This last week we had an incident where a longtime manager slapped a former client she had discharged within the previous 10 minutes.
Now the manager has been with us for over four years and has contributed a great deal to our program. While she manages her division of the company with a lot of energy and confidence, this is the first time she's had a violent interaction with anyone – inside or outside of the program.
A cardinal rule at TLC is that we don't allow violence or threats of violence. And when a person commits an act of violence - or threatens to - there's a strong possibility they'll be discharged. This applies to managers or clients.
We have this rule so the clients will feel safe and can live in an environment where they can work on their recovery in peace. And it's a policy that's worked for a long time. After 27 years and over half a million clients less than a handful had been discharged for breaking one of these two rules.
There was a special meeting today, which took about two hours, to deal with the consequences this manager should receive. While there were a variety of opinions about what she should receive, because of the circumstances of the incident a lot of us understood why she did what she did.
After he was fired and discharged from the program he approached her and began verbally abusing her. He used every profanity in the book but she didn't assault him. It was only when he told her she was a "stupid f------g c--t" that she lost control and slapped his face.
She immediately regretted what happened because she fully understands that there's no excuse for putting her hands on anybody, whether they're a client or not. We teach our managers that when they're threatened the best thing is to walk away if possible and if necessary to call the police.
In any event the incident is over and she's received consequences. The police gave her a ticket and she must appear in court. She'll probably have to attend domestic violence classes. Because – even though she was provoked – it's not legal to put our hands on anyone in anger.
She also is going to each of the houses to apologize. And she has to present a paper next month as a formal apology to the management group. Plus she lost her blue shirt for 90 days, a shirt worn by managers as a formal recognition of their status in the company.
While many of us understand how she was provoked to the point where she lost her temper, violent behavior never turns out well. As people in recovery we need to follow the line in the big book where it says "we ceased fighting anyone or anything..."
There's a reason it's there.
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