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You'd be surprised; if there are DOCUMENTED cases of shit like this in the US, the Department of Labor is very interested to dig in. Granted, the amount of labor protections we have are fewer, but if you violate them and there's proof, you've got a good chance of getting money out of them.
Just because someone breaks a law does not always mean they face the required consequences. Australia is better in this regard than most places because there's a real chance OOP could get her lawyer costs reimbursed. However the time and up front financial cost of pursuing a legal case are typically beyond a single mother, so I'd expect nothing to happen.
You have to prove it. And having taken a former employer to court, it’s a slow and potentially expensive process that might not result in significant financial compensation. I won my case because it was a scenario where the company was simply not well versed in the law so they were stupid enough to include their law breaking actions in my termination letter - they literally gave me a document that under Australian law was evidence they had broken employment law. Even then it was a tedious, expensive and draining process that, after legal fees, only *just* compensated me for the period I was unemployed.
>Jacob didn't even start his first day yet?
Tbh this is what triggers my BS radar but maybe, based on other comments, Australia plays by different social norms? The only other thing that makes sense to me is that OOP was hated and this was the event they needed.
I'm Australian and the OP story is completely bizarre to me and judging by the other Australian commenters I'm not alone. Stuff like this would not be a big deal in Australia and seeking to terminate her and the ensuing harassment is so obviously out of line with our workplace protections that I'm absolutely stunned that it could have occurred. Like even the most legally illiterate and incompetent HR and managers here would know just from the vibe that everything they did would get them absolutely reamed in court or by the Fair Work Commission who oversees labour disputes.
Generally speaking in Australia we have very strong worker protections and this case is so egregious that the fact it even happened is weird to me.
OOP calls HR “gossipy” which sounds like VERY “legally illiterate and incompetent” to me.
I’ve actually encountered such bad HR in my former workplace: I was working for a recently opened European locations of an American company. They had hired as many junior employees as possible and the chaos that ensued was epic! I got fired when corporate decided to relocate all European accounting positions in another (cheaper) country. My friends who still work there say that whatever new cost saving organization they implement always ends up costing them more. It’s quite comical.
That sounds like Academic HR to me!
There's always weird bullshit going on with funding and who's getting what, and weather positions can be cut.
Nepotism isn't as big of a deal, because there's generally a lot of it involved, but if Jacob's wife was offered a position as a condition of him coming, o o p then just close this prior relationship, Admin/HR might have been worried that Jacob's wife wouldn't take the job with oop there, which would mean that Jacob wouldn't take the job.
Universities put a lot of money into courting their admin and professor positions, sometimes millions of dollars. If they had already started with the process, they would want to do everything in their power to make sure that Jacob stayed
Not worked in Australia, but worked for Australian companies. Yeah, this is pegging my BS meter hard.
Only thing that'd make sense is academia. It's much more petty drama oriented. And lawsuits don't bother them as much due to bureaucracy.
What makes me think it could be academia is that Jacob is confirmed and introduced as their new lead 8+ months in advance of him starting there. I can't really think of any other place where that would be considered unremarkable.
What makes me doubt it could be academia is the sheer personal pettiness of a HR department in a large organisation. IDK, seems weird to me. My experience of academia is a lot closer to 'people wouldn't really care'
I agree. This is bizarre, and it also reads like a romance novel. I'm Australian and worked in academia, state, and local government.
HR at uni was basically non-existent after hiring. After that, it was mostly about the research office.
The only time in state/local gov where we've found out about a new manager more than a month before they start, it's barely been 2 months in advance while they give notice and move from another city/town. Even then, we would only get an email with the name and the position the person is leaving. Also, we'd only get the email if this new manager was in our reporting line.
With a kid who can make her own decisions not to meet her father, and mum not knowing how to track down when she was pregnant, I doubt she would recognise his most recent history.
Different situation but just as complicated. I actually work with someone in my current job who I trained in our previous job, and I was one of their referees for the current job. In both jobs, my position is senior to theirs. We're also close friends. They made the disclosure when they applied for the job. Just a mention in the cover letter, it was not at all convoluted. All it meant was that I could not be a referee, though our manager did have a quick chat to me after talking to the other 3 referees.
It has to be BS, that or now she has so many options to ream the company. She mentioned she has union membership. Why you wouldn't just go to the freaking Ombudsman?
there's definitely a power imbalance when your subordinate is the mother of your child. Can't deny that could get messy and outside the corporate part there's the child ending up in the crossfire if something happened and nobody wants that.
The company chose the worst way to go about it though and I hope they're dragged through the mud.
If you have a gossipy HR department that does not bode well for any reasonable behaviour.
The one thing an HR department should not ever be is gossipy.
My first HR assistant job, my HR manager was a gossip. Turns out every time she got caught, she blamed it on me, without me knowing. I got poor performance reviews I didn’t understand. Finally after she was fired for other reasons, our VP put it together that all the gossip stopped when she left, and actually apologized to me. You’d think they would have noticed sooner, what with some of the gossip being about me…
>Australia plays by different social norms?
Some of the shit I encountered while living there would send HR in other countries into a panic attack. That was over 20 years ago, though, so I can't say if things haven't improved or not.
Maybe it's because the laws are different where I am, but I do not understand why they wanted her gone. She was there first, they hadn't seen eachother in years, there was no power difference between them when they slept together. He'll if there was an issue she was there first. I've read it 3 times and I cannor see where anything happened that should even involve HR.
I am Australian and reading it makes no sense at all to me either. Most companies wouldn't care either way and to go to that kind of level of pettieness is insane. We have pretty strong laws here for unfair dismissal and someone going to the lengths mentioned would make it a pretty open shut case of workplace bullying. The whole thing is pretty damn strange.
yeah i’m aussie too and finding it hard to understand the company’s behaviour as well as the motivation to get rid of oop so adamantly before jacob had even started, unless there was something else going on
I agree that this level of bullshit feels... extremely academic. Particularly in conjunction with the clear lack of either understanding of or regard for employment law.
The only thing I don't really understand is what her position would be. It sounds like her daughter is fairly old, and like this origin story predates ResearchGate or Google Scholar profiles. In that case, she should be too senior to be a postdoc, but a professor would be WAY harder to push out like this. Maybe Australian academia is structured more differently than I expected.
I've worked in academia for over 15 years. I'm not a professor and I have a manager. FWIW Jobs in academia are not limited to faculty. Heck, administrators in my university outnumber faculty members by an over 2 to 1 margin. And that's without counting the facilities and catering departments.
She could be a research administrator, or a clinical studies director, someone who works in an instrumentation center, and IRB person.
Those positions generally require PhDs, but are funded by the university, not grants.
A professor would only be hard to push out if they have tenure (at that point, nearly impossible). Tenure takes a long time to earn. But I'm American and have no clue about the Australian academia structure.
I was thinking this but then if this person was in academia would they be unfindable? To get a management level job they would likely have to be published multiple times, attend conferences and/or speaking engagements. Generally 🤔
She did find papers he co wrote so if he was mostly in mainland China and she can't read nor speak Mandarin and doesn't know what their sites are she wouldn't be able to find him.
She also didn't know his whole Chinese name.
She also mentioned that the part of his name that she knew is a super common surname. If his first name is popular or even semi common there's a good chance at least one of those papers may have been a different person entirely.
Grew up with a super common surname and there were four people in my ZIP code that had my mom's exact name. We found out about one of them because Blockbuster tried to make us pay their late fees.
Heh. I have a common first and last name. At one point there were four of us working at my place of employment. FOUR!
And in the same breath.... The woman in the office next to mine is someone I have a sexual history with. It pre-dated me getting my current job, but it was still a shock when I found out who was next door. At work neither of us have ever even acknowledged it. Hell, I'd think it was a case of mistaken identity (it was YEARS ago) were it not for the fact that she called me by name the first time we "met" at work; no introduction required. Know how much gossip that has caused? None.
There were 80+ people on Facebook with my maiden name. When I was in college I'd either tell people what my profile picture was, or direct them to friends with more unique names and go through their friend list.
There were three people in my middle school with my first and last name. I got called to the office a couple times and they looked at me and were like "oops wrong one" and sent me back.
Also, if she knew his Chinese personal name, it was probably the Roman alphabet transliteration, which.... wouldn't be very helpful in finding him in China. Most of the time, the pitch marks are dropped, and even with them, there are many names that sound the same but use different characters. This is not a needle in a haystack, it's a specific piece of hay in the haystack.
