Complaint Review: Capital One

On August 14th 2002 me and a few other employees were having a conversation about racial profiling. One of my supervisor's who is African-American said that he does not mind racial profiling as long as they has a reason for it. Someone asked about the case where a few Arabic men were thrown off the plane because the other passenger's were uncomfortable after 9/11.

My comment was, "If I was scared for mine or my families life I would just get off the plane." The conversation continued discussing John Rocker and how what he said in Sports Illustrated was ignorant. Myself and another employee(K.D.) argued over what was actually said.

Then another employee(M.M) got up and left the conversation. Her friend(K.D.)then informed me that M.M. was not an American citizen and after September 11 no one would look her in the eye and treated her very badly.

She is Indian but is here from England. I advised my fellow employee, her friend how ignorant that is of those people. Then, K.D. said that after September 11 she wanted to "ship all those mother fu**er's back" and how when her husband was trying to convert to Islam after he left she, "burnt that mother fu**er" (the Koran). That was the end of the conversation.

The next Monday, I am called to the HR department answering questions about why I said that I was superior to every other race. I was questioned by Amy Girman who is an HR Consultant in DFW. I disclosed all the information above and was told that my Manager(Tori MacFawn) and Senior Manager(Wade Ferguson) would have the final decision on whether I kept my job or not. The next day I was terminated along with a fellow co-worker(Derek Rigdon).

Neither one of us, Derek nor I, had any other previous discipline problems, AT ALL. One month before this incident we had a harassment training meeting where our Senior Manager, Wade Ferguson told us he had 2-3 HR complaints a month. Why were we the first one's fired? And why did K.D. not get fired because of the things she said? Could it be because she and M.M. are friends with Tori MacFawn and them consistantly take two hour or more lunches with her. Or could it have been something more? Maybe M.M. was trying to get me fired. I have heard multiple reports that it has been overheard that M.M. did not mean for Derek to get fired just Ashley.

We did not have a mediator in the room when speaking with HR and were not allowed to give our version of the story to our management who actually fired us. Tori MacFawn jumped on the chance to fire

I had earned a 1200.00 bonus for the month of July but because Capital One terminated me on 08/21/02 and I would not get paid for my bonus until 08/31/02, I did not get it.

Ashley
Ft Worth, Texas