|
Mesa e-mail scandal had its roots in harassment: Fleet services worker grew tired of colleagues' teasing
(Tribune, The (Mesa, AZ) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jul. 23--An investigation that implicated hundreds of Mesa city employees for sending inappropriate e-mails all began after an employee in Fleet Support Services grew tired of being teased.
A mechanic in the city's East Mesa Service Center filed a sexual harassment complaint in October 2005 against fellow mechanics Gilbert Rios and Gabriel Soto, alleging that the two men persistently called him gay. The complaint was eventually substantiated, and Rios and Soto were disciplined.
But during the inquiry, investigators uncovered a widespread, disturbing pattern of e-mail abuses that went far beyond Fleet Support Services. They found that hundreds of Mesa employees were using the city's computer network to circulate sexual pictures and videos, racial jokes and other inappropriate content.
When the dust cleared on the investigation, nearly 500 employees were in trouble, receiving either written reprimands or unpaid suspensions. And the city now makes random checks of e-mail.
But employees in Fleet Support Services say they still have hard feelings toward past managers who allowed the hostility to fester so long among colleagues.
City documents, internal emails, employee journals and interviews with past and present workers in Fleet Support Services reveal a chronic problem of strained relationships between management and staff. In some cases, people disciplined for bad behavior were allowed to continue working in the department for years.
"Where I have a problem is the past and present history with Fleet Support and the supervisors and accountability," Mesa fleet employee Scott Cornwell wrote in a performance review in April after he had violated the city's e-mail policy.
"There has been discipline and corrective action plans, and during this time frame, the goals and expectations have not been met. This has created an environment of do as I say, not as I do."
'MY TURN TO BE PICKED ON'
Even the people accused of harassment say they've been victims of bullying over the years. But management never successfully stopped the bullying and trash-talking that plagued the department for more than decade.
"If it was my turn to be picked on today, then they got one on me," said Rios, who was demoted and is now on probation for calling one of his colleagues gay. "But tomorrow's a different day for someone else to get picked on."
Rios admitted teasing but denied calling anyone gay.
Pete Scarafiotti, director of Fleet Support Services, said he was aware of past problems in the department when he took the job with Mesa in October. He found out that there was no quick remedy for the problem that had taken hold in his department.
"When I moved here, and this took me months, I literally sat down with each person that works here and let them completely unload," Scarafiotti said. "That took a tremendous amount of time to go through and listen to the stories.
"If you heard it from one guy, maybe there was no truth to it, but I heard things time and time again."
Most employees seem to agree that the negative tone in the workplace was set by directors dating back more than 20 years ago. Some of these people were very "arbitrary" in their actions, Scarafiotti said.
But even after past managers left, things never seemed to improve. Many of the people who came up through the ranks had already learned the bad behavior, and subsequent leaders were unable to get it under control.
Personnel records show that people have been in trouble for everything from aggressive behavior to inappropriate jokes. Over the past five years, fleet services employees have been disciplined 26 separate times, according to the personnel department. Punishments ranged from demotion to probation and written reprimands.
Workers say the bathroom humor and mockery were a way to relieve tension. Employees said they have been both the victims and perpetrators of teasing.
When it comes to the complaint that kicked off the citywide investigation, Soto said he doesn't know why he made comments about his coworker's sexuality.
"(It was) just for the hell of it," Soto said. "When I referred to him as possibly being gay, I was walking by and it was just an observation.
"He was acting feminine," he said, noting that the mechanic was often "skipping, singing and whistling."
"You've got to do that to survive," Soto said. "It's a rough environment."
Soto, who quit his job with the city in March, complained about the way others treated him. He says colleagues teased him about his Hispanic heritage. A 2002 memo documented Soto's complaints about racist slurs written on bathroom walls. He said he reported the harassment to his immediate supervisor, but the perpetrator was never identified.
Soto said it might seem hypocritical for him to complain about harassment when he's dished it out himself. But he said the root of the problem lies with the city and its inconsistency in dealing with reported abuses.
"Isn't it also hypocritical to pull the pin and throw the grenade on this (sexual harassment complaint), and not on my case?" he asked.
FLEEING FLEET SUPPORT
Mike Millett, a city mechanic, said he transferred to fire maintenance to escape the negativity in Fleet Support Services. As soon as the bullies found your button, he said, they didn't hesitate to push it.
"This is how it would happen," Millett said. "People would tease people just to get through the day, just for entertainment value and just because it's a miserable place to work."
Fear of getting in trouble has prompted several current and former Fleet Support Services employees to keep journals to record inappropriate behavior. They document everything from racist comments to confrontations with superiors, and most of them date back at least 10 years.
Millett, for example, has a giant three-ring binder filled with papers documenting all sorts of problems.
"Information is power," he said.
Former Fleet Support employee Jason Nickelson also transferred to fire maintenance to escape the atmosphere in Fleet. He said that currently, seven out of 10 people who work in fire maintenance did the same because they could no longer take the hostility.
"I literally hated my job every day," Nickelson said. "There was not a day I woke up that I didn't want to call in sick."
Not everyone who was worked in Fleet Support has been bothered by the jokes and the teasing. Some saw it as the only way to cope.
"You've got to remember, you're talking about mechanics," Nickelson said. "We're predominantly men -- and come on, you know what I mean. It kind of goes with the territory.
Phoebe Morgan, an associate professor of criminal justice at Northern Arizona University, said off-color jokes and harassment are symptoms of a hyper-masculine culture that's often found in male-dominated fields.
"We see a lot of sexual banter and we see a lot of aggression because remember -- we have men who are in this competitive environment," she said. "One way to tell people not to mess with you or your territory is to assert authority."
In many male-dominated fields, the people at the top try to protect their jobs, and those at the bottom fight to move up the ladder, Morgan said. People with similar statuses bond together, and they may bully or harass people outside their group. Soon, an unofficial and unwritten hierarchy emerges that can sometimes even trump the formal hierarchy of the job.
"That is where you get the hazing and the rituals and the bonding and the good-old-boy network," she said.
CULTURAL CHANGE
When Scarafiotti first took over at Fleet Support Services, he was shocked to learn that the department had no business plan and no benchmarks had been set for the employees.
Since then, Scarafiotti drafted a 20-page business plan modeled after those used by private businesses. And he encouraged managers to spend more time at the East Mesa Service Center where many of the problems occurred. In the past, there was little supervision there, he said.
"I brought some people in from the private sector to take a look at the work here and start addressing this organization mostly from a business standpoint," he said. "It had never been looked at that way before. It had been ignored. They were just folks out back working on equipment."
Scarafiotti noted that while it's a clear-cut case if someone is alleging sexual or racially based harassment, other cases are hard to document because they involve one person's word against another. That has frequently been the case with complaints in the past, thus making them harder to resolve, he said.
At this point, he's not considering offering sensitivity training because it's been done many times before and has failed to solve the bigger problems.
While some of that training was beneficial, he wants to focus on putting people in management who will set a good example.
"You can have someone come in and say we should all love each other and take care of each other, but if that doesn't happen, it's not good," Scarafiotti said. "The only way to make it happen is to make management do it, and how do you do that? That's a cultural change."
And yet, even though there is awareness of past problems in the department, some were less than hopeful that change is coming.
"I hope something will (change)," Millett said. "But I don't expect anything.
"It's been too many years."
-
CONTACT WRITER:
(480) 898-6535
or slynch@aztrib.com
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
|
TMCnet LOGIN
Webinars
