How ludicrous is this? Opinions required.

[weaponepsilon]

Alright. I want to take a poll here of who thinks this experience is mine is crap. Sigh, here goes...

I have been working at my place of employment for about 4 years now. It can be a VERY stressful place since we are dealing with extremely cranky people and the all-seeing management. There are two ways we cope with daily tasks:

1)female of the dog species nonstop about everything, which tends to get old after a while or

2)Joke and have a laugh, we're all in the same cesspool together.

We have been dealing with a roulette of crap lately from overzealous managers, to customers, the economic downturn, and the occasional ass who wont hold up their end of the work. You know what I mean. Anyhow, if you guys knew me, you'd see me get all theatrical and add an inflection to my voice when I am being sarcastic or saying something non sequitur. I have a bad habit of doing imitations of characters to drive my point home. Its humorous to everyone and I enjoy getting that "WTF" look from the one who thinks slowest. Anyhow, I was at work and it was unusually busy and people were kind of pacing themselves. I went to my work area and was engaging my regular colleagues when one of them caught me in a guffaw. "I do bad things!" I stammered, arousing a laugh from a coworker. "It's because you are a bad man!" they fired back. "No," I replied, "I am just misunderstood." "NO, you said you wanted the extermination of humankind, you are evil!" They chuckled. "I may be evil, but I have good intentions." One of them requested me to elaborate a bit on my mass annihilation rant I had previously touched on. SO I put on my megalomaniac inflection and start off with the following,

"Humanity has taken itself for granted. People do not appreciate what they have and have become corrupt. Like the harddrive that, too, has become corrupt; it must be wiped clean and restored." I put my fingertips together in the most Mr. Burns way possible. "Soon nature will restore the balance by selecting a new species as the rightful owners of the world...Earth shall be.." Pause for drama and the stares. "DOMINATED BY THE ALLIGATORS AS THE NEW MASTERS!" I curl my fingertips upwards like I have completed and evil symphony. "Yep, you're cracked." one of them laughed. I gave a grin and said "I smile because nobody know what I am planning." which is a quote I saw on a tshirt once. The other asked, "What about the cockroaches? They can survive the nuclear holocaust." I retorted with, "You're right, there was one in WALL-E. My kid loved that movie..." We talked about the movie and went about our day.

ABout two hours later, management summoned me to the office. Instead of taking me to the managerial office, they took me into the office with security and told me to take a seat. A police officer sat across from me and start asking me a series of odd questions.

"Are you okay?"
"Have to been angry?
"Are you upset?"
"Have you been to the dentist?'

Um wait...what?

"Are you currently on any medications?"
"Should you be on any medications?"
"DO you want to hurt yourself?"
"Do you want to hurt anyone?"
"When was the last time you were in a fight?"
"Do you suffer road rage?"
"Do you own any firearms?"

Whoa. Hold on. "Where are we going with this?" I ask.

The security managers spoke up. "You are on record. Effective immediately you are under administrative suspension for making terroristic threats..."

Meanwhile, the officer gets up shrugs and walks away. I wasn't under arrest. They walk me out and tell me I will be contacted. Wow. This is like something out of a sitcom or the movie "Anger Management". I got a call to meet with upper investigations and employment who make me sign a confidentiality form and interview me with a security camera and a microphone. I reiterate the story. The investigator asks some routine questions and concludes that I say things in jest and I have a flare for theatrics. HOWEVER, I am still unsure if I have a job and I have been at home for a few days.

My wife has taken this hard. She even had a lawyer called just in case. She believes that my rights may have been violated since I was questioned and scrutinized without being informed of a reason why. Plus that in the event they fire me, I may be entitled to a wrongful termination lawsuit since I wasn't arrested for anything. Lesson learned: Marry someone smarter then you.

I have been called by wellwishers from work, and I'm not looking for sympathy here. I want to know if I am in the wrong here since none of you know me have a fairly unbiased opinion.

Come on.

[weaponepsilon]

Oh, this is the Reader's Digest version because my post is long enough without adding the exact minute to minute recount of what happened. Plus there is beer involved in the process of my posting.

