Complaint Review: Southern Ventures Corp (SVC) - Ft. Walton Beach Florida

I was an apartment maintenance tech with this company for 6 years. During my 6 years employed with this company, I came across many situations that I considered disturbing and un-moral. Several of these occurances were reported on several occassions to my chain-of-command but there was no one who cared to help me out and take some sort of action. Here are the incidences.

In 2008, I was victim of what I considered sexual harrassment. Maybe it was because I'm a male and not a female, that disciplinary actions were not taken. From the incident that occured, I became very angry and demanded action to be taken from my GM and other GM's in the company.  No one wanted to do a thing. My male co-worker at the time and myself had been laying new flooring inside one of the elevators. A female co-worker that at the time was an Assistant Manager, came up behind me and shoved her finger, through the outside of my pants, directly to my anus. My male co-worker seeing this, asked me if that was what he saw because he couldn't believe his own eyes. I replied angrily, "yes". At that moment, we dropped everything we were doing and let our GM know about this. She ignored it, although, I asked for disciplinary action to be done, it fell by the wayside. We went to another GM and she laughed it off. I explained how this was no laughing matter but she continued to not take this serious. Instead, this Assistant Manager moved up the chain later and became a General Manager of our sister property.

April 2010, I transfered from the property I was at to become the new maintenance tech of one of our sister properties because it was closer to home. After about a month working there, the GM that I was under at the time, was asked to transfer to my old property. In her place, the Assistant Manager that I had problems with in 2008, became a GM and transfered to the same property I was working. During my time working underneath her, she forced hugs on me where I had no escape and even though telling her NO, she did so anyway. At this time, I told no one because no one did anything before. So, I figured what's the use. I started finding falsified notes about me hidden underneath paperwork on her desk. Some of the notes said that I wasn't performing certain duties on the property but, the duties not performed was told to me by her, she would be responsible for. So, from that moment on, I did those certain tasks. She asked me why I was doing them and I told her that I just wanted to take them on. I knew it was a matter of time before I was booted off that property and her husband who was a maintenance tech for another property, would be moved in. Other co-workers had warned me that this was one of her plans she had told them she would do but, I told them that there was no way this would be allowed. Sure enough, after working there 8 months on this property, I was told that I had to transfer back to my old property by the owner and the Manager of Apartments. The GM's husband would be the new maintenance tech there. I did go to our human resources company this time to express my dislike of this and the past problems I had with her but, at the time, I came across as a disgruntled employee. As soon as the owner of the company heard about this, I became a marked man. I knew it would be a matter of time before I recieved my walking papers. I couldn't figure how I became sour in the owner's eyes because I had been a very hard-working emoloyee for him and even recieved "The Maintenance Person of the Year 2009". This was a huge award given to an apartment complex with the best maintenance man for the whole Emerald coast area, not just our company. I thought it should stand for something but, it didn't help me out in any way.

In this buisness, apartment staff and that's mainly maintenance, is required to go "on-call". This means that I was responsible for holding the phone, talking to residents, and taking care of any emergency calls during my "off" times. I often got calls during my on-call weeks at times ranging 1-6 times a day. Most times I had to go to the property but other times I had to call a tech from another one of our sister companies that handled a/c units, plumbing, and electrical issues that was above our realm of work. Anything I could handle, I was responsible to go in. Oh, did I forget...any calls that came in, I didn't get paid to answer. Sometimes I'd be on the phone for anywhere between 5-30 minutes at a time. I'd get multiple calls a day where I'd spend hours from my family time or social life. I never got paid to answer these calls from my house or my personal time. I wasn't allowed to leave the local area either. I didn't get paid to be the one holding the phone. When I had to go in, did I get paid travel time? Not for the last year or two. They decided to do away with that. I got paid for time on the property. If I worked 5 minutes or 1 hour, I got paid an hour. But it took me 1 hour to get there and 1 hour back home not including my time on the property. Here's the kicker too, let's say I work 5-6 hours of "on-call" during the week, and Friday comes around; if I had reached 40 hours by let's say 10am, I had to leave early to get paid straight time instead of over-time. All that wear and tear and your personal vehicle, your gas, your time from family...it was all for nothing. Oh, I didn't mention that they didn't supply you with a work vehicle during "on-call" either did I? No, you had to use your own personal vehicle. There was a vehicle on property but, it was just for that purpose or making runs to Lowes, Home Depot, etc. not for "on-calls" where it may benefit the lowly paid maintenance staff with this company. I had been trying to reach attorneys and doing some research on-line with the wage and labor board to see if this is legal. Before I found out anything, I was fired.

Now, I will say that me getting fired was my fault but, they were looking for a reason anyway. It was an accident on the company vehicle and even the driver of the other car said that she almost backed into people in the same spot because of it being a bad area and you can't see very well. I take full responsibility for my accident but, what I don't understand is that we have had other employees total out company vehicles, wreck them several times by the same driver, and even had people at work knowingly on drugs and drinking alcohol on the job. But, did these people get fired? No, they are still with the company today. I could understand my being fired if I was a screw-up like these other employees but, I was a hard worker and cared for my properties I worked at. I feel it had to do with my questioning about some of the above mentioned that threw up a red flag to them. They said it was mainly due to me making a "store run" for gatorade. All the maintenance along with other staff make "store runs". I'm not the only one. I had brought in 2 jugs and I say JUGS of water to drink throughout the day. The heat index was 113 degrees outside and I went through both bottles. By 2:30pm, I was feeling a little over-heated and went 1 block down the road to pick up a gatorade. I will not drink tap water from there at all. We used to have a Culligan fountain but, they felt maintenance didn't need it anymore. So, while maintenance has to stay on the property and they're not allowed to get a drink from the store, the GM's and other staff can with no problems.

Thanks for reading. Even if this does nothing, I feel better for getting this off my chest.