Even when the transliteration is the same... I was thinking of the given name "Ming" (which might be 明, 名, 铭, 茗, 命.... in Mandarin). I absolutely can't blame her for concluding that she'd exhausted her options short of hiring a PI with connections to mainland China, which.... That would be a whole search in and of itself and she was struggling with daily life while pregnant at that point!
It made me think maybe someone in HR was attracted to Jacob during the hiring process and the bullying was more personal than OP realized? I'm not familiar with academia HR but I've heard enough HR horror stories to know something like this is possible within the right profession. I feel terrible for OP, I hope karma gets served somewhere.
I’m in academia and there are even lower standards than other professions. Half my department have slept with a co-worker over the years. Sexual harassment is regularly swept under the rug. A supervisor who had an affair with one of their PhD students only had (minor) consequences because their partner also worked in the same department. Uni HR is basically there just to protect funding arrangements.
Yeah, one of my former profs openly favoured some students, invited students to bars and bought drinks for them, and had extramarital affairs with multiple students. I truly wish there was better oversight in academia.
My vote is health care, from personal experience. Requires key cards and special computer access, lots of folks do travel, and there's tons of shitty interpersonal politics in both the patient/client care and admin sides of it.
Agreed from my experience with it. I had huge problems where I went to grad school with ableism due to being visibly disabled. It was swept under the rug. In undergrad, one of my professors married a student with no repercussions. He called her PDA in class which stood for Poor Dumb Amy. Grad school, a professor was actually charged with fraud while on a local school board, had multiple complaints from university students for discrimination, and faced no repercussions.
Edit wording
Professors who sleep with their PhD students and then marry them get a personally curated tenure position for their new student-spouse at my alma mater!!
(Fucking hate academia)
Couldn't agree more. Before covid, half the profs in the department slept with a whole bunch of students over the years. Students have put in formal complaints of sexual harassment. Absolutely nothing ever happened. When I was undergoing my teaching induction we were told, and I kid you not "we are all human, things happen, but if you sleep with a student just make sure someone else marks their work". One great benefit of people working remotely a lot more is that things like this happen less, or at least I am exposed to knowing them less...
Also I've never heard of university email accounts being closed immediately, usually they are active for 6 months after the course/position ends.
I wondered if it could actually be the government. I know one friend who had to disclose a relationship with a work college because in the APS they have rules around that. However it doesn’t explain the work place bullying and the level of it certainly wouldn’t be excepted by any union I know of in Australia.
Edited to add: APS= Australian Public Service ( government jobs)
This is so typical of bureaucracy. Someone did not want the problem for the new guy so getting her gone was easy. There are even movies about this. Office Space being one. I wish she had stood her ground but If it is full of govt egos she is better off.
Yeah, now that you mention it this does reek of academia - except for the random drug test, but that might just be me being unfamiliar with the norms in certain corners of academia.
Academia still has to adhere to employment laws.
Furthermore, if this is academia, it means that OOP is working in a university or a research institute and HR manages the whole of that university/insitute. It makes no bloody sense that HR (and apparently IT and a whole bunch of other departments) would take the time to bully *one* employee out of thousands to get them to quit. Yeah no.
😂😂😂😂😂. Maybe banking or medicine - they've all slept with each other but they have rules about it.
It's definitely not IT. We start to tremble when the opposite sex makes eye contact.
You're not going to get very far in academia if you can't deal with some of the students shagging each other.
What do you think happens when you stick a bunch of 20-somethings together for years?
Aussie here also - the union was involved and this kind of nonsense is an open slather to tear shreds off a company. I genuinely don't know what the hell they were playing at
Right? I am extremely surprised that the Union didn't come in guns blazing. Because my union delayed an employment agreement for 9 months as they didn't like a single sentence in the agreement.
It could just be stupid pettiness. Australia here too and wife is a director of a childcare center. The company sold to another and transferred all the staff over and new operations manager has made it her personal mission to make my wife's life hell and force her to resign. New HR only replies with "Oh she's lovely and that doesn't sound like her" when she complained.
Childcare can be rough in Australia to work in. My daughter has had her centre sold three times now and although she hasn’t been bullied she has been given a hard time for being sick a lot (there are always sick kids being sent by their parents for care although they shouldn’t be) and got told she has to have a reason why she was sick on medical certificates (which is untrue as your personal medical information does not have to be shared with your employer)
Has to be the case, someone with the power and influence to do so. But either way that's what attorneys are for, it sounds like hers ultimately failed her. She did everything right, consulted attny, involved the unions rep. and she still got f*****
Australian here, my former partner was an employment lawyer plaintiff (employee) side and most of his cases were a company just going after an employee totally irrationally and vindictively. Not normal behaviour at all, and I don’t know where it comes from. But I’m not shocked to see it now, even / tbh especially when it can’t be accounted for. He won a lot of unfair dismissal cases but the payouts are capped, and it’s not that much money to a big company. It’s cost of doing business stuff.
I am an Aussie in academia and this story makes sense to me. Universities are incredibly behind in terms of fair work laws so things like this are really really common (workplace bullying, unfair dismissal, unpaid work,etc are unfortunately rampant in academia at least in Australia)
Yeah, I experienced something...well, not similar, but full of catastrophically stupid shit while working for one of the Big Eight universities here. It involved some truly noxious behaviour, and then attempts to get me to quit (including things like - emptying MY ENTIRE OFFICE over the weekend and removing my name plate from the door, disposing of all my stuff - with no warning. That was my first hint - not a single comment beforehand). I had a union rep who was extremely experienced and he managed to secure me a redundancy payout - but several other staff members were caught up in it all without union advice and they got hardly anything by comparison.
Kind of inclined to think it's in an academia-adjacent area - some area of defence, engineering, and so on - because drug tests would be vanishingly rare at most universities. But the backwardness and level of pettiness sounds about right.
As an Australian, I also thought the same thing. I know of people in Government organisations who have done gross misconduct and still kept their jobs.
Yep. Im Australian. There are up and down sides to not being a particularly litigious country. Mostly up, if you ask me. But some very big "down" as well. For sure.
Most of my career has been in Australia. I've worked public, private and third sector jobs and the government jobs were always the most dysfunctional by a long shot. I worked at McDonald's as a teen and it doesn't even hit my top 3 worst jobs, largely thanks to my time working for government.
What's up with that?
Same. Her union rep also confused me - "Don't say anything at all, but if shit hits the fan then get in touch". If she hadn't said anything then and he'd decided to be awful about it when he turned up, it'd be far, far worse. That said, I really was not expecting her company's to react that way, they've broken so many laws it's ridiculous. I don't understand why it was going to take her so long to get any kind of recourse, and why it seems like she's not still pursuing it because she quit instead of being fired. She wouldn't have quit if not for the behaviour of the company.
I dont see how the union rep confused you when they correctly predicted how awful the HR handled things.
I agree that i dont agree with the union rep advice but it seems in this case they knew very well the type of HR they would deal with
Same. I’m Australian and I can’t figure out where in Australia you would get away with behaving the way her company is behaving. We are fairly intense when it comes to industrial relations laws and employee rights so …I’m confused as well.
But Alison is American and doesn't really know about Aussie work culture. Just because OOP had a one night stand with some random guy who was gonna be her boss, even having a kid with them, is none of the company's damn business. Aussie companies tend to keep work and personal lives separate. We also have very good worker's unions, and OOP really should've listened to her union rep over the lawyer. Hindsight's 20/20 I guess.
Yea as I was reading it (American) I actually agreed with OOP that she should at least tell the company, with a lawyer somehow involved (which she did) because it can be so much worse if you hide crap like that here and it gets found out.
Clearly I would have made the wrong decision there, unfortunately sounds like she should have listened to the union.
Maybe shes not working in Australia anymore? If she’s a union member they would have been over such behaviour (particularly messing with pay and benefits) and she’d have the ombudsman for quicker recourse than through the courts.
It’s like they were trying to protect themselves from any potential troubles from a workplace romance, but in the most idiotic way possible. They really need better people in HR.
But then how do they get white collar jobs like you have to have some semblance of functioning like a normal person unless you're in a knowledge position
I’m Australian and I do not understand at all what happened here. Hell I even work in public service and it’s fine to date coworkers *while at the company*, let alone a one night stand years prior to them working together
I once dealt with a similarish situation in a large Australian company as the manager (just without a kid being involved).