[grossaffe]

sounds like you work for a bunch of stiffs.

[Black Six]

I think the real question is, "Who would report you for saying the world would be taken over by alligators?" Sounds like there's a really stupid person that thought you were serious, or someone that just has it out for you.

[robm]

Eh... this is one of those hard situations; so I suppose here's a take from one of those "all-seeing managers" you mention.

It sounds like you work for a fairly large corporation, as most places don't have security just walking around. This scenario sounds a lot like how Wal-Mart would have played it out; I've had to sit in on a couple of those situations myself, and that's exactly how they deal with potentially combustible cases.

If this is the case, and this incident occurred around either a few customers or a larger amount of employees, then I think this was probably par for the course if either A) A customer was offended and complained to management, or B) An employee with little humor or just doesn't like you complained of the situation. I'm inclined to think it was a customer complaint, as an employee would probably take a different approach to management, i.e. joking around in the workplace etc.
People have a tendency to stop paying attention to what's being said when they become considerably upset or angry, so I'm not convinced that a customer would have heard, paid attention, or was even still standing in the same spot, when the "punchline" was delivered.

Theoretically, if I'm a manager working for a larger place like Wal-Mart (as I have been before,) and I don't have the chance to know every single employee real well, then this is how that particular conversation would have taken place:

Customer: "Yes, I wanted to report a bad experience I had in your store."
Me: "I'm very sorry to hear you had an unpleasant experience; please, tell me what happened."
Customer: "Well, I was standing in line at the deli and one of the employees was standing and talking to a couple of other employees about how he thinks that the world should undergo a racial cleansing, kind of like Hitler. I don't know if he was serious or what, but I was seriously offended."
Me: "..."

This conversation, obviously, doesn't exactly endear me to the employee talking about a cleansing of any kind, for any reason. Add to this recent developments in horrendous human resource incidents where employees go "postal," and you've put management in a situation that isn't very comfortable. Thankfully, places like Wal-Mart have very strict policies and procedures that deal with these kinds of situations; you'll find that your rights were not violated, as you have not (as of yet) been terminated, only temporarily suspended. If you live in my area, we live in what's called an at-will state, which means that an employee can quit for any, or no, reason, likewise an employer can terminate for any, or no, reason at all.

What you should do, provided that you still want to work there, is get a hold of your immediate supervisor and inform them of the situation; then, talk to the chief human resource personnel, whomever that may be in your store, and fully explain the situation, that it was merely a misunderstanding, etc. If it WAS a customer complaint, then that's bad, but if you have an otherwise clean record, I'm sure you'll be fine.

Furthermore, don't take this as me saying your actions were inappropriate. I wasn't there, and I don't know the circumstances, exactly, behind this particular incident. However, that's how things like these happen - since the manager doesn't know the circumstances either, s/he MUST take affirmative action and take care of the situation. In this instance, simply going up to you and saying, "hey, don't talk about world domination and racial cleansing anymore," simply would not look good if, say, the customer was African American or Jewish and decided to take further legal action.

[XCVG]

Quit your job and get a new one. The management has been a-holes, this would be the final straw.

[robm]

Quit your job and get a new one. The management has been a-holes, this would be the final straw.

This is perhaps one of the most aggravating mindsets that drive management up a wall.

When management is left with no choice but to take care of a situation appropriately, then they are left with no choice but to be "a-holes." The employee, of course, probably isn't going to like it. But that's life; in the end, the people who run the business need to make sure that the business continues to run.

[weaponepsilon]

Here's the thing. I've been "dealt with" for a lot of bizarre circumstances at this place. NOT smiling enough, talking TOO much, Talking NOT enough. I once got into trouble for helping a customer for too long, they watched me and kept calling me on me radio. It wasn't until the security first responders showed up did I get chance to walk up and tell the manager that the customer simply needed medical attention.

