By Ken Snyder
I learned from some veteran's rights websites that the Department of Labor has a means to investigate actions taken against employees that are service members. On 2 September 2010 I filed a complaint against BPU on the Department of Labor's website. In no time at all I had a discussion with an investigator and he started asking questions -- one of the first questions was regarding my employee file and why I had not been sent a copy of it as I had requested. Shortly thereafter, the file came in the mail -- and then the questions really got interesting.
It turns out that there were not two, but three "Employee Evaluations" in my file. Here's where it appears BPU started actively working to terminate me and subsequently cover it up. The first two evaluations (from "March" and April) were there, signed by DeGraeve, Clark and myself as well as date-stamped by BPU's Human Resources Department. However, this third evaluation appears to be a last-minute addition to my file. There are many questionable things regarding this evaluation, and it's accompanying comment sheet, but the most damning thing is it's date: 21 June. I was in Topeka on Air National Guard duty that day -- it was the Monday of my second week of duty.
Here are some errors I found on this third evaluation: you can click here to open a copy of it in a separate window, click here to open a copy of the comment sheet, and click here to open a page for the numbered annotations in red.
It appears this was done either by someone in haste, or by someone with no experience in writing employee evaluations:
A Comment is made on the accompanying sheet regarding the 28 May incident (read about it here) and to read the comment you'd think I openly defied DeGraeve, when in fact all I probably did was flinch when my cell phone rang. It's not as if no other technician had ever received a phone call while working -- I saw it happen all the time. We even called each other; using our cell phones was a way to keep non-essential communication off the radios and also a way to keep from tying up the radios in certain situations. There were even comments made when Sisson would step out of the room (during morning meetings to take a call) as to just who he was talking to.
According to the last evaluation I'm about the worst person that BPU has ever hired, flat "unsatisfactory" reviews all across the board. Never mind that less than two months earlier (and note: there was no May evaluation) I had an evaluation that said "has improved" in the areas I was initially listed as "unsatisfactory" on the (supposedly) March evaluation. All of this was relayed to the Labor Department investigator, and he posed these questions to BPU's lawyers, who by this time had taken over handling this case from DeLeon and BPU's HR department.
Because of the lawyers taking over, the investigator gave them a time extension to respond to his questions. I found this rather puzzling, as they were alerted to the fact that I was fired by 1) DeLeon when he sent them a copy of the letter he sent notifying me I was fired, and 2) receiving a copy of the second letter I sent to DeLeon requesting a copy of my personnel file, which also had a copy of my first letter attached to it. When the lawyer for BPU talked to the investigator he sent him a letter outlining their conversation and sent me a copy of it as well. Now (according to the investigator's letter) the lawyer says I "refused to obey orders" on top of the other charges. When did this happen, and why isn't it listed on any of the evaluation forms? I can see this is being built up from the inside to far greater proportions than it ever was while I was there.
Next: The Waiting
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