Fired for Creating a Hostile Work Environment - What Does That Mean

**bwoodzilla** · 05-06-2011, 09:15 PM

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: CA

I was terminated yesterday from my job at an entertainment industry based company. I had been written up once I believe, around October.

The write-up was for the following incident: at around 6:30pm when I would normally be leaving work, a client called and changed their order for the following day, in essence starting me from scratch. As I was taking the call, I slammed a pad of paper onto my desk in a moment of frustration. There was another employee behind me at the fax machine and when the pad hit the desk, the sound scared her and she let out a scream. This caused me to be written up for a "violent outburst" and they forced me to sign paperwork saying as much, though I feel the "violent" part is up for debate -- but there's really no way out of signing these things. They've got you trapped in an office with like three managers staring you down.

The incident that then led to my termination, while trying not to bog it down with the boring details of my (former) job: We have an assistant who is related to an executive in another division of our company (a fact that had slipped my mind). This assistant took a phone call from talent cancelling on a job because the talent decided to leave on a trip. This was going to have huge (negative) repercussions for an important client, and I was annoyed with the assistant's nonchalance when I overhead him tell the guy, "Have a great flight!" When the assistant hung up I said, "Really? Have a great flight? What the f*** man?" I told him that he needs to ask some questions, that this is going to create huge problems for the client and the company, and he at least needs to tell the person that what they are doing is unacceptable. He seemed embarrassed, and I said, "Sorry if that came off harsh, but really, you can't let that go so easily." This happened at about 8am and that was that.

The next day at 4pm, I got an IM to go to my VPs office. It was the VP, the office supervisor, and my manager. The VP said, "We need to talk to you about the incident yesterday." I said, "What incident?" He said, "The incident with ____." I said "Oh that? I didn't even know that was an incident." He told me that it prompted a review of my personnel file, and that I had some anger management issues that I haven't been able to deal with. He said that Legal had deemed me as contributing to a hostile work environment and that I was no longer a good fit for the company.

My question is this -- my cause for termination was for creating a hostile work environment. That sounds really, really bad... I never threatened anybody, I never called anyone a derogatory name or made racist jokes, I certainly didn't sexually harass anyone. I'm loud and I dropped the F-Bomb. I'm pretty sure I signed something agreeing to the whole hostile work environment thing as the cause for termination, they just kept handing me stuff and I signed it cuz I just wanted to get out of there.

What does this mean for me? I worked there for 4 years and do not want to have my entire time there be a wash. Can they call what I did "creating a hostile work environment" and can they disclose it to future employers? They never asked for my version of events.

I appreciate any help / reassurance any of you can provide. It is a very scary time for me right now, not quite sure what to do and the prospect of explaining this away on my job hunt is daunting.

**PattyPA** · 05-07-2011, 12:23 AM

The phrase "hostile working environment" has a specific legal meaning and this isn't it and any attorney who doesn't know that doesn't know employment law. However, slamming material around, being loud and using profanity is certainly inappropriate and can make for an "uncomfortable" working environment for others.

They don't have to ask you for your version of events; they can fire you because you wore green socks if they want to.

I'll leave it to other responders to address how you deal with this relative to prospective employers.

**cyjeff** · 05-07-2011, 06:50 AM

I agree with Patty. this isn't a hostile work environment.

Having said that, I have fired people for being a jerk and making the rest of the office scared of their angry outbursts. I also know people that were fired because they yelled at the bosses relative.

Both are legal....

By the way, yelling at someone for telling a resource to "have a nice flight" is not appropriate. Do you think if the person took the call was as rude as you would have been that the talent would have cancelled their vacation for you? Of course not. You were just looking for someone to take out your anger upon... and found this person.

If this is indicative of the tantrums you throw at people, I would have fired you, too.

If you don't see why this is inappropriate behavior, I think your employment options would improve if you considered anger management classes.

Oh, by the way, it is perfectly legal for your ex employer to tell future employers why you were terminated.

**bwoodzilla** · 05-19-2011, 11:15 AM

I appreciate everyone's input on this -- I understand my own failures and I didn't try to make myself seem innocent. Those are the honest facts and I'm not disputing the termination. Being a jerk and inappropriate is one thing, I'm sure I should be out there soul-searching or something. Regardless, I don't want my former employer telling future employers that I created a hostile work environment, because I feel it has a connotation that's significantly worse than my offenses. "Uncomfortable" I can deal with, I've got a good gift for talk and might be able to gloss that one over -- but "Hostile" is going to be tough.

**cbg** · 05-19-2011, 11:28 AM

Quite honestly, I don't feel that you're in a position to bargain about wording. Whether you created an HWE as defined by law or not, you did contribute to an environment that others found uncomfortable. I don't think you're really going to be able succeed in prohibiting your employer from using the word, hostile, even if you technically are correct; not without making the whole situation worse. Particularly since a great many people share your boss's mistaken definition of the term.