, she went back into my office, logged onto my computer and logged Ruthie out from my comptuer. She then went to the director, made accusations and we were "fired".
So, we were sabotaged. The business manager obviously pre-meditated the whole thing, saw the opportunity, and went for it. And the assholes who run the company were only too eager to believe it all.
Things were apparently straightened out. I returned from vacation and worked for another week there.
So, the Monday following all of this, Ruthie and I were laid off. We were told that the company would be going out of business. We were told that other employees would be laid off that evening and the rest by Friday.
Flash forward to yesterday afternoon...
Ruthie and I were out running errands and decided to stop by the office. They had screwed up her unemployment claim and I had questions about my continuation coverage for health insurance, so we decided to stop in and see if anyone was still in the office.
To our surprise, it was business as usual. The employees that we were told were laid off were still there. In fact, one of the employees had taken over Ruthie's patient load and my former subordinate (who has only been there 3 months) had moved into her office and taken over my job. Imagine our surprise.
While we were standing in the lobby one of the owners arrived. Upon seeing us in the lobby, he displayed a shocked look, moved on to sheepish, and quickly walked past us disappearing into the back room.
Last night I started really thinking about all of this. Everything clicked. It all made sense. There were so many things that I hadn't even thought about. The layoffs didn't make sense. Ruthie was the lowest paid employee there. The person who replaced her makes $70,000/yr. If you were really doing layoffs for financial reasons, you wouldn't replace someone making 3 times as much. And why would you keep the employees who had only been there for a few months as opposed to those who had been with you from the beginning and helped you build the business? The doctor had been ignoring Ruthie's calls and messages. There are a list of other supporting things as well.
"The reveal" happened for me yesterday. They wanted to get rid of us. They tried to fire us but then realized they couldn't afford a lawsuit and the bad publicity, so they approached it from a different angle. They used the opportunity. And they lied to us without ever thinking we'd come back and find out what happened.
All of this only leads me one place. I am done with the "just walk away" mentality. I worked really hard for them. I put in thousands of hours of unpaid overtime for them. I built the transcription and medical records departments from the ground up. I created most of the organizational systems and set up the office protocols. And now, I am expendable. As soon as I started complaining about unfair treatment, pointing out unethical behavior, and questioning management things began to deteriorate for me.
One thing they've forgotten though. I know too much about what went on there. I know too much about the illegal billing practices, the unethical business decisions, the mistreatment of employees, the medicare fraud, and a whole mess of other illegal practices going on there.
I think the time has come to start making a few phone calls to the right agencies. They don't deserve to have a business. I'm going to do what I can to see that they won't.
I have never met people like this. I don't hesitate to use the term "evil" when applied to them. I have never been around a group of people who were more conniving, dishonest, ammoral, unethical and cold. I can't believe I even stayed as long as I did now.
*Sarah*
