Complaint Review: T-Mobile - Allentown Pennsylvania

I began working for T-Mobile on June 14, 2004. I was assigned to the Allentown call center and worked as a Technical Support Representative during the overnight shift. My coach was Christine Ondria and my Senior was Ronnie Gouger. In the call center all calls come in to Customer Care Reps first. If they are unable to resolve the customer's problem the call is then either warm or cold transferred to Technical Support where my department takes over the troubleshooting. If we are unable to resolve their problem then our department transfers them to the next level of technical support and so on. In the call center all calls are recorded for quality assurance. In Technical Support we were required to fill out a Call Tracker form for each and every call we handled as well as fully note the accounts in the billing system. The systems we used were primarily Remedy, Samson, Streamline, and iHLR. I was a model employee for a little more than six months and was doing well within the company. All of this changed December 15, 2004.

I had scheduled overtime for that day and was in the middle of working trouble tickets when my Senior approached me. He asked me to log out and follow him because the manager Colleen Bognar wanted to speak with me. I followed him to her office where she was seated with three coaches; none of which were mine I may add, my coach was off this particular day. I was immediately attacked by Colleen and the other coaches and bombarded with questions concerning some account in Texas. Colleen stated to me that some customer in Texas had her account deactivated five times and that it was done under my login. I denied her accusations and answered all of their questions. She asked if I had relatives in the state and if anyone knew my login. I explained to her that the only relative I had in that area was a brother who I had not spoken to in some time and that to the best of my knowledge no one had my login although there was no way I could 100% guarantee it. I explained to her the daily system problems that we experience in my department. I expressed to her that what happened could in fact have been caused by a system problem. They continued to ask me questions I continued to defend my innocence. When they finally tired of interrogating me she advised me that she would have the issue investigated and asked me to return to work. My Senior stayed behind for some time after that being interrogated.

What happened to me that day was not only demeaning; it was a direct violation of my rights. Not only was I embarrassed and humiliated in from of my peers; I was out and out blatantly accused of something I did not do. After short while after my Senior, seeing how troubled I was about what had happened, expressed to me that he would speak to Pat Reck, our general manager the next day at our Do More Get More Commitment Training

The following day during our lunch my Senior approached Pat Reck and explained to her what had transpired on the previous day. She approached me on one of the breaks and pull me aside to have a few words with me. She whole heartily apologized for the way that I had been treated and expressed to me not to worry; that she would personally look into what had happened. I asked her, what would happen if in fact the investigation showed that the deactivation on the account was done under my login? Would I be terminated; would I be put on probation; would I receive a written warning? She looked me in the eyes and answered no to each and every one of these questions. She verbally assured me that she believed me and that I would not be terminated for something I did not do.

The holidays came and went and I had indeed believed that the issue had been resolved until January 5, 2005. I came in like any other day. I logged in and was in the middle of reviewing a trouble ticket for an escalated customer who I had been working with for several weeks when I was approached by my coach. She advised me to log out and follow her to HR. Upon arriving there I was greeted by the HR manager, I believe his name was Scott Redding. He asked me to sit down in an office along with my coach. He then advised me that he had been assigned to investigate what had happened with that particular account and began to question me. He began by asking me how the center worked and what my role in Tech was. He opening admitted knowing nothing of the workings in that department. I explained to him how calls are routed to us from customer care either by warm transfer or blindly and how we also answer calls from international roamers. I also explained to him the daily system problems (freezing, crashing, or just not working correctly at all) that we experience on a regular basis and how we deal with them. He then showed me that same report that I had been shown by Colleen; the one that showed my log in being used five times to deactivate an account. He also showed me a report of times that I had been logged in to work that day. He then asked me to provide proof to him that I had not tampered with the account. I advised him, the same way that I had advised Colleen, that I did not know whose account it was and that I had nothing to do with its deactivation. He then advised me that the customer claimed that the rep they spoke to had been rude to them and that is why they remembered them.

I have never been rude to any customer I had spoken to; no matter how rude they had been to me; and I advised him of this. I told him that I had no other proof than my word and had no reason to tamper with this or any other account. I had no reason to jeopardize my job by doing something as foolish as that. He then asked me to wait a few minutes and exited the room with my coach. Upon their return he informed me that I was terminated, handed me a box with all of my belonging, and escorted me out of the building. Terminated; no benefit of the doubt; no second chance; no possibility that I may actually be telling the truth; nothing.

T-Mobile has strict guidelines and policies about employee behavior and we received handbook outlining them. It lists several instances where an employee will be disciplined or even terminated. In my day to day activates I had noticed things but had turned a blind eye because I was happy. I am Hispanic and I have noticed several instances of discrimination against Hispanics. For example, a Hispanic representative was terminated a few months ago for allegedly being rude to a customer on the phone yet another representative named Lacretia Williams was so rude to a customer on the phone she caused them to escalate to a supervisor, yet no action was taken against her. She was an African-American. A few weeks after that another African-American representative named Curtis literally cursed out his Senior Lucas Bordic, who is white, for no reason other than he did not feel like working on a particular day. Once again there was no disciplinary action was taken against this individual. Another representative named Brian Walsh, who is white, falls asleep regularly while taking calls and is regularly rude to customers; yet no disciplinary action has ever been taken against him. These are only a few examples of things I have seen. All of these are clearly offenses for disciplinary action as stated in T-Mobile's guidelines, yet only certain individuals are disciplined and from what I have seen they are primarily Hispanic.

I do not have any false hopes but I do believe that this is something that needs to be investigated. There have been too many instances of discrimination to be ignored. I am not the only hispanic employee to be discriminated against and it is about time that someone listened.

wrongfully terminated

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.

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