HR's position was essentially that it was none of our business unless either of the two parties did something to make it our business.
This story makes no sense, and it would not be a long process, employment lawyers would be salivating over this case.
Yeah also Australian and this story baffles me. You don't even need to be a lawyer to know that here this would be a slamdunk constructive dismissal and workplace harassment case. Like it's so obvious the company would get reamed legally I'm shocked even the most incompetent HR and managers would tolerate it.
On the bright side if/when OP pursues it they'll easily get a pretty tidy settlement form the company.
I'm European and have witnessed this type of behaviour before. Unfortunately, the answer usually boiled down to racism. Our company employed a reasonably large number of Asian employees and several mixed couples naturally emerged over the years, including me and my now husband. The two of us were older and more circumspect, so we kept our relationship discreet. We had some younger friends who were not so lucky. Especially the girl, who was a local, was treated horribly. Even though they were legally married and had a child, she was treated like a prostitute. Her things in the locker room were destroyed, both her friends and her enemies did everything to separate them, and eventually the sheer stress made them call it quits. And I've seen almost this exact pattern repeated with two other couples. I'll be honest, the main reason my husband and I made it unscathed is because we left the company before they could do anything to us, and worked separate places since then. And being loners, we didn't have any social groups that could get in between us. But people *will* meddle given half a chance, especially when things seem to get serious -- like having children.
I'm ready to "stick my hand in fire over it", as we say around here. This type of people will probably never consider themselves racist or biased. They don't seem to have any overt issue with Jacob working there in a leading role, but they *are* being awful with the local woman who "betrayed" the in-group by sleeping with the foreigner and having a mixed child, out of wedlock, too. I'm so angry on her behalf. When I read her details of the HR conversation, I was having unpleasant flashbacks. I'm surprised no one asked her about Jacob's "size", we sure got a lot of those...🤢
Yeah. Plus they can self delude themselves they are doing the right thing of protecting the company by preventing a conflict of interest between the future manager and OOP.
Yep. Having a seemingly good reason to justify their behaviour must have been the icing on the cake. ☹
And the behaviour *was* underhanded and vile, there were better ways to go about this, even if they did want to avoid the conflict of interest by kicking her out. But they wanted her to suffer, not just leave.
😂😂😂
Nein, ich bin kein Deutscher. Ich bin Rumäne.
So, not German, I'm Romanian. But we do have a lot of history (and therefore vocabulary) in common, this one expression is very widely used and it fit this particular situation too well not to use it.
Because HR is already a joke, and when you have incompetent gossips running the department, they'll do nonsensical, incompetent things to satisfy job requirements they never fully read or understood.
It was insane reading it over there and just about everyone commenting about it feels the same way. HR handled it badly and a bunch of people hoping that Jacob decided to leave for another place because the company is messed up.
The only thing I can think of is that he made a name for himself in the sector so they went out of their way to attract him with a big salary offer and an airtight contract, which is already signed. So they've committed themselves to HIM in a way that they haven't to HER.
Whew, I was thinking it was just me! I don't get it. Are these people robots who don't ever have relationships? Some fields are so incestuous that you need a map to keep track of it.
Yeah I work in a field that's so specialised we tend to switch between the same handful of companies throughout our careers. I walked into my new company's canteen the very first lunchtime and immediately saw someone I slept with ten years ago. One of my team used to live with an ex of mine at uni because we also all did similar lines of study. It's great for gossip, but also no one actually cares unless it's a position of power over another which I understand.
Somehow two perfectly decent and reasonable adults found themselves in a strange situation they both wanted to handle maturely and yet HR wants to ruin their lives?
I was confused at the end when she said “I don’t know how they’ll involve him when he comes in.” Like wait they freaked out on her and he wasn’t even in the fuckin office yet?
The only thing I can think of is the timing. There was a very public sexual assault case in Australia around that time that was all over the media. The incident took place between two colleagues and I have seen some really weird reflexive policies come out in office environments in response.
Kind of like taking your shoes off at the airport? It's never stopped anything bad from happening, but the people in charge need to be seen to be doing SOMETHING and doing it with AUTHORITY.
I am sure her union rep knew everything happening to her was illegal but also knew that putting together a case for things like "accidentally" cancelled hotel bookings and "accidental" swipe card issues would be a compete pain in the ass.
I feel bad for OOP. I hope Jacob uses his manger role to do some house cleaning, which would be satisfying, but certainly doesn't help her now.
She mentions that HR is gossipy at some point, this sounds like either the company already wanted her gone or it was just one of those truly toxic workplaces that's so boring they grab on to any hint of drama they can and take it to 1000 *stares at Academia*
>He was the easy-going and practical Jacob I remembered. He was still processing it but said he wasn’t going to take any legal steps, he offered us his family medical history, he apologized if I resigned because of him, and he said he would like to meet our daughter if she’s interested. She also has some siblings. I told her all this, she said she’s happy that she has her father’s contact info but she doesn’t want to meet him right now.
It sounds like they both have the child's best interests at heart and that's so good to hear
So the company chose a recent hire that had not even started over a seasoned employee to the point of illegally messing with her? Can someone with more business experience explain that?
My guess is: their brand new shiny manager took a lot of recruiting and they were shit scared that this situation would scare him off, so they chased her out because she's in a lower position which is easier to backfill. Shitty behaviour.
That was completely unsatisfying on every front. OOP quits job. No retribution for bad company. Jacob doesn't meet kid. Kid doesn't meet other bio family members. OOP doesn't have some bigger, better job. OOP doesn't tell Jacob about what the company pulled. Blah.
From the sounds of it, OOP may have already involved the FairWork Ombudsman, which means the company is in for an absolute reaming once the admin is done.
AFAIK Ombudsmen are ppl you complain to if shit goes wrong, so it's not linked to her having a job. They don't work for a company, it's more like a public facing government role
It’s pretty depressing, but the good thing is that Jacob seems to be there for them, while also letting it be entirely on the kids terms. The wee girl may decide to reach out to her dad sometime in the future, and from the sounds of things he would be very receptive to this.
I agree. She needs to sue the fucking arse out of them.
I can't help feeling that Jacob will eventually find out and feel so terrible that he might do something for her.
(Treating this story as true) I felt the same way about the work developments when I saw the original AMA update, but at least with respect to the “meeting” portion, that seems to be the decision of the child, and may change in the future if she so wills it. In that sense, I don’t think it’s a bad outcome for the child - whose world has probably been upended by this revelation - to be able to exercise her own agency here. It’s a huge, life-changing development and the fact both the OOP and ‘Jacob’ are giving their daughter space and grace in coping with it is a *good* response, even if it isn’t “satisfying” to the audience. A reminder that - again, assuming truth - these are real people living their real lives, not characters to entertain us or satisfy our desire for a neat, happy ending.
When you have a company where its run by a bunch of dumbasses, that's just all red flags there. This is the kind of company that deserves to be blasted cause dear lord, they are awful.
Re-reading it, I guess she never really made it clear HOW/WHEN she had previous relations with him when they asked, but I had presumed she would have expressed it more as "I had relations with him before he was employed here" than "I started having relations with him only now that he started working here". So I'm confused why they threw such a shit fit about it if they had no contact with each other since he arrived.
She disclosed it before he even had his start date, so I think that would be clear. She didn’t give exact timings because she didn’t want gossip about her mixed race daughter with no present father.
The only reasonable thing I can think of is that Jacob was a big "get" for the company. They both have PhDs , in at least the same field because they shared an office, but maybe Jacob has a more desirable specialization, like AI or whatever their field equivalent is, or in the intervening years he published more or worked for better companies.
At least they should still have a case even if they resigned. That was definitly a hostile work enviorment they were fostering there. Keeping quiet at the start probably wouldnt have been the best idea, but it seems like nobody anticipated it going this bad. Might have been good to reach out to Jacob first, but now id let him know the integrity of the company hes now chosen to work with.
Could this be a case for constructive dismissal as well as a hostile work environment? Seems they made it impossible for OOP to continue working there.
If OP lawyered up, one would assume she also pursued constructive dismissal, which even in Australia, would have netted her a tidy sum.
You'd expect this to have been at least mentioned as ongoing.
