the company owner might be having an affair with our young new hire and won’t tolerate any criticism

A reader writes:

The company I work for is a small father-and-son-owned business with 20 employees. This summer, our administrative assistant, Amy (age 50), broke her hand and required surgery. The injury occurred a week before a previously scheduled vacation. During her absence (one week and three days), the father (Bill) met a 21-year-old woman, Rose, at a car wash and offered her an administrative position, even though no position was open at the time.

Upon returning from leave, Amy found Rose seated at her desk and was instructed to train her to perform her job duties. Amy’s own role was changed to scanning and organizing the backlog of company files, which she was told would later transition to other organizational “projects.” The company is already paperless, so this reassignment is limited in scope.

Over the following months, it became apparent that Rose’s hiring was personally motivated. Bill frequently cooks breakfast for her, speaks to her using “baby talk,” takes her on irrelevant errands during work hours, and pays her to come in on Saturdays to “clean the office” with him alone. There are also indications that company funds have been used for Rose’s personal benefit, such as paying for her vehicle maintenance, paying for gas for her car weekly, and purchasing her gifts.

Recently, Bill verbally confronted Amy during a meeting, believing she had insulted Rose. In addition, he yelled at her for scanning – the very task that she was assigned, with no response as to what tasks should be her focus. Bill is verbally abusive to everyone and has the emotional regulation of a toddler. Amy, caught off guard after months of frustration, raised her voice in response. Although no direct comment about Rose was made, Rose left the meeting upset and was granted two paid days off. Amy apologized to both owners and to Rose afterward. When she met with the son (Jason) to explain, Jason said he did not care about the perks Rose receives because she “does extra work,” and that while he would let this incident go, Amy must tolerate his father’s behavior and accept what happens in the company in order to remain employed. He also said he intends to start documenting her behavior and would look to terminate her if she continues to be a problem.

The workplace has long been known for verbal hostility from Bill, but this is the first time that an angered response received any attention.

Amy is concerned about potential retaliation and whether her reassignment and treatment could constitute age discrimination. I have encouraged her to speak with an employment attorney to clarify her legal position and to get guidance on how to document events appropriately, as well as begin to look for a new position as it is clear that, whether or not it is right, they will find a way to justify firing her. Is there anything else I can do with this situation? I know this is all wildly inappropriate, but it must be illegal too?

So Bill hired a 21-year-old woman for a position that didn’t exist and bumped a 50-year-old employee out of her job to justify it, speaks to her in baby talk, pays her to come in on weekends when it’s just the two of them, and is verbally abusive to everyone else, and his son/co-owner responds by … telling everyone else to accept it or they’ll be fired?

Eeesh.

Yes, Amy should talk to an employment lawyer. It’s likely that there’s enough here to put together an age discrimination case — maybe not one she could prove at trial (although maybe so!) but definitely one that should give her enough leverage to get a decent settlement from the business. A lawyer could have a good time with this.

However, one thing that lawyer will need to look at is whether the business meets the threshold to be covered by the federal age discrimination law. You said the business has 20 employees, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act kicks in right at 20 employees — but owners generally aren’t considered employees, so if Bill and Jason are included in that count, the law would consider the business to have 18 employees … which would put it below the threshold for coverage. (Federal anti-discrimination laws only apply to business with a minimum number of employees — generally 15-20 — because of what’s otherwise seen as too much regulatory burden on very small businesses.) That said, your state might have its own age discrimination law that kicks in at a lower number of employees; many do, and the lawyer Amy talks to will know.

As for what you can do beyond encouraging Amy to talk to a lawyer and offering to be a corroborating witness … well, there’s power in numbers. Would a group of your coworkers be willing to put their collective foot down about Bill’s abuse? If you act as a group, would you have the leverage to insist on changes? People often feel they’re at the mercy of an abusive boss — but if enough of you band together, you’d have more power as a group than you have on your own. (This is the whole idea of unions — but you don’t need a formal union to act collectively. And the National Labor Relations Act, which protects employees who band together to speak up about working conditions, applies to any business with one or more employees.)

Really, though, a better long-term plan would be to get out. Any business, large or small, can be dysfunctional (we’ve seen plenty of proof of that here) — but when you get this kind of dysfunction at a small business, it tends to infuse absolutely everything, and generally the best move is to just get yourself out of there.

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