Different Drama

Operating a 700 bed recovery program presents regular challenges. However, most of these are predictable and fall into a few categories. Someone doesn't like her roommate. Client decides he doesn't want to work and pay service fees. Managers want to change the way the program works, and start doing things their own way. Or a clerk starts stealing from one of our in-house stores. There's never a lack of drama, but most of it's pretty routine stuff.

However this week we ran into something that we hadn't experienced before. We had a local employer who has 10 to 12 of our clients to working in his furniture factory. It seemed to be a good job and some clients reported that they “loved” working there.

However last week things changed. Some of the women who worked at the factory said a male manager was sexually harassing them. Because many of them are on parole and don't have a great work history they had a tough time finding work and were afraid to complain. However, a few finally did and we made a call to the company owner.

At first he was angry and defensive and denied that anything like that was occurring in his business. He said the man in question was a great employee, one who took a lot of work off of him. He said the girls who were complaining could "pick up their checks on payday" and not return. After a while though, he calmed down and agreed to look into the situation.

By the end of the day we heard a report from our clients that the offending manager had been fired. Apparently the owner had looked into the situation and realized it was in his best interests to protect himself from liability.

Just another day in the recovery business, but this time at least the drama was something different.