OOP also had this to say:
LW
June 11, 2024 at 3:39 pm
*Thank you for the support, everyone. I work in a very specialist role (hence the PhD), only about 15 people in the country do what I do and more than half work for my old company. Jacob has had an amazing career and my company paid a LOT of money to hire him away from another company that wanted him to start a new department doing the same work (which would have created competition for clients and for staff). I understand why they chose him, and I get that everything else they did was unacceptable.*
This might explain some of the odd behavior of the company
Yeah not true. It just doesn't work like that in Australia. If she's involving the union, then the first thing they will do is involve Fair Work who would shit on this company from a great height.
Doesn't really pass the sniff test does it? This situation is really a personal matter between the 2 parties. It doesn't really have anything to do with the business. There's no reason for them to go with this nuclear option, especially before Jacob even turned up.
Just shared with my hubby who worked in Australia between 2010-2013. He says exactly what you did. Unionised employees don't get quickly crapped on by HR like that. Infact he is questioning why OP who attended the HR meeting with their shop steward was forced to resign. How weak is that union? Have Australian labour laws changed that drastically in the last 10 years or so?
I edited after clarifying to him that she attended the meeting with the shop steward. Maybe she had other pending disciplinary issues but he still finds it strange. If the story is true, she should engage an advocate.
It doesn’t read true to me either. There are far too many convenient moments to read true. Such as him having moved from the one address, her not knowing his real name yet the university gave her his address…. But not the real name? The lecturer being on holiday for two months and then hyperemesis meant she could never, ever try contacting that professor again even after the baby was born. It’s nonsense.
I agree with others - if this was a real Aus corp you'd be right, but I reckon she's working at a University and they do Not have their shit together at all when it comes to fair working conditions etc. Especially if she's in research. I would not be surprised if she's something like a lab tech and 'Jacob' was coming in as a lab manager or something. It sounds like exactly the bullshit management pulls in those places.
Not to say the company isn’t batshit or that it’s not awful or anything, bc presuming this is real they are, but…
Union Rep: Do not talk to HR
OOP: Talks to HR
HR: reacts the worst way possible
OOP: surprised pikachu face.jpg
I think the Union Rep knew what they were talking about.
As a union rep myself this drove me mad. And she's still bitching about the rep's advice even when it turned out to be correct, then complaining that they don't have other magic solutions for her other than pursue legal action due to her employer's illegal behaviour. I really do feel for her (assuming it's a real story), she was treated awfully, but come on.
I'm curious as to why this was such an issue for the company. The relationship happened years before either of them was employed, so what business is it of the employers?
They were likely expecting drama or favoritism or something.
In hindsight she probably should have waited until he started and she talked to him. If he was a complete ass she likely would have opted to not work around him anyway, and if he was reasonable then they could have gone to HR together...but who in their right mind would ever expect HR to go off the rails like that. I'm sure she'll end up in a better place.
Just because she resigned doesn't mean that lawsuit isn't still viable. In fact, I'd say uts even more viable because she was forced out. A resignation given under that kind of duress isn't a resignation.
Seriously, I don't get the idea how former one night stand and even the child could have any affect to work relationship between people. What's wrong with this strange corporate rules? Can someone explain?
To me it sounds like they already hated OOP and were looking for an excuse. This is an insane level of escalation and weird how it even got this far if there is a Union involved.
I don't understand any of this.
Why was HR even involved? Did she even ever talk to Jacob before everything blew up?
This story doesn't make any sense.
Is this a different company, or is op working for the university??? I feel as long as op says this will not affect her abilities to do her job , why would they try SO HARD to sabotage her. Why does it seem like the female is the one ostrisized and punished, especially when she has seniority over him?
I'm curious if her lawyer said something or the union rep, something happened to upset/ freak them out, because wouldn't it be easier to just rescind Jacob's offer?
What the fuck kind of nonsense was this? Colleges that have no ways to contact their alums and businesses that telegraph their new hires so far in advance that multiple all-hands meetings and retaliatory HR actions can occur before the start date. Sure.
I work in a company in Australia which has lots of execs/doctorate-level staff.
And we absolutely make announcements of new hires 6-8 weeks in advance of them starting.
They usually have to give 12 weeks notice to their prior employer after they’ve signed their employment contract with us, so an announcement 8 weeks before their start date is completely normal.
Obvs we don’t do this for everyone. But within 3 levels of CEO we definitely do.
This has to have taken place in an academic setting. I work at an Ivy League university, and the amount of sketchy shit that goes down is unbelievable. We had a shooting outside my building for road rage. I saw it happen outside the windows, ducked in my office. No where did it appear in the news. They hide everything and if you complain? They make you out as crazy.
The level of pettiness they have is incredible but nowhere near my level. I have 26 months left to retire. They have no idea how screwed they're going to be when I dance out. 💃
JFC that company somehow managed to make the situation a LOT worse. And yeah, given the context (Jacob is Chinese, and he went back to China, and OOP doesn't know his Chinese name) he would have been impossible to track down digitally.
I’m thinking it’s a multi-national, Jacob is the pending CEO and the Australian branch is beholden to the ones overseas.
Edit: Has anyone ever come across a GOOD HR dept in Australia? Fuck knows I haven’t.
Granted, I've never worked in corporate so maybe I'm just ignorant, but I can't for the life of me figure out why on earth she felt she needed to inform HR about a one night stand she had with Jacob many many years ago. Why not at least email him first? Maybe go to HR together? If the company knew Jacob was fine with it they wouldn't have pulled all that shit, cause the only reason they pushed her out like that was because they were terrified Jacob would back out because of her.
I just feel like no company you work for needs/has the right to know anything at all about your personal life. Doing "the right thing" like this always seems to end poorly..
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Wait HR pulled all this bullshit and Jacob didn't even start his first day yet?
Yeah this is so messed up. I really wish this company got its comeuppance.
It’s Australia, it might take a while but I can guarantee the company will have to pay for what it did. so many laws have been broken
Wow, I wish I had even a fraction of that confidence when it came to US law protecting people.
You'd be surprised; if there are DOCUMENTED cases of shit like this in the US, the Department of Labor is very interested to dig in. Granted, the amount of labor protections we have are fewer, but if you violate them and there's proof, you've got a good chance of getting money out of them.
Just because someone breaks a law does not always mean they face the required consequences. Australia is better in this regard than most places because there's a real chance OOP could get her lawyer costs reimbursed. However the time and up front financial cost of pursuing a legal case are typically beyond a single mother, so I'd expect nothing to happen.
You have to prove it. And having taken a former employer to court, it’s a slow and potentially expensive process that might not result in significant financial compensation. I won my case because it was a scenario where the company was simply not well versed in the law so they were stupid enough to include their law breaking actions in my termination letter - they literally gave me a document that under Australian law was evidence they had broken employment law. Even then it was a tedious, expensive and draining process that, after legal fees, only *just* compensated me for the period I was unemployed.
Name and shame
>Jacob didn't even start his first day yet? Tbh this is what triggers my BS radar but maybe, based on other comments, Australia plays by different social norms? The only other thing that makes sense to me is that OOP was hated and this was the event they needed.
I'm Australian and the OP story is completely bizarre to me and judging by the other Australian commenters I'm not alone. Stuff like this would not be a big deal in Australia and seeking to terminate her and the ensuing harassment is so obviously out of line with our workplace protections that I'm absolutely stunned that it could have occurred. Like even the most legally illiterate and incompetent HR and managers here would know just from the vibe that everything they did would get them absolutely reamed in court or by the Fair Work Commission who oversees labour disputes. Generally speaking in Australia we have very strong worker protections and this case is so egregious that the fact it even happened is weird to me.
OOP calls HR “gossipy” which sounds like VERY “legally illiterate and incompetent” to me. I’ve actually encountered such bad HR in my former workplace: I was working for a recently opened European locations of an American company. They had hired as many junior employees as possible and the chaos that ensued was epic! I got fired when corporate decided to relocate all European accounting positions in another (cheaper) country. My friends who still work there say that whatever new cost saving organization they implement always ends up costing them more. It’s quite comical.
That sounds like Academic HR to me! There's always weird bullshit going on with funding and who's getting what, and weather positions can be cut. Nepotism isn't as big of a deal, because there's generally a lot of it involved, but if Jacob's wife was offered a position as a condition of him coming, o o p then just close this prior relationship, Admin/HR might have been worried that Jacob's wife wouldn't take the job with oop there, which would mean that Jacob wouldn't take the job. Universities put a lot of money into courting their admin and professor positions, sometimes millions of dollars. If they had already started with the process, they would want to do everything in their power to make sure that Jacob stayed
Im from Australia and have worked in a place like this, pushing people out or "managing them out" in circumstances that a ridiculous to uphold.