People in my area have repeatedly been stuck in similar situations, so this is something that extends beyond me. I was once a supervisor out there and I understand all the checks and verifications system they have. HOwever they completely blow the piss out of the company policies as they see fit. I got cussed out, in front of the WHOLE staff (around 30 people) because of an incident where I was coming back to my locker and there was someone cutting locks. I went to my locker and saw my expensive lock (which wasn't supposed to be cut) laying on the floor. I said "What the F*? Who cut my lock off?" Turned out it was an executive who had broken their pre set time limit and didn't like that I was upset over my perceived invasion of privacy. At the time they were clearing out the lockers except for certain ones, like mine was supposed to be.

I understand completely. Although they were in the wrong, I got a write up, a three day suspension, and verbal abuse in front of everyone I work with. That place aint exactly airtight, so everyone who works there knows about it.

I've worked for walmart and I know how they can be...But thats a whole other horror story for another day. I every documented the crap that happened there.

Now I wouldn't quit my job before and I made that as clear as a bell to the management, and I think they've gotten the picture. Now this happens, but it is suspicious that this investigation can up to 30 days which is exact amount of time for me to renew my license there (we have those). If I don't renew it, its automatically termination. They issue the license and they took my old one when the suspended me. I can't renew with out it.

[robm]

Ah, yes, so you know all the evils of Wally World, then. I thank my lucky stars every day that I don't work there anymore.

If it's an ongoing issue with the management, and it's a widespread problem as opposed to just one individual, then it sounds like it might be time to move on.

Did you ever find out if it was a customer complaint?

[weaponepsilon]

I have no idea. Everything is under a cloak of secrecy.

[ShockSlayer]

Where do you work?

SS

[weaponepsilon]

I work at an entertainment facility in Minnesota.

[eagle5953]

I worked at Wal-Mart for several years and was fortunate to have a series of store managers that ranged from adequate to great. My immediate managers were fine, too. I recognize, though, that other people are not as lucky as I was. I did have to deal with a few bothersome co-workers, but that was about it.

In fact, my last year there was the best year.

Working at Wal-Mart full time during the summer and part time during the rest of the year paid for my college degree.

[weaponepsilon]

Good for you. I was fortunate enough to work for a Walmart that routinely blocked fire exits, found ways to demean its employees and actually violated a civil right to my face. They were pissed at me for helping a 8 month pregnant Hmong girl who worked in electronics doing heavy lifting like 40 inch tv's and such because they told her she had to do it whether or not she was expecting. The stoner backroom manager ran the walkie stacker into everything including the flourescent lights which sent a waterfall of glass raining from the ceiling. I went to find out if he was okay and he let me clean the mess up for him while the ASM busted me for doing someelses job. I was told I could not speak any language other than english while in the company. I told them they were incorrect. They told me look it up. I did, and their policy was that supervisors SHALL NOT force employees to speak any language while on the job. They weren't happy. I did more than my job which was to clean the store, but by the end, I was training new employees, writing daily work schedules, and creating work schedules as well as operating as a liason to the upper management. There reason for finally writing me up: I wasn't doing enough.

[XCVG]

Good for you. I was fortunate enough to work for a Walmart that routinely blocked fire exits, found ways to demean its employees and actually violated a civil right to my face. They were pissed at me for helping a 8 month pregnant Hmong girl who worked in electronics doing heavy lifting like 40 inch tv's and such because they told her she had to do it whether or not she was expecting. The stoner backroom manager ran the walkie stacker into everything including the flourescent lights which sent a waterfall of glass raining from the ceiling. I went to find out if he was okay and he let me clean the mess up for him while the ASM busted me for doing someelses job. I was told I could not speak any language other than english while in the company. I told them they were incorrect. They told me look it up. I did, and their policy was that supervisors SHALL NOT force employees to speak any language while on the job. They weren't happy. I did more than my job which was to clean the store, but by the end, I was training new employees, writing daily work schedules, and creating work schedules as well as operating as a liason to the upper management. There reason for finally writing me up: I wasn't doing enough.

I laughed at the end part. Wal-mart is infamous for abusing their employees.