I am in Compliance, have anxiety that qualifies as a disability under ADA. I filed a EEOC complaint for discrimination and retaliation. I quit my job, because my manager was retaliating and knew of the the layoffs back in December 2019 and was threatening that he was going to lay me off, among other things, to get back at me for filing a previous HR complaint. I have a documented disability and requested that HR move me to another job either in Risk or compliance. At the time of my request, there were over 500 open compliance and risk jobs, and I was told by my the head of my group that HR refused to move me to another job in the company if I wanted to return to my job. I have returned, but have met and been coached by the EEOC and my attorneys (the best that money can buy). The EEOC is appalled that HR and my management team did not engage in the interactive process and refused to move me when there were hundreds of jobs open. Also, a month after I returned, they moved a direct male report from underneath me and moved them to the business, because I had complained about gender discrimination and pay equity. This person was doing a job function for less than 20% of their time. My management team told HR that this person was doing the job function 50% of the time which is untrue. I have weekly take time trackers from the person they moved for proof. This was retaliation and was so I would have less than 7 direct reports and they can lay me off due to Spans and Layers and make it look like it is not retaliation. There have been multiple incidents of additional retaliation by my direct boss since I have returned. The EEOC has all my documentation along with my lawyers and have confirmed that their have been multiple ADA rule violations based on the actions of HR and my management team. Our plan is have the EEOC move forward with a charge discrimination as soon as they try to hide the retaliation via a lay-off (adverse action). The EEOC is going to sue Wells Fargo for AMerican Disability violations and retaliation. They and my attorneys are going to put people under oath and supoena emails and documents. Also, there are multiple examples in business controls, risk and compliance where HR moved an employee or they were turned into individual contributors - the EEOC and my attorneys are going to go after Wells for retaliating me, and I have medical records that show that HRs refusal to move has caused my anxiety to skyrocket, so we are going to go after the compliance management chain for retaliation , pain and suffering. My attorney has figured out how to get around the mediation agreement that I signed when I joined the company, so we can take Wells Fargo and the management team to Civil Court, and hit them hard financially. Also, Civil Court shows up on background checks when these people apply for future jobs. I am going to be retiring, so I have Nothing to Lose.
38 replies (most recent on top)
I spend my time calling doctors, HR, and whoever else will listen, first imploring them in dulcet tones for special treatment and then demanding to speak to their managers when that doesn’t get me anywhere.
Some great responses on here! Embracing candor all around.
Yeah, the original post is pretty rambling. If you really have attorneys involved you sure as heck should not be posting on social media.
Fortunately the new Location Strategy is arriving just in time with safe spaces, Play-Doh rooms, morning Yoga, Aroma Therapy and warm oat meal baths. Saul had great foresight.
Hopefully the OP found what he/she was looking for with this id-otic post. Surprised to find out no one gives a sh-t about your issues while you add to the bloat across the organization and then brag about suing the same company in which many of us are shareholders?
@uqa+178Nq7XY sure. You "know" the OP. Out of a company of 270,000 employees. Next OP will be saying she also got tetanus from a loose screw on the bathroom light switch.
I know who the original poster is and I can confirm the OP’s retaliation complaints have merit and have observed the OP being s-xually harassed as well. This person is telling the truth, and Wells Fargo looks the other way and does nothing when employees legal rights are violated and they are harassed by higher ups.
@kap+178Nq7XY it might be time to apply for another job rather than trolling this board.
@hra+178Nq7XY You. Don't. Say...It's someone being a troll. No wonder there's issues at WF.
@qie+178Nq7XY, read @nzv’s post again, a but more slowly. I think it’s satire.
@nvz+178Nq7XY were you assessed for brain damage? Might be an idea after writing a brain dead post. You're welcome.
I have fibromyalgia, Morgellon’s disease, chronic Lyme disease, vaccine-induced autism, and chronic fatigue syndrome. My manager retaliated against me even though both a naturopath and a chiropractor wrote notes testifying I should only work two hours a day. Anyone know of a good employment lawyer?
I work in Risk too. I have at times had horrible anxiety and, relatedly, depression. Often, my stressful job made it worse. It was so bad at one point that, on a business trip, I asked my hotel to move me out of a top-story room with an outdoor balcony, out of fear I might do something stupid when my Ambien kicked in. But, as I chose to take the position, it never occurred to me to transfer the onus of the situation onto my employer. I guess I could’ve complained and threatened to sue for special treatment and found a way to take weeks off while my coworkers picked up the slack, but instead I always told myself if I couldn’t take the heat, I’d get out of the kitchen. (BTW, I toughed things out and am doing great these days). I really loathe people who have overblown senses of entitlement, willingly put themselves in employment situations, and think they can then meld the scenario around them.
A lot of people writing some fairly nasty comments. I do agree that it shouldn't be incumbent on an employer to change the employee's position in the company. There shouldn't necessarily be a cost to the employer as such. Also, some of the comments about the OP not working and others picking up the slack are completely unfounded. Would you attack a female colleague for taking time off during pregnancy? I went thru a similar situation with a previous employer. I kept documents to prove out the huge number of hours a was being burdened with. I did everything by the book and it was recommended I move desks to a quieter area by ER, due to the building work and interruptions during the day. It left me completely fried. Management refused- wouldn't have cost them a penny. I quit and sued my health was deteriorating badly.