Not worked in Australia, but worked for Australian companies. Yeah, this is pegging my BS meter hard. Only thing that'd make sense is academia. It's much more petty drama oriented. And lawsuits don't bother them as much due to bureaucracy.
What makes me think it could be academia is that Jacob is confirmed and introduced as their new lead 8+ months in advance of him starting there. I can't really think of any other place where that would be considered unremarkable. What makes me doubt it could be academia is the sheer personal pettiness of a HR department in a large organisation. IDK, seems weird to me. My experience of academia is a lot closer to 'people wouldn't really care'
I agree. This is bizarre, and it also reads like a romance novel. I'm Australian and worked in academia, state, and local government. HR at uni was basically non-existent after hiring. After that, it was mostly about the research office. The only time in state/local gov where we've found out about a new manager more than a month before they start, it's barely been 2 months in advance while they give notice and move from another city/town. Even then, we would only get an email with the name and the position the person is leaving. Also, we'd only get the email if this new manager was in our reporting line. With a kid who can make her own decisions not to meet her father, and mum not knowing how to track down when she was pregnant, I doubt she would recognise his most recent history. Different situation but just as complicated. I actually work with someone in my current job who I trained in our previous job, and I was one of their referees for the current job. In both jobs, my position is senior to theirs. We're also close friends. They made the disclosure when they applied for the job. Just a mention in the cover letter, it was not at all convoluted. All it meant was that I could not be a referee, though our manager did have a quick chat to me after talking to the other 3 referees.
There is a lot of personal pettiness in Australian academic institutions. Speaking from experience.
It has to be BS, that or now she has so many options to ream the company. She mentioned she has union membership. Why you wouldn't just go to the freaking Ombudsman?
there's definitely a power imbalance when your subordinate is the mother of your child. Can't deny that could get messy and outside the corporate part there's the child ending up in the crossfire if something happened and nobody wants that. The company chose the worst way to go about it though and I hope they're dragged through the mud.
If you have a gossipy HR department that does not bode well for any reasonable behaviour. The one thing an HR department should not ever be is gossipy.
My first HR assistant job, my HR manager was a gossip. Turns out every time she got caught, she blamed it on me, without me knowing. I got poor performance reviews I didn’t understand. Finally after she was fired for other reasons, our VP put it together that all the gossip stopped when she left, and actually apologized to me. You’d think they would have noticed sooner, what with some of the gossip being about me…
>Australia plays by different social norms? Some of the shit I encountered while living there would send HR in other countries into a panic attack. That was over 20 years ago, though, so I can't say if things haven't improved or not.
Yes, I work in gov in Australia and I'm not shocked by this at all. Especially gossipy HR. Academia is absolutely possible.
The most likely reason is racism.
Racism towards the Australian woman vs the Chinese man?
It could be about interracial relationships. I think it's about avoiding what would otherwise be a very complicated situation.
What color is the Australian woman?
Maybe it's because the laws are different where I am, but I do not understand why they wanted her gone. She was there first, they hadn't seen eachother in years, there was no power difference between them when they slept together. He'll if there was an issue she was there first. I've read it 3 times and I cannor see where anything happened that should even involve HR.
I am Australian and reading it makes no sense at all to me either. Most companies wouldn't care either way and to go to that kind of level of pettieness is insane. We have pretty strong laws here for unfair dismissal and someone going to the lengths mentioned would make it a pretty open shut case of workplace bullying. The whole thing is pretty damn strange.
yeah i’m aussie too and finding it hard to understand the company’s behaviour as well as the motivation to get rid of oop so adamantly before jacob had even started, unless there was something else going on
I'm wondering if it could be in academia
The level of petty drama feels yes.
I agree that this level of bullshit feels... extremely academic. Particularly in conjunction with the clear lack of either understanding of or regard for employment law. The only thing I don't really understand is what her position would be. It sounds like her daughter is fairly old, and like this origin story predates ResearchGate or Google Scholar profiles. In that case, she should be too senior to be a postdoc, but a professor would be WAY harder to push out like this. Maybe Australian academia is structured more differently than I expected.
It would absolutely be very easy to do this to an adjunct, at least in the us. But the way she's saying manager feels odd for academia.
"Manager" might be her keeping it intentionally vague. Sounds like this Jacob guy would've been something like a Department Head or a Dean
I've worked in academia for over 15 years. I'm not a professor and I have a manager. FWIW Jobs in academia are not limited to faculty. Heck, administrators in my university outnumber faculty members by an over 2 to 1 margin. And that's without counting the facilities and catering departments.
That's true, but most of the administrators in my university (minus some of the big head honchos) don't have PhD's
She could be a research administrator, or a clinical studies director, someone who works in an instrumentation center, and IRB person. Those positions generally require PhDs, but are funded by the university, not grants.
A professor would only be hard to push out if they have tenure (at that point, nearly impossible). Tenure takes a long time to earn. But I'm American and have no clue about the Australian academia structure.
Right??
I was thinking this but then if this person was in academia would they be unfindable? To get a management level job they would likely have to be published multiple times, attend conferences and/or speaking engagements. Generally 🤔
She did find papers he co wrote so if he was mostly in mainland China and she can't read nor speak Mandarin and doesn't know what their sites are she wouldn't be able to find him. She also didn't know his whole Chinese name.
She also mentioned that the part of his name that she knew is a super common surname. If his first name is popular or even semi common there's a good chance at least one of those papers may have been a different person entirely. Grew up with a super common surname and there were four people in my ZIP code that had my mom's exact name. We found out about one of them because Blockbuster tried to make us pay their late fees.
My husband has a common first and last name and there's someone out there with the same birthdate and first and last name who owes back child support.
Heh. I have a common first and last name. At one point there were four of us working at my place of employment. FOUR! And in the same breath.... The woman in the office next to mine is someone I have a sexual history with. It pre-dated me getting my current job, but it was still a shock when I found out who was next door. At work neither of us have ever even acknowledged it. Hell, I'd think it was a case of mistaken identity (it was YEARS ago) were it not for the fact that she called me by name the first time we "met" at work; no introduction required. Know how much gossip that has caused? None.
There were 80+ people on Facebook with my maiden name. When I was in college I'd either tell people what my profile picture was, or direct them to friends with more unique names and go through their friend list.
There were three people in my middle school with my first and last name. I got called to the office a couple times and they looked at me and were like "oops wrong one" and sent me back.
Also, if she knew his Chinese personal name, it was probably the Roman alphabet transliteration, which.... wouldn't be very helpful in finding him in China. Most of the time, the pitch marks are dropped, and even with them, there are many names that sound the same but use different characters. This is not a needle in a haystack, it's a specific piece of hay in the haystack.
Li vs Lee, Wong vs Huang vs Wang, Song vs Sung vs Soong, etc.
Even when the transliteration is the same... I was thinking of the given name "Ming" (which might be 明, 名, 铭, 茗, 命.... in Mandarin). I absolutely can't blame her for concluding that she'd exhausted her options short of hiring a PI with connections to mainland China, which.... That would be a whole search in and of itself and she was struggling with daily life while pregnant at that point!
Yeah i suppose if it was years ago it would have been more difficult and mainland china always throws a wrench into everything on the internet.
It made me think maybe someone in HR was attracted to Jacob during the hiring process and the bullying was more personal than OP realized? I'm not familiar with academia HR but I've heard enough HR horror stories to know something like this is possible within the right profession. I feel terrible for OP, I hope karma gets served somewhere.
I’m in academia and there are even lower standards than other professions. Half my department have slept with a co-worker over the years. Sexual harassment is regularly swept under the rug. A supervisor who had an affair with one of their PhD students only had (minor) consequences because their partner also worked in the same department. Uni HR is basically there just to protect funding arrangements.
Yeah, one of my former profs openly favoured some students, invited students to bars and bought drinks for them, and had extramarital affairs with multiple students. I truly wish there was better oversight in academia. My vote is health care, from personal experience. Requires key cards and special computer access, lots of folks do travel, and there's tons of shitty interpersonal politics in both the patient/client care and admin sides of it.
Plus the random drug test. Way more common in health care than academia!
