Rosie Catherine Grant,
***** Street N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 200**-****
November 17, 1994
Mr. Albert Schitzlein,
Vice President, Roy Rogers Division,
Hardee's Food Corporation,
1099 ******** Road,
Suite 200,
Linthicum, Md. 21090
Dear Mr. Schitzlein,
My name is Rosie Catherine Grant, I am the manager of Hardee's #1202215 at 7501 Wisconsin Ave, Bethesda, Md. Three months from now I will celebrate my twentieth anniversary of employment at Hardee's.
During that time I have had about nineteen bosses. The absolute worst manager I have ever worked for is my current boss, general manager Luis E. Moreno*. He has:
During my five months at this store, Moreno has been totally unprofessional in just about every way I can think of. My co-workers and I have been subjected to sexual abuse, mental abuse and above all, severe verbal abuse. He treats me and other employees in very disrespectful ways in front of customers and co-workers; screaming, yelling and name calling.
As if the verbal abuse were not enough, on two occasions Moreno placed his mouth on my body; this was totally unexpected, unwarranted and unwelcome. The first time he crawled under a desk and put his mouth on my leg, I told him in no uncertain terms never to touch me like that. Three weeks later he bit me on my hand.
On Thursday, September 8, 1994 around 3:35 P.M. I was in the office working at the desk. Something fell and Moreno bent down to pick it up. While he was under the desk, he put his mouth on my leg, and then bit me. I shook my leg to get his mouth off, and immediately told him never to do that.
I asked, "Why are you doing that, Luis? What is the matter with you? Don't do that again!"
Moreno then said "I'm just happy because my vacation is coming up."
I was extremely unhappy about what Moreno did, I felt embarrassed, humiliated and ashamed; no manager had ever acted like this to me before. I repeated to him never to do that again!
About three weeks after that he repeated it, this time he bit my hand in the office while I was working. Phalastine M. Abdi was present in the office when Moreno put his mouth on me the second time, and she witnessed the incident. At the time she smiled and said "Luis, you are so crazy!"
I did not find the general manager of my store putting his mouth on me very funny, but Phalastine's explanation may have an element of truth; on several occasions Moreno has bragged that he had been committed to a mental institution in Peru for two years.
I was not able to tell the man in my life about this abuse until we were out of town on a trip two months later; his initial reaction was to turn around and drive two hundred miles back to Bethesda to rearrange Moreno's anatomy. I was able to talk him out of it. I purposely didn't tell him about it until we were out of town.
A few weeks later, Moreno turned to me and said "Did anybody ever tell you that you're ugly?" He made the statement in front of Phalastine Abdi in the office.
"Yes" I replied.
"Who?" he asked.
"You!" I replied. "We have a saying in my country: 'If you can't get the grape you say it's sour!'" His mouth hung open but he didn't say anything else.
I started working for Moreno in #1202215 on July 27, 1994. For the first two weeks that I worked for him he did not yell or scream at me; then the abuse started. He began to scream at the top of his lungs if he wanted something, especially during the lunch rush. I was usually greeting customers or at the chicken station while he sat in the office; but no matter how fast I moved, it was not fast enough for him.
He would yell "Rosie! Move the line!" at the top of his lungs and in front of the customers, if I tried to explain how hard the crew was working, he would yell "That's not good enough! Do you want me to come out there and show you how it's done?" I always refused to engage in a shouting match with him, which made him even angrier. He often got mad because I wouldn't scream back at him or yell at the crew members in a nasty way as he always did.
Moreno worked at this store long before I came, and sales had been far below budget. When I got there, I began treating crew members and customers with respect and they have responded. The crew is now performing at a level that Moreno told me could never be achieved; both sales and customer count have increased.
On Wednesday, October 12th about 1:45 P.M. Moreno and I were standing in the dining room. He said, "Rosie, I want you to come out here and dictate to these employees what you want them to do! I want you to speak out loud; yell at them! Roger! Tony! Do this or do that!" (speaking in a mean way). I told him "I cannot speak to the employees in that manner; they are human beings with feelings and they deserve respect. I can get the job done with a more professional approach."
