Worked 1 day,quit due to employees making comments about my looks,expensive jewlery,asking me to smoke pot eith them after work in parking lot!

by Brittany

(INDIANA)

I was offered a Full-Time position at a company in a rather dangerous area, around seedy motels known for prostitution, drugs, etc. The job was located right off a major interstate. My job was 6 weeks of training during hours that weren’t ideal, but after I completed training, I would be on a daytime schedule. When I went to my interview & also when I arrived for my first day of training, the parking lot was full of cars, around 200. There were employees everywhere, so although it was in a bad area, I felt like nothing bad could really happen in such a large environment with coworkers everywhere.

On my first day of my 6 weeks of training, we spent about 3 of the 8 hrs playing games getting to know our classmates since we’d be spending the next 6 weeks 40 hours/week with each other. Multiple times during the 8 hrs a male sitting across from me & his friend, kept looking at me,licking their lips, winking at me & making me feel very uncomfortable, so I did my best to completely avoid them, not making eye contact or any communication with the 2 males whatsoever. When we were dismissed for lunch break,the two males made sure to situate themselves, so they were walking the long distance to the lunch room, right next to me.

They began asking me personal questions about myself and telling me how attractive I was & basically just making me feel very uncomfortable. Once it was time to go home, it was 11pm & it had went from a packed building with people everywhere, to an empty building practically, with the front doors locked & an entirely different environment from when I was there doing my interview & when I had arrived earlier at 2pm.

Again,the 2 males made sure to walk out right next to me & began asking if I wanted to join them in the parking lot & “smoke some bud with them.” I declined. saying I don’t do that stuff & I’m a wife & mom & have a long drive home. One of the male’s made a comment like, do I think I’m better than them or I am to good to hang out with them?

Then he says those are quite big diamond rings you’ve got on & asking if I come from money & that my husband must make good money to buy me diamond rings and earrings like that. I then became super uncomfortable because I felt like maybe they invited me to smoke with them in hopes of getting me alone with them and had other things in mind than just wanting to smoke and get to know me.

So I felt I needed to get away from them & make sure for my safety, not to exit the building in the dark & alone with these males by me. After waiting in the bathroom for a min or 2 thinking they should have reached the exit & would be gone already, I exited & began heading to the exit doors. When I got closer, I saw the same 2 males holding the door open while the few classmates left in the building were exiting. My heart immediately dropped & I honestly was frightened. But I just continued to go towards the exit & just avoid eye contact & kept moving.

The second I walked out the door they were holding, they stopped holding the door & began walking right behind.me out to the parking lot. By this time I was terrified & knew that it was done intentionally on their part. So once outside, I literally began to basically run to my vehicle with my keys in hand, jumped in my car, locked the door and got out of there as fast as possible.

The entire ride home, I was looking in the mirror making sure no one was following me, but I was literally shaking. So once I got home, I woke up my husband & told him what happened & after hearing that, combined with a personal issue with my son having an earache & fever, as well as not being picked up from daycare on time that day, which didn’t happen because he could not get off & through the road construction & traffic on the major highways quickly enough, he told me he did not want me working there, at least not at night & with the same coworkers I had the issues with. And I agreed that there was no way I’d go back for another day of what I went through in the dark & alone.

I let the job know the circumstances of my son & that the night training was not going to work for me and I didn’t feel safe, they informed me they were working on setting up a daytime training that would be available soon. So after explaining this, I was denied by UE benefits & the reasoning being that the reason I voluntarily quit was personal and had nothing to do in connection with the job or work environment itself, basically saying my son being sick and being picked up from daycare on time was why I quit, completely ignoring the fact of everything else.

So I’m appealing and am wondering if anyone can give me advice on what to do to win my appeal, they’re saying I now owe them every bit of the UE I had received since the beginning, totaling over $2000, which I do not have.

Just looking for some advice on how to approach my appeal in hopes of possibly winning because I only went the 1 day, I feel like its going to be a hard thing to prove with facts, it’s basically just my word and that I called the next day telling them I needed a daytime training program if I were to even consider working there. Does it sound like I have any chance of winning my appeal at all. And why would I owe all the UE I received since April, for a totally different job, because I stopped working at a job I accepted and worked for 1 day at on 8-28-2017?

The time from April-8/28/17 I followed all the UE rules and complied with keeping my job logs applying to numerous jobs per work as well as attending the mandatory classes, turning in my job logs by driving an hour to the workone location 2xs a month for all those months. I get it, if I lose, any benefits from 8/28/17 needing to be payed back, but why would it be all of it? Please help!!

The Last, Most Recent Separation From a Job, Determines Eligibility to Collect Going Forward

This is how unemployment benefits work. You can be initially determined to of been laid off for a lack of work, voluntarily quit a job with good cause, or been fired for something other than work misconduct in April, but once you accept a new job .. it becomes the controlling separation of the claim for any remaining benefits.

However, I think you are correct to question why the St. of Indiana is saying you have to repay benefits all the way back to the beginning of your claim in April since you basically accepted and quit this last, or most recent job on 8/28. And you should know that it is trying to get those benefits back .. comes as no surprise to me. Can you imagine how many people get an unemployment overpayment .. and never questions the amount the state says is owed, but just takes the states word for it .. and repays through a payment plan .. that may, or may not be subject to penalty, interests .. or an overpayment wavier? (Overpayment waivers aren’t available in all states.)

However, the way I’m interpreting the facts you laid out, makes me wonder if there is a reason to question a denial of your ongoing eligibility after you quit this one day job.

Granted, I know it’s a long shot, but it is a voluntarily quit that raises for me, the issue of suitable work for you to accept, if we could just take out the weak parts of your story and focus on your conversations with the employer to see if there is a way for you to explain how it was made unsuitable. For instance, did anything ever came of the employer’s mention of daytime training being made available to you, after you spelled out your concerns about your own physical safety leaving the building that night to include details about the two male co-trainees that made you feel uncomfortable all day and then caused you to feel physically threatened when leaving at 11 pm at night.

Bad neighborhood? Did the employer provide no type of security that late at night?

Please note, I haven’t mentioned earaches, husbands, or daycares as those are personal reasons. Those wouldn’t be my first choices to mention to an employer, or unemployment department as it can be difficult, or more accurately, mentally trying, to connect quitting a job to actually be the fault of employer when you know you’re the one required to attribute fault to the work, or employer .. just to meet the burden of quitting with good cause.

Chris