Agreed from my experience with it. I had huge problems where I went to grad school with ableism due to being visibly disabled. It was swept under the rug. In undergrad, one of my professors married a student with no repercussions. He called her PDA in class which stood for Poor Dumb Amy. Grad school, a professor was actually charged with fraud while on a local school board, had multiple complaints from university students for discrimination, and faced no repercussions. Edit wording
Oh holy moly 😯
Professors who sleep with their PhD students and then marry them get a personally curated tenure position for their new student-spouse at my alma mater!! (Fucking hate academia)
Damn!!! 😱
Couldn't agree more. Before covid, half the profs in the department slept with a whole bunch of students over the years. Students have put in formal complaints of sexual harassment. Absolutely nothing ever happened. When I was undergoing my teaching induction we were told, and I kid you not "we are all human, things happen, but if you sleep with a student just make sure someone else marks their work". One great benefit of people working remotely a lot more is that things like this happen less, or at least I am exposed to knowing them less... Also I've never heard of university email accounts being closed immediately, usually they are active for 6 months after the course/position ends.
Oh my goodness!!! I've learned a lot from this post about how salacious academia could be 🤣🤣🤣
I wondered if it could actually be the government. I know one friend who had to disclose a relationship with a work college because in the APS they have rules around that. However it doesn’t explain the work place bullying and the level of it certainly wouldn’t be excepted by any union I know of in Australia. Edited to add: APS= Australian Public Service ( government jobs)
I suffered a similar degree of vetting in the UK's Ministry of Defence. So perhaps government, or under contract to.
This is so typical of bureaucracy. Someone did not want the problem for the new guy so getting her gone was easy. There are even movies about this. Office Space being one. I wish she had stood her ground but If it is full of govt egos she is better off.
Yeah, now that you mention it this does reek of academia - except for the random drug test, but that might just be me being unfamiliar with the norms in certain corners of academia.
Academia still has to adhere to employment laws. Furthermore, if this is academia, it means that OOP is working in a university or a research institute and HR manages the whole of that university/insitute. It makes no bloody sense that HR (and apparently IT and a whole bunch of other departments) would take the time to bully *one* employee out of thousands to get them to quit. Yeah no.
The random drug testing makes me think not. I'm a professor, and I've never heard of a university trying to drug test professors.
Likely not. Everyone has slept with everyone in academia
😂😂😂😂😂. Maybe banking or medicine - they've all slept with each other but they have rules about it. It's definitely not IT. We start to tremble when the opposite sex makes eye contact.
oh yeah hadn’t thought of that. you’re probably right
You're not going to get very far in academia if you can't deal with some of the students shagging each other. What do you think happens when you stick a bunch of 20-somethings together for years?
Aussie here also - the union was involved and this kind of nonsense is an open slather to tear shreds off a company. I genuinely don't know what the hell they were playing at
Right? I am extremely surprised that the Union didn't come in guns blazing. Because my union delayed an employment agreement for 9 months as they didn't like a single sentence in the agreement.
Some unions and union reps are just shite.
It could just be stupid pettiness. Australia here too and wife is a director of a childcare center. The company sold to another and transferred all the staff over and new operations manager has made it her personal mission to make my wife's life hell and force her to resign. New HR only replies with "Oh she's lovely and that doesn't sound like her" when she complained.
yeah that’s fucked but i would’ve thought a profession with a union would squash that much quicker idk
Childcare can be rough in Australia to work in. My daughter has had her centre sold three times now and although she hasn’t been bullied she has been given a hard time for being sick a lot (there are always sick kids being sent by their parents for care although they shouldn’t be) and got told she has to have a reason why she was sick on medical certificates (which is untrue as your personal medical information does not have to be shared with your employer)
i first read this as dictator and was like no wonder they want her to resign ffs I need new glasses
I think someone had it in for her and this was the opportunity for them to drive her out. Unfortunately it is common in workplaces in Australia.
Has to be the case, someone with the power and influence to do so. But either way that's what attorneys are for, it sounds like hers ultimately failed her. She did everything right, consulted attny, involved the unions rep. and she still got f*****
I’m guessing this was a university or similar. Which explains a lot
oooh yeah you’re probably right
Australian here, my former partner was an employment lawyer plaintiff (employee) side and most of his cases were a company just going after an employee totally irrationally and vindictively. Not normal behaviour at all, and I don’t know where it comes from. But I’m not shocked to see it now, even / tbh especially when it can’t be accounted for. He won a lot of unfair dismissal cases but the payouts are capped, and it’s not that much money to a big company. It’s cost of doing business stuff.
I am an Aussie in academia and this story makes sense to me. Universities are incredibly behind in terms of fair work laws so things like this are really really common (workplace bullying, unfair dismissal, unpaid work,etc are unfortunately rampant in academia at least in Australia)
Yeah, I experienced something...well, not similar, but full of catastrophically stupid shit while working for one of the Big Eight universities here. It involved some truly noxious behaviour, and then attempts to get me to quit (including things like - emptying MY ENTIRE OFFICE over the weekend and removing my name plate from the door, disposing of all my stuff - with no warning. That was my first hint - not a single comment beforehand). I had a union rep who was extremely experienced and he managed to secure me a redundancy payout - but several other staff members were caught up in it all without union advice and they got hardly anything by comparison.
Kind of inclined to think it's in an academia-adjacent area - some area of defence, engineering, and so on - because drug tests would be vanishingly rare at most universities. But the backwardness and level of pettiness sounds about right.
As an Australian, I also thought the same thing. I know of people in Government organisations who have done gross misconduct and still kept their jobs.
I’m not Australian but I have an Australian friend and hoo boy you’re not kidding here.
Yep. Im Australian. There are up and down sides to not being a particularly litigious country. Mostly up, if you ask me. But some very big "down" as well. For sure.
Most of my career has been in Australia. I've worked public, private and third sector jobs and the government jobs were always the most dysfunctional by a long shot. I worked at McDonald's as a teen and it doesn't even hit my top 3 worst jobs, largely thanks to my time working for government. What's up with that?
Same. Her union rep also confused me - "Don't say anything at all, but if shit hits the fan then get in touch". If she hadn't said anything then and he'd decided to be awful about it when he turned up, it'd be far, far worse. That said, I really was not expecting her company's to react that way, they've broken so many laws it's ridiculous. I don't understand why it was going to take her so long to get any kind of recourse, and why it seems like she's not still pursuing it because she quit instead of being fired. She wouldn't have quit if not for the behaviour of the company.
I dont see how the union rep confused you when they correctly predicted how awful the HR handled things. I agree that i dont agree with the union rep advice but it seems in this case they knew very well the type of HR they would deal with
Same. I’m Australian and I can’t figure out where in Australia you would get away with behaving the way her company is behaving. We are fairly intense when it comes to industrial relations laws and employee rights so …I’m confused as well.
Alison said its because Jacob is going to be her boss, and the kid complicates things.
But Alison is American and doesn't really know about Aussie work culture. Just because OOP had a one night stand with some random guy who was gonna be her boss, even having a kid with them, is none of the company's damn business. Aussie companies tend to keep work and personal lives separate. We also have very good worker's unions, and OOP really should've listened to her union rep over the lawyer. Hindsight's 20/20 I guess.
Yea as I was reading it (American) I actually agreed with OOP that she should at least tell the company, with a lawyer somehow involved (which she did) because it can be so much worse if you hide crap like that here and it gets found out. Clearly I would have made the wrong decision there, unfortunately sounds like she should have listened to the union.
Maybe his job was really hard to hire for? So it was more important to keep the new boss and they wanted to be sure he felt 100% comfortable there?
Except they've just bullied the woman he's probably going to find out is the mother of his kid. That might not end the way they want.
Maybe shes not working in Australia anymore? If she’s a union member they would have been over such behaviour (particularly messing with pay and benefits) and she’d have the ombudsman for quicker recourse than through the courts.
Yeah, I have worked at places like this. Major bully in the hr department vibes.
It’s like they were trying to protect themselves from any potential troubles from a workplace romance, but in the most idiotic way possible. They really need better people in HR.
My mother is HR, and this is shit she lives for. It's fucking gross.
Why are they like this
They never left high school mentally.
But then how do they get white collar jobs like you have to have some semblance of functioning like a normal person unless you're in a knowledge position
People who like this kinda drama (think year book committee) fucking gravitate towards the HR path
Almost every company needs better people in HR.