Op, your rant is nauseating. Seek shelter in your parents basement and don’t come back out.
Perhaps work (or life) should come with a trigger warning, “caution, may cause stress.” I agree with the earlier suggestion that the OP find a safe space to curl up in and let the adults keep working.
Seems like the company is inconsistent. I filed a complaint about a manager who threatened me in front of witnesses. HR was useless. Manager was not dealt with. I was made to look like the problem. HR said they are not allowed to move an employee after I made the request - only my manger could help me. Yet the manager was the issue and retaliated by ignoring me. HR told me this wasn’t retaliation. My only options were to quit or look for a new role when I was the one threatened and constantly looking over my shoulder. I consulted an attorney but was told I had no case since there was no physical threat. I will never report anything again. I was able to find a new role and am much happier but it took over 6 months.
You mention that you’re about to retire. After a likely undistinguished career of strip-mining employers for pay and benefits while you complain and foist work on others, consider partially redeeming yourself by just going away quietly. It’s never too late to do the right thing.
I worked with a team member like this once. It was a disaster for the team. We all had to do extra work cause this team member was out of work more than they were in their seat. And when they were in their seat that person spent an abundance of their time calling doctors, HR, and whoever else would listen and not doing their job. It was extremely frustrating for the team. It was said earlier, WF should make reasonable accommodations but in my situation it was abused and it was unfair to the rest of us.
Secondly, I hate that you have had a rough time with a disability but why when there were an abundance of roles you could have applied for didn’t you make an effort to get somewhere that would have been a better fit? Rather than demanding the company work cartwheels around you and the decisions you made to get into that role. That doesn’t make sense to me.
Lastly, you probably shouldn’t be discussing a pending legal situation outside of people who are in a need to know.
OP mentions lawyers and the EEOC, but not once a mention od how they were diagnosed. The Citizens case is interesting because the EEOC pursued a settlement and Citizens said "No, go pound sand." No apparent court dates have been set yet. Last update was July of last year. The lawsuit may still be in the works, but it's extremely unlikely the complainant will get what he wants. Just because you sue doesn't mean you'll win. And really, do you think anyone cares about your "anxiety" laxsuit compared to WF's other scandals? There's no such thing as bad press for them. It's like suing a bankrupt person for 10k. They are immune to bad press. For the record, heres an example of the EEOC filing a lawsuit for an employee with anxiety. It is from October last year. Didn't work out to well for the employee.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/tennessee-federal-court-axes-ada-44356/
Maybe you should find a job that makes you less anxious instead of asking everyone to accommodate you? If you can do the job at hand with a reasonable accommodation, that’s one thing, expecting the Company to change the job to fit your anxiety issues is another. It’s people like you (litigious) that make it impossible to cut the dead weight outside of mass layoffs. So thank you for all your “contributions”
You sound like a nightmare employee. One whose work ends up getting heaped on everybody else while you milk the company for compensation and medical benefits, and you threaten to complain and sue if the gravy train ends. I have seen this so many times. I’m sorry if you have anxiety, but it doesn’t give you the right to insert yourself into a risk management job at a financial institution and work your way out of the same responsibilities everybody else has to deal with.
The ADA requires employers to make reasonable accommodations. It doesn’t require that employers keep employees who quite literally complain about everything. This person has made so many complaints that they simply do not have any credibility.
I am appalled at the responses here and it shows that there is a lot of work that needs to be done at Wells Fargo at educating people about the American Disabilities Act. I agree with the original poster, and I won a EEOC case with a former employer for similar violations. Class action is the way to go to show no only does Wells Fargo have a problem with promoting black talent, they also have zero respect for individuals with disabilities.
So
- You have disability level anxiety in a risk management job
- You’ve complained to EEOC about ADA discrimination
- You’ve complained about gender discrimination
- You’ve complained about retaliation
- You’ve complained about your job description
- You’ve stated a desire to exact revenge on specific managers (FYI this is also retaliation)
Honestly, I don’t think you have the best grasp of the big picture here. It looks like you spend no time working, and all your time complaining.
Your Manager sounds horrible but so do you.
So you quit your job sometime in or around 2019,then you returned? And they actually gave you back your job, but moved 1 person out from under you?
I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a moment. I’m not an attorney and I’m not in HR, but as a manager, I have first hand experience with this.
