#94 Summary Discharge: Threatening a Coworker with Bodily Harm
May 18, 2017
Mary Beth Kaline
3000 Peachtree Road
Atlanta, GA 30326
Dear Mary Beth,
As we discussed over the phone, our company will no longer be able to employ you as a security guard. After completing an investigation regarding a coworker’s complaints about you and your complaints about the coworker, I have determined that your behavior was inappropriate and that it potentially could have created a hostile work environment.
I base my findings on the fact that you admitted to telecommunications supervisor Denise King that you did indeed make threatening faces at this coworker. You stated to Supervisor King that “if this had occurred anywhere but here, I would have beat the shit out of her.”
You also repeated this threat in writing to me in your letter dated May 15, 2017. You wrote in that letter explaining your side of the story that “if we were outside, I would take matters into my own hands.” Such direct or veiled threats of violence violate company standards of performance and conduct and preclude us from continuing your employment relationship with this organization.
Thank you for your weekend on-call11 services over the past two years. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please call me at 555-5555.
Sincerely,
Michael Shanahan
Director of Security
11 An “on-call,” also known as a “standby,” employee does not work a specified schedule but is available to respond to calls to work as needed. Such workers typically do not receive employer-sponsored benefits, and there is generally less of a need to provide formal due process because of the casual nature of the employment relationship. (In other words, you would be less obligated to follow the verbal-written-final written paradigm for on-call workers than for regular full-or part-time workers.) Although it could be argued that a 20-year full-time employee might not be summarily dismissed for this very same incident, most employers retain the flexibility to consider the worker’s employment status when administering discipline