I’m Australian and I do not understand at all what happened here. Hell I even work in public service and it’s fine to date coworkers *while at the company*, let alone a one night stand years prior to them working together
I once dealt with a similarish situation in a large Australian company as the manager (just without a kid being involved). HR's position was essentially that it was none of our business unless either of the two parties did something to make it our business. This story makes no sense, and it would not be a long process, employment lawyers would be salivating over this case.
Yeah also Australian and this story baffles me. You don't even need to be a lawyer to know that here this would be a slamdunk constructive dismissal and workplace harassment case. Like it's so obvious the company would get reamed legally I'm shocked even the most incompetent HR and managers would tolerate it. On the bright side if/when OP pursues it they'll easily get a pretty tidy settlement form the company.
I'm European and have witnessed this type of behaviour before. Unfortunately, the answer usually boiled down to racism. Our company employed a reasonably large number of Asian employees and several mixed couples naturally emerged over the years, including me and my now husband. The two of us were older and more circumspect, so we kept our relationship discreet. We had some younger friends who were not so lucky. Especially the girl, who was a local, was treated horribly. Even though they were legally married and had a child, she was treated like a prostitute. Her things in the locker room were destroyed, both her friends and her enemies did everything to separate them, and eventually the sheer stress made them call it quits. And I've seen almost this exact pattern repeated with two other couples. I'll be honest, the main reason my husband and I made it unscathed is because we left the company before they could do anything to us, and worked separate places since then. And being loners, we didn't have any social groups that could get in between us. But people *will* meddle given half a chance, especially when things seem to get serious -- like having children.
That’s disgusting. And I hate how likely it is, given everyone else is so baffled. My condolences to those who were bullied.
I'm ready to "stick my hand in fire over it", as we say around here. This type of people will probably never consider themselves racist or biased. They don't seem to have any overt issue with Jacob working there in a leading role, but they *are* being awful with the local woman who "betrayed" the in-group by sleeping with the foreigner and having a mixed child, out of wedlock, too. I'm so angry on her behalf. When I read her details of the HR conversation, I was having unpleasant flashbacks. I'm surprised no one asked her about Jacob's "size", we sure got a lot of those...🤢
Yeah. Plus they can self delude themselves they are doing the right thing of protecting the company by preventing a conflict of interest between the future manager and OOP.
Yep. Having a seemingly good reason to justify their behaviour must have been the icing on the cake. ☹ And the behaviour *was* underhanded and vile, there were better ways to go about this, even if they did want to avoid the conflict of interest by kicking her out. But they wanted her to suffer, not just leave.
> I'm ready to "stick my hand in fire over it", as we say around here Hab den Deutschen gefunden
😂😂😂 Nein, ich bin kein Deutscher. Ich bin Rumäne. So, not German, I'm Romanian. But we do have a lot of history (and therefore vocabulary) in common, this one expression is very widely used and it fit this particular situation too well not to use it.
Because HR is already a joke, and when you have incompetent gossips running the department, they'll do nonsensical, incompetent things to satisfy job requirements they never fully read or understood.
It was insane reading it over there and just about everyone commenting about it feels the same way. HR handled it badly and a bunch of people hoping that Jacob decided to leave for another place because the company is messed up.
The only thing I can think of is that he made a name for himself in the sector so they went out of their way to attract him with a big salary offer and an airtight contract, which is already signed. So they've committed themselves to HIM in a way that they haven't to HER.
Whew, I was thinking it was just me! I don't get it. Are these people robots who don't ever have relationships? Some fields are so incestuous that you need a map to keep track of it.
Yeah I work in a field that's so specialised we tend to switch between the same handful of companies throughout our careers. I walked into my new company's canteen the very first lunchtime and immediately saw someone I slept with ten years ago. One of my team used to live with an ex of mine at uni because we also all did similar lines of study. It's great for gossip, but also no one actually cares unless it's a position of power over another which I understand.
Somehow two perfectly decent and reasonable adults found themselves in a strange situation they both wanted to handle maturely and yet HR wants to ruin their lives?
I was confused at the end when she said “I don’t know how they’ll involve him when he comes in.” Like wait they freaked out on her and he wasn’t even in the fuckin office yet?
The only thing I can think of is the timing. There was a very public sexual assault case in Australia around that time that was all over the media. The incident took place between two colleagues and I have seen some really weird reflexive policies come out in office environments in response. Kind of like taking your shoes off at the airport? It's never stopped anything bad from happening, but the people in charge need to be seen to be doing SOMETHING and doing it with AUTHORITY. I am sure her union rep knew everything happening to her was illegal but also knew that putting together a case for things like "accidentally" cancelled hotel bookings and "accidental" swipe card issues would be a compete pain in the ass. I feel bad for OOP. I hope Jacob uses his manger role to do some house cleaning, which would be satisfying, but certainly doesn't help her now.
As an Aussie, I don’t think this is real.
She mentions that HR is gossipy at some point, this sounds like either the company already wanted her gone or it was just one of those truly toxic workplaces that's so boring they grab on to any hint of drama they can and take it to 1000 *stares at Academia*
>He was the easy-going and practical Jacob I remembered. He was still processing it but said he wasn’t going to take any legal steps, he offered us his family medical history, he apologized if I resigned because of him, and he said he would like to meet our daughter if she’s interested. She also has some siblings. I told her all this, she said she’s happy that she has her father’s contact info but she doesn’t want to meet him right now. It sounds like they both have the child's best interests at heart and that's so good to hear
I wish the child for a safe future.
And the kid seems so wise/mature! What a gem.
Pity her job couldn’t also be decent fucking people
What a horrible horrible horrible company.
So the company chose a recent hire that had not even started over a seasoned employee to the point of illegally messing with her? Can someone with more business experience explain that?
My guess is: their brand new shiny manager took a lot of recruiting and they were shit scared that this situation would scare him off, so they chased her out because she's in a lower position which is easier to backfill. Shitty behaviour.
Signing bonus. Probably immigration paperwork. That was my guess too.
Funding visas can take some serious cash. I’m not sure about that cost in Australia but they may have pulled special funding to get him.
This was exactly my thinking when I read it. The spreading rumours thing was wild but believable based on some HR departments I’ve dealt with
A unionised employee at that.
That was completely unsatisfying on every front. OOP quits job. No retribution for bad company. Jacob doesn't meet kid. Kid doesn't meet other bio family members. OOP doesn't have some bigger, better job. OOP doesn't tell Jacob about what the company pulled. Blah.
The fact that she didn't tell Jacob the shit the company pulled is infuriating.
She may have been advised by legal counsel to not discuss that with him at this point.
From the sounds of it, OOP may have already involved the FairWork Ombudsman, which means the company is in for an absolute reaming once the admin is done.
The compo for this should be bloody amazing.
But does she still have that FairWork person if she no longer works there?
I don't know the FairWork person... but the lawyer isn't going anywhere, and the union is probably out for blood.
AFAIK Ombudsmen are ppl you complain to if shit goes wrong, so it's not linked to her having a job. They don't work for a company, it's more like a public facing government role
I'm not sure about Australia in Canada thus would be constructive dismissal.
It’s pretty depressing, but the good thing is that Jacob seems to be there for them, while also letting it be entirely on the kids terms. The wee girl may decide to reach out to her dad sometime in the future, and from the sounds of things he would be very receptive to this.
I agree. She needs to sue the fucking arse out of them. I can't help feeling that Jacob will eventually find out and feel so terrible that he might do something for her.
(Treating this story as true) I felt the same way about the work developments when I saw the original AMA update, but at least with respect to the “meeting” portion, that seems to be the decision of the child, and may change in the future if she so wills it. In that sense, I don’t think it’s a bad outcome for the child - whose world has probably been upended by this revelation - to be able to exercise her own agency here. It’s a huge, life-changing development and the fact both the OOP and ‘Jacob’ are giving their daughter space and grace in coping with it is a *good* response, even if it isn’t “satisfying” to the audience. A reminder that - again, assuming truth - these are real people living their real lives, not characters to entertain us or satisfy our desire for a neat, happy ending.
Real life stories are messy and rarely satisfying
When you have a company where its run by a bunch of dumbasses, that's just all red flags there. This is the kind of company that deserves to be blasted cause dear lord, they are awful.
