Reference no: EM133109137

You are Nat Evans, a 48-year-old camera operator recently relocated to San Diego. You have worked in radio and television most of your career. Before moving to San Diego, you and your family had lived in Montreal for 18 years. Now that your children are grown and out of the house, you and your partner have decided to return to California where you were born.

One of the reasons you are hoping this was a good move is your migraine condition. Since your early 20's you have suffered from debilitating migraines and have been through countless neurologists, herbalists, and nutritionists, trying to get the headaches under control. You know that episodes can be triggered by stress, irregular sleep, dehydration, weather changes, and sometimes even lights (particularly flickering or strobe lights). In fact, over the years, you have been very proactive about forming habits to reduce or eliminate all these triggers (e.g., doing meditation and yoga to reduce stress, staying hydrated throughout the day, etc).

Your doctors have said that a more stable climate might help since weather patterns can sometimes trigger an episode. That is why San Diego seemed like a great choice. You could return to your home country, live near your aging parents, and enjoy mild, fairly stable weather year-round.

When you interviewed for this job, you were surprised to find out how young the average age was. Back in Montreal, most TV crews were older, but here at WVAS, the camera crews are in their 20s and 30s. Since they seemed friendly and genuinely attached to the station when you interviewed, you were glad to accept the job offer.

But now, you are having second thoughts. On the day you started, you overheard two of the camera operators refer to you as "the cub" when they thought you were out of earshot. That was demeaning, particularly since you are their senior by a decade. You also learned that you are one of the few staff camera operators - a lot of the crew are freelancers.

Later that week, your brown bag lunch was "accidentally" dropped on the floor, shattering the glass container and spilling the food everywhere. One of the guys was cleaning up the mess when you got to the employee lounge, but with only 20 minutes before the next show, you had to race around outside the building, looking for a food truck for something to eat. (Skipping a meal would definitely trigger a migraine as you know from painful experience.)

And just two days ago, your camera cords were unplugged and you are pretty sure someone messed with the settings on your viewfinder. Seeing you race around minutes before air time, one of the other camera operators called over, "Hey cub, this is why we check our equipment before the show!" Two other operators snickered at that. This was the last straw - you're stress level is at an all-time high. No one touches a camera operator's equipment - that is practically a sacred law!

With a migraine already starting, you marched into the Employee Relations office of Hutton Robinson and laid out in clear, firm facts the incidents of the past two weeks. Obviously, you are being bullied and you are not some wimp who'll let these morons get away with this. Although you considered for a moment asking for a transfer to another crew, you know that yours is the only one with a steady daytime schedule. The other crews work irregular hours, which would be a nightmare for your sleep schedule. Hutton just stood there without saying much at all. After explaining to Hutton that you'd be taking the rest of the afternoon off sick, you muttered under your breath, "Too bad this station doesn't have any competent HR people." Hutton didn't hear it, but still, you feel badly about attacking Hutton.

You sometimes wish that you could tell people about your migraine condition, but experience has taught you the hard way that would make things much worse. You've found that most people either think of migraines as a female problem or they think migraines are just a simple headache that two aspirin will cure. And in the interview for this job, you were asked if there was anything that would prevent you from coming into work since "the news must go on" and you said absolutely not since you knew that by keeping your triggers in check, you're the picture of a reliable and hardworking camera operator. So for now, you are keeping the condition to yourself.

Gossip travels fast around a TV station. You know about sexual harassment by some producer at WVAS last year and the million dollar out-of-court settlement that followed, although the details were buried in a nondisclosure agreement. You know that the station doesn't want (and probably can't afford) a repeat of that debacle. Your sister (who you've complained to before) told you that you should file a complaint with the EEOC on the grounds that you are in a protected class - you had no idea what she was talking about, but sure enough, since you are over 40 years, you are considered "older", which you were not happy to learn. But you think she might be right - maybe the best thing is to let the EEOC handle this toxic situation.

All you wanted was to do good work with a decent crew and live in peace in San Diego. You really thought WVAS would be a great place to work. But obviously the culture is awful and you feel you were duped during the recruiting process. Now you are questioning whether you should have made the move at all. Hutton Robinson has asked to meet with you tomorrow. Your priorities are to 1) maintain your privacy and dignity, and 2) demand justice.

Questions- Your role (circle one): Hutton Robinson / Nat Evans

What issues are most important to you (from most to least important):

What are your alternatives if an agreement cannot be reached?

What are the most important pieces of information you have (this may be about you or the other party)?

What is your opening move?

What is your overall strategy?