Workplace Bullying: Treated Like A Common Criminal On My Jobs Based On Appearance

by Aricha
(St. Louis, Mo)

I have been bullied all my life ever since early childhood because of my physical appearance. However, everyone considers me as a monster or a dog with ugly distorted facial features and very repulsive and creepy-looking. The bullying of my entire life started since early childhood and it has been a pattern of me being bullied at work on multiple jobs in the past and still being bullied at my current job as a production worker based on my physical appearance that I have no control over. Based on my physical appearance, a lot of people perceive me as being intellectually disabled (formerly known as mentally retarded). I appear to a lot of people as ugly, physically unattractive, offensive, repulsive deformed, undesirable and goofy-looking. Such forms of workplace harassment include:

1) Being mocked and ridiculed by my co-workers who referred to me as being mentally ill, retarded and slow who appear to be too incompetent to perform a simple easy task. They make fun of my facial features all the time by laughing in my face when they see me get up and walk. I heard one co-worker made snide remarks about my appearance that took place after the lunch period. I was walking toward the building after lunch break and I heard a group of young woman cracking up at me out loud in my face when they saw me. they said I look retarded and called me ugly. One man at work called me ugly too after leaving the smoke area after lunch. "Here comes that ugly woman.. somebody needs to call animal control Ha ha ha! I look like a crack head and false rumors that I could be drunk and high of narcotics.

a) It has been a history of me being mocked and ridiculed at my previous employment as well because based on my appearance referred to being slow and retarded. Like one time I worked at this call center in the past. One male co-worker taunted me when he point at me when I was walking by and said; " I don't want no woman like that." On temporary job assignment in the past, I was being mocked and ridiculed about my appearance. A group of men at this warehouse taunting me who was a black man and a Hispanic man who called me an ugly woman.

b) When I worked for an installment loan company downtown in St. Louis, MO last year. People mocked and ridiculed me about my appearance too and said I was an ugly woman. The office manager was also making fun of my looks too. She was gossiping and spreading rumors behind my back to the customers about me. Said look how you dress and look that is why I have a hard time getting a job.

2) Another form of workplace bullying, I am being sabotaged at work and taken advantage of by other co-workers such as deliberately trying to get me in trouble and fired from my job. For example, lately, the team lead assigned me to produce boxes and stamp them. Once a few co-workers tried to set me up by telling me to do another project that is degrading duties like sweeping the cotton off the floors. A few times I was assigned to clean the bathrooms and was advised no one is allowed to enter the bathrooms when they are closed when they see the sign. They teased me about that by still asking me can they use the bathroom while there is a big sign in their face the bathroom is closed. I told them by H.R standard I am not allowed to let them in the bathroom and they started harassing me. Deliberately provided me with damaged equipment to make it seem as though I'm too dumb to do a simple task. I was planning to do a new project skill sewing stuffed animals and I was being bullied by a co-worker who was the trainer. I was being deliberately given a damaged sewing machine that breaks needles on purpose designed to set me up to fail. When the needles break, I get blamed for it and the woman told the head manager she didn't want me on her team stated because I was too slow. They pulled dirty jokes on me such as they had another stuffed animal on the conveyor belt and if I reach for it she will further humiliate me in front of other people. Other incidents on the previous place of employment they sabotage me because I look different to them for example:

a) At the Installment loan company and other call center jobs, the managers sabotaged me by deliberately running conspiracies against me based on my appearance that include; tampering with my computer equipment that interferes with my job duties efficiently such as micromanaging. They gave me a username and password but didn't work when I tried to log into the system. Fired me when I request assistance to have the username and password reset. Stated the reason why they terminated my employment because I can't catch on and don't meet their expectations. This happened to me on several job assignments because I was perceived as intellectually disabled and repulsive to look at based on my appearance. Then claimed I don't have computer skills which I do because I worked in call center environments. Like I was sabotaged by this temp agency out of town who send me a wrong laptop that was noticed on my job assignments at the hospital. I had to leave and wait for another laptop to come and when I got back I didn't have a job. I asked for the site manager and was told she was in a meeting. The installment loan company I worked for sabotaged me when the office manager told me to make copies of the loan application and then three weeks later the store owner screamed and yelled at me for wasting paper. Was not being given clear instruction on how to perform my job duties successfully. They didn't take their time to make themselves clear during training and set unrealistic expectations. However, they were talking and babbling really fast while I was writing things down. Belittled me when I asked questions and talked to me like a criminal.