Scenario 1 - Had an employee in her late 40s, maybe early 50s. Great worker, always upbeat, did fantastic work, always submitted work on time, could always be counted on. Always scored a 4 or 5 on every performance review. One day she did not show up for work. Very unusual for her. 2 days later I got a phone cal from her husband at the hospital. She had a full blown psychiatric episode. She suffered from bipolar disorder and depression, and schizophrenia ran in her family. They thought she had a stroke and called 911. I never knew she had mental illness. She was out on Medical Leave for 12 weeks and was stabilized on medication and doing out patient therapy. We met for lunch so I could understand her situation and when and if SHE decided to return to work or needed more time to recover and stabilize. I never whispered a word of this to the team. I simply said she was out on medical leave and doing better. She did come back 2 weeks later. But within a month I saw her struggling. She was disorganized, disoriented, crying in the bathroom. She truly was unable to fulfill any part of her job duties. I fully supported her decision to file for STD, and then LTD since she was no longer capable of performing her job duties in any capacity due to her documented mental illness and medication stabilization. Our work environment was overstimulating, taxing and caused her severe mental distress and anxiety. There was no role to move her into with less responsibilities or less stress. I helped her and her family with all the paperwork to submit to HR and Liberty Mutual. She is now medically retired, on Long Term Disability and SSDI and doing much better in her new way of life, even though everyday is a struggle for her and her family.
Scenario 2 - Employee was combative and demanding of accommodations from the start. I inherited her from an internal business unit conversion. Constantly complaining of being stressed out and in pain. I made sure she got 2 different chairs, one for sitting, one for standing, a motorized standing desk, a standing mat, every ergonomic device to help her do her job you could imagine. She constantly spoke of being stressed and that her job was giving her anxiety. Would call in sick with anxiety, sick was depression, needed a mental health day, her back hurt. This was ongoing for 2 years, every other week she would call out. Was late turning in assignments and projects that impacted other teams and groups. I would take as much as I could off her plate, reassign assignments and responsibilities to others, yet I would get phone calls and emails of her lack of performance and engagement. I turned to HR to help coach her and understand what I could do to help her, and what were my options. I could put her on a PIP, but that is a long drawn out process for me and I’m stuck with that person for a minimum of 6 months to a year. It also makes them ineligible to post out internally. Since there were no lateral positions within my team or business group to move her into, I could only change her job description and it would impact her pay significantly. The bottom line, she was hired and expected to perform 100% of her job and duties based on her job title and the corresponding responsibilities and duties of that job title. I could not amend the job title to fit her demands of what she wanted to work on, or when she wanted to work. If she could not perform her duties, then she would need to find a better fit internally or externally. She threatened legal action, EEOC, going to the news, etc. When performance reviews came around she was appalled at her rating of 2, and some 1’s. She felt she deserved a 5. She had nothing on file regarding her “supposed” disability of anxiety, only chiropractor notes requesting work accommodations. Eventually she left on her own for another position internally. We had corporate properties move all her accommodation equipment to her new business group. 6 months later I found out she was terminated after being put on a PIP and not fulfilling those new responsibilities.
If you want to sue, go ahead and sue. If you want to file an EEOC or ADA complaint, go right ahead. But just know that you better have documented proof of a true disability under the terms of the Benefits SPD. Anything else outside of those disabilities is open to interpretation and subjected to scrutiny.
Smells funny to me. Not saying WF is perfect but why do they have to move you? If there were so many jobs why didn’t you apply?
Maybe you just su@ked as a manager.
If this is true, I hope they find this post which they will.
Lol. Supposedly has some sort of iron clad legal case using “the best lawyers money can buy” against their employer, decides to come post about how they are going to stick it to a company on the internet because I’m sure that’s the kind of legal advice their counsel provided. You do realize that subpoenas for information goes both ways and anonymous isn’t so anonymous correct? Nah, ya don’t because if you did you wouldn’t have made this post. Take one thumb and stick it in your mouth to s— on, take the other thumb and stick it in your bum, hold your stuffed teddy bear and squeeze it tight to your body, curl up in a ball crying in the corner and rock yourself to sleep over your sky rocketing anxiety.
All of us who filed complaints or cases with ER/HR (also known as the termination department) and ended up “displaced” or “laid off” after making such a report should ban together and file a class action suit against this criminal institution known as Wells Fargo.
If there’s any attorneys reading this or anyone else in the know about how to start a class action suit, please let us know!
I hate Wells Fargo with a passion. But all I see on this thread are a bunch of lazy con artists. I can’t tell who is more scum, WF or the ones with a “disability”.
@OP - The strange part of this story is why HR would need to “move” you to any job. It sounds like you feel you have some special entitlement. If you are qualified and skilled you should be able to apply, compete and win over less qualified candidates. It sounds like that did not happen for some reason. The rest of the story is plausible and you probably will be able to get some money out of this case to make you some good in retirement. Enjoy it, corporate life seems over to you by now!
go to class action.. I will join... I have a documented disability and HR knew about it and I faced the same sort of thing ....
@sgd the reason being is in alot of cases mine included management prevents you from moving... I was prevented from doing a lateral movement in my org due to this... this was in retaliation for me reporting multiple policy violations.
go to class action.. I will join... I have a documented disability and HR knew about it and I faced the same sort of thing ....
Go class action. I know others with disabilities experiencing the same. It is called constructive discharge
Why do you wait for HR to “move you”? If there are 500 open jobs, then why not start applying for them?
good!! tired of ppl w disabilities getting c**pped on when they r supposed to be protected
By the way, the EEOC has died Citizens Bank in Providence Rhode Island for the same thing I experienced. Employee had anxiety, employee asked to be moved to another job, HR said no, employee quit job. EEOC is doing Citizens Banks for American Disability violations.