-=(Sagien)=-

A Written Account

I was afraid to post this before, mainly because I feared some kind of retaliation from my former employers.

But now that I really thought about it, this is something of a legal right of mine to post at a public forum.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to read next is a bit long, but I promise you that it's a good read. It is a reprint of what I wrote and submitted to my boss' boss as an attempt to document something quite real that happened in a Radio Shack store between me and a fellow employee. And if you ask what my employers did about the situation, the answer is quite painful.

RadioShack Corporation did absolutely nothing.

February 25, 2003

This is a written account of what transpired between me and a colleague, Kelly Phelan, on Tuesday, February 25, 2003. I, Michael J Uy, will attempt to reconstruct the events and words that were exchanged as accurate as possible from my own memory.

At around 12:30 PM, I noticed that the ACR software on one of the terminals had been shut down. Since I wasn't the individual who shut down the software and there was only one other person working, I assumed that Kelly was the one who accomplished this task. I went ahead and asked her why she has closed off all the programs running on the terminal. Her reply was, "Don't talk if you don't know how to talk."

I said, "I'm asking you a question, why are all the programs not running on the computer? I was doing some work on there and you closed it off."

"Don't talk if you don't know how to talk," she said again. This irritated me.

"I believe I'm talking just fine. I'm trying to ask you a question."

"You don't have anything to say to me," was her reply.

"Are you stupid or something? I'm trying to figure out why my work has been closed off."

After I said the last phrase, she said something along the lines of me not calling her stupid but then she added, "You think you're white but you're not."

In response to that, I said, "That is the most ignorant thing that I have ever heard said to me." I was also contemplating contacting the District Sales Manager at this point.

"You think you're fucking white and you're not. You should act like yourself," she continued on.

I said, "That's it. I can't work with you. I'm going to call Bob."

"Go ahead and call Bob," she said, "it's my word against yours and there is nobody here."

At this point, I went to the backroom to make a phone call. I left a message on Justin's cell phone asking him to call me back at the store and briefly explained what it was about. After that, I went back out to the sales floor, not really wanting to say anything else to her, but I did inform her that I had called Justin.

While the lull in business traffic continued, I decided to go ahead and call my girlfriend to see if she could pull anything up on public records about Kelly. I wanted to know what I was up against. However, she wasn't able to find anything that would be able to help my case. This is probably due to the fact that all I had to work with was her name. I did not want to pull any information from company resources. I will add, however, that this phone call was made in Kelly's presence and she was well aware of what I was intending to do.

After I got off the phone, she said to me, "You're running a background check on me. I'm writing this down and I will call Bob."

"Okay," I said.

"I will call Bob and it's going to be my word against yours and there is nobody here. I will say to him, 'Mike called me an ignorant fucking nigger.' and you will say you didn't do it, but it doesn't matter because nobody is here."

"That is so fucking ignorant. WHy are you pulling this race card out? I am not racist," was my reply.

She didn't say anything after that, and a customer came in a few minutes later. I took the opportunity to have a cigarette and figure out my options while I took care of the customer.

After my short break, business traffic picked up and Justin called me back while there were several customers in the store, so I asked him to call me back again. Eventually, the midday rush subsided and she was ready with a few words for me again.

"I will win because I'm a black female," she said to me. I chose to ignore that comment. She went ahead and had her lunch break and I waited for her to get done before I went on mine. This action didn't go without arguement, however, because I wanted to have the opportunity to eat first since I was at the store before she was. In the end, I conceded, deciding that there was no point to argueing.

Things seemed to calm down after she ate; she even offered me some soup when I was heading out to get some food from the grocery store. I declined this offer, saying, "I don't want anything from you." And then I left for the store.

After I got done eating, I went back out to the sales floor to finish my shift. It's around 2:30 PM. As I was making my way behind the counter, she said, "Mike, let's work something out. We could not say anything and drop the whole thing."

"After all the things you said to me, no. I cannot work with you," I said.

"You said things to me too," she said.

"I know," I replied.

Matt came in to begin his shift around 3:00 PM. I pulled him to the backroom and told him about what happened today. At around 3:30 PM, Justin called back and spoke to Kelly and then called back again and I answered the phone. He asked for store numbers and told me he was going to try to be in before my shift was over at 6:00 PM.

I spoke again with Matt and updated him on the situation. He said he was willing to add a few words to support my situation.

The rest of the night was uneventful. Justin called back saying that he wasn't going to be able to make it to the store before I had to leave. Kelly left work at exactly 6:00 PM, and I left about ten minutes later, after I finished my final sale for the day.

This whole account was put into words as accurately as I can remember. I don't remember the exact exchange of words, but I have pointed out exact phrases that I said and that she said to the best of my recollection. I also want to take this opportunity to apologize for the inappropriate words I have said, but in my defense, those words were said while I weas upset and frustrated at how the situation was developing. Thank you for letting me tell my side of the story.

[Signature]
Michael J. Uy

Diagnosis

Forgive the atrocious grammar of an unpracticed writer. That was written well before I started writing for ISSF and it was painful having to retype.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions or comments, please use the comment section. I don't want to give exclusive discussions to people over IM or even in ISSF chat. Thanks =).

Posted by sagien at July 16, 2005 12:40 AM