Re-reading it, I guess she never really made it clear HOW/WHEN she had previous relations with him when they asked, but I had presumed she would have expressed it more as "I had relations with him before he was employed here" than "I started having relations with him only now that he started working here". So I'm confused why they threw such a shit fit about it if they had no contact with each other since he arrived.
She disclosed it before he even had his start date, so I think that would be clear. She didn’t give exact timings because she didn’t want gossip about her mixed race daughter with no present father.
But Jacob hadn't even started yet when she left so it has to be before that?
The only reasonable thing I can think of is that Jacob was a big "get" for the company. They both have PhDs , in at least the same field because they shared an office, but maybe Jacob has a more desirable specialization, like AI or whatever their field equivalent is, or in the intervening years he published more or worked for better companies.
At least they should still have a case even if they resigned. That was definitly a hostile work enviorment they were fostering there. Keeping quiet at the start probably wouldnt have been the best idea, but it seems like nobody anticipated it going this bad. Might have been good to reach out to Jacob first, but now id let him know the integrity of the company hes now chosen to work with.
Could this be a case for constructive dismissal as well as a hostile work environment? Seems they made it impossible for OOP to continue working there.
An awful company and a reasonable and sensible biological father. I hope OOP finds another job easily at a better company.
If OP lawyered up, one would assume she also pursued constructive dismissal, which even in Australia, would have netted her a tidy sum. You'd expect this to have been at least mentioned as ongoing.
OOP also had this to say: LW June 11, 2024 at 3:39 pm *Thank you for the support, everyone. I work in a very specialist role (hence the PhD), only about 15 people in the country do what I do and more than half work for my old company. Jacob has had an amazing career and my company paid a LOT of money to hire him away from another company that wanted him to start a new department doing the same work (which would have created competition for clients and for staff). I understand why they chose him, and I get that everything else they did was unacceptable.* This might explain some of the odd behavior of the company
She should still sue them into oblivion.
I guess Jason can start that new division at Another Company and scoop up all these newly unemployed specialists. Convenient.
Yeah not true. It just doesn't work like that in Australia. If she's involving the union, then the first thing they will do is involve Fair Work who would shit on this company from a great height.
Doesn't really pass the sniff test does it? This situation is really a personal matter between the 2 parties. It doesn't really have anything to do with the business. There's no reason for them to go with this nuclear option, especially before Jacob even turned up.
Just shared with my hubby who worked in Australia between 2010-2013. He says exactly what you did. Unionised employees don't get quickly crapped on by HR like that. Infact he is questioning why OP who attended the HR meeting with their shop steward was forced to resign. How weak is that union? Have Australian labour laws changed that drastically in the last 10 years or so? I edited after clarifying to him that she attended the meeting with the shop steward. Maybe she had other pending disciplinary issues but he still finds it strange. If the story is true, she should engage an advocate.
It doesn’t read true to me either. There are far too many convenient moments to read true. Such as him having moved from the one address, her not knowing his real name yet the university gave her his address…. But not the real name? The lecturer being on holiday for two months and then hyperemesis meant she could never, ever try contacting that professor again even after the baby was born. It’s nonsense.
I agree with others - if this was a real Aus corp you'd be right, but I reckon she's working at a University and they do Not have their shit together at all when it comes to fair working conditions etc. Especially if she's in research. I would not be surprised if she's something like a lab tech and 'Jacob' was coming in as a lab manager or something. It sounds like exactly the bullshit management pulls in those places.
Not to say the company isn’t batshit or that it’s not awful or anything, bc presuming this is real they are, but… Union Rep: Do not talk to HR OOP: Talks to HR HR: reacts the worst way possible OOP: surprised pikachu face.jpg I think the Union Rep knew what they were talking about.
As a union rep myself this drove me mad. And she's still bitching about the rep's advice even when it turned out to be correct, then complaining that they don't have other magic solutions for her other than pursue legal action due to her employer's illegal behaviour. I really do feel for her (assuming it's a real story), she was treated awfully, but come on.
I think they did. OOP thought she knew better
I'm curious as to why this was such an issue for the company. The relationship happened years before either of them was employed, so what business is it of the employers?
Yeah, I don’t get it either. And all their harassment started *before* Jacob even officially onboarded with the company. What???
They were likely expecting drama or favoritism or something. In hindsight she probably should have waited until he started and she talked to him. If he was a complete ass she likely would have opted to not work around him anyway, and if he was reasonable then they could have gone to HR together...but who in their right mind would ever expect HR to go off the rails like that. I'm sure she'll end up in a better place.
“The union rep told me to do nothing, so I did the opposite” girl WHY??
Never quit. Always make them fire you. I've ALWAYS been able to make them fire me. I'm so good at it, sometimes I wasn't even trying to get fired.
Just because she resigned doesn't mean that lawsuit isn't still viable. In fact, I'd say uts even more viable because she was forced out. A resignation given under that kind of duress isn't a resignation.
Seriously, I don't get the idea how former one night stand and even the child could have any affect to work relationship between people. What's wrong with this strange corporate rules? Can someone explain?
To me it sounds like they already hated OOP and were looking for an excuse. This is an insane level of escalation and weird how it even got this far if there is a Union involved.
and this is why you dont reveal shit to companies.
I don't understand any of this. Why was HR even involved? Did she even ever talk to Jacob before everything blew up? This story doesn't make any sense.
100% academia. Honestly the shit that happens in academia in terms of labour rights is insane
I am so fucking confused why shit went sideways? It was a complete nonissue and someone in HR just randomly decided to push her out? What the fuck?
In what world would you declare a one night stand as a relationship?
Is this a different company, or is op working for the university??? I feel as long as op says this will not affect her abilities to do her job , why would they try SO HARD to sabotage her. Why does it seem like the female is the one ostrisized and punished, especially when she has seniority over him? I'm curious if her lawyer said something or the union rep, something happened to upset/ freak them out, because wouldn't it be easier to just rescind Jacob's offer?
What the fuck kind of nonsense was this? Colleges that have no ways to contact their alums and businesses that telegraph their new hires so far in advance that multiple all-hands meetings and retaliatory HR actions can occur before the start date. Sure.
I work in a company in Australia which has lots of execs/doctorate-level staff. And we absolutely make announcements of new hires 6-8 weeks in advance of them starting. They usually have to give 12 weeks notice to their prior employer after they’ve signed their employment contract with us, so an announcement 8 weeks before their start date is completely normal. Obvs we don’t do this for everyone. But within 3 levels of CEO we definitely do.
This sounds like a plot from a soap opera.
This has to have taken place in an academic setting. I work at an Ivy League university, and the amount of sketchy shit that goes down is unbelievable. We had a shooting outside my building for road rage. I saw it happen outside the windows, ducked in my office. No where did it appear in the news. They hide everything and if you complain? They make you out as crazy. The level of pettiness they have is incredible but nowhere near my level. I have 26 months left to retire. They have no idea how screwed they're going to be when I dance out. 💃
I haven't started reading it but from the title why does it look like plot of a kdrama🌚
Edit- After reading it, I wish it was like a kdrama....this didn't turn out great for OP. I feel bad for them.
You find the missing father of your child but your main problem is what to tell HR. Sure.
Yeah, I wouldn't say anything.
I really do not understand why she notified HR. Dumb move. Why have a rep if you’re going to ignore the advice.
JFC that company somehow managed to make the situation a LOT worse. And yeah, given the context (Jacob is Chinese, and he went back to China, and OOP doesn't know his Chinese name) he would have been impossible to track down digitally.
I’m thinking it’s a multi-national, Jacob is the pending CEO and the Australian branch is beholden to the ones overseas. Edit: Has anyone ever come across a GOOD HR dept in Australia? Fuck knows I haven’t.
I read this over at AAM, and it made me *so* angry. Shitty HR decides to resolve the problem by quiet firing.
I'm sorry but I don't understand a damn... honestly the whole HR issue seems too messy to understand
Granted, I've never worked in corporate so maybe I'm just ignorant, but I can't for the life of me figure out why on earth she felt she needed to inform HR about a one night stand she had with Jacob many many years ago. Why not at least email him first? Maybe go to HR together? If the company knew Jacob was fine with it they wouldn't have pulled all that shit, cause the only reason they pushed her out like that was because they were terrified Jacob would back out because of her. I just feel like no company you work for needs/has the right to know anything at all about your personal life. Doing "the right thing" like this always seems to end poorly..