His response was: "You only think with your heart and not with your head!"
On October 12th at the end of ring out, we had a 2% discrepancy. Before I came to work at this store (and while I was on vacation last month) Moreno had averaged a discrepancy above 5%; I had brought it down to an average of below 1% since I have been working here. When Moreno saw the 2% discrepancy, he naturally began to yell about it, screaming "Why do we have a 2% discrepancy?"
I pulled out the computer printout and handed it to him, so that we could discuss the problem. He yelled "I do not want you to hand me anything! You can speak English . . . so do it!" We were in the office, but he screamed so loudly he could be heard in the dining room by the crew and the customers. Employees Paul M******, Phalastine A******, Maxime-Roland X****** and Maria G****** came back to the office and peeped in because of the scene Moreno was creating.
When Moreno asked why I didn't answer his tirade, I said "If you will speak to me in a professional manner I'll be happy to discuss it with you". His reply was "I will speak to you any way I want to, and if you don't answer me this minute I'm going to call my boss! (District Manager Hakan Yavalar). I told him to please call his boss, because I have quite a few things to tell him. Moreno called Yavalar, then made an excuse not to tell him what had happened.
I was extremely embarrassed by the incident; I stayed several hours past the time I normally leave to go home, hiding in the office, nervous, shaking, crying; my body ran cold. I couldn't even write my reports; Moreno saw this and told me to "calm down and relax". I normally am a very happy and friendly person, but I couldn't look my employees in the eye that night, I left with my head down, I couldn't give anyone my normal goodbyes.
I was a victim of abuse as a child; Moreno's constant abuse triggered the old responses and I felt like I was back facing the man who raised me.
Moreno has refused to allow me to manage this restaurant properly by interfering whenever Hispanic crew members need to be disciplined, even for theft. He appears to get mad when I correct the Hispanic crew members, but seems to enjoy it when I correct the white or black employees.
We have suspected for some time that cashier Juana G****** has been stealing money from the register. Nine weeks ago we received a letter from a customer stating that on many occasions he had seen Juana take money from him and other customers at the register and put it in the drawer without ringing it up. Her drawer always comes up over.
Moreno refused to let me discipline Juana; no suspension, no written warning, nothing! He said "I'll handle it!" Moreno took her into the office, presumably to talk to her about it. He confiscated the letter and I haven't seen it since. Juana was taken off the register for a week and then put right back on it.
Moreno left me in charge of the store when he went on vacation in September; I had many things to discuss with him about the operation of the store when he got back. Every time I try to speak to him about the store he refuses to do so, brushing off any discussion and walking away. When approached by Hispanic crew members, however, he has plenty of time to hold long conversations in Spanish, just as he has plenty of time to sit in the office and talk on the telephone.
We have a mildly retarded cashier named Anthony B****** who happens to be a white American. He has been the butt of much of Moreno's abuse, and so have I, for spending a little extra time to work with him. Tony can perform the job perfectly well with proper supervision, which I attempt to give him.
Most of the time when Moreno counts Tony's drawer, he says the drawer is short and forces Tony to pay the difference out of his pocket. When anyone else counts Tony's drawer it comes up fine. Moreno has threatened to fire Tony repeatedly if he doesn't pay the money. Yesterday Tony paid $25.00 to Moreno for one of Moreno's daily "shortages".
Today I approached Moreno in the dining room and politely asked him if he would mind if I counted Tony's drawer. He exploded.
"What? What! If you only count one drawer that's discrimination!" There were sixteen customers and ten crew members witnessing his tirade. I was extremely embarrassed by his loud screaming, and I walked away toward the office. Moreno followed me, catching me in the office.
"Don't you dare walk away from me when I'm talking to you!" he screamed. "When I'm talking to you you are to stand there and listen!" I then said "I have told you before that if you scream at me like that I will not stand there and listen to it". His reply was "If you don't want to work here, just say so, and I'll get you out of here! Martin Harrell (Hardee's Regional Manager) and I are real good friends and he'll take care of me! You can't do a thing to me!"
I replied "It's not that I don't want to work here, the problem is that I don't like the way you yell at me, and I don't like the way you treat me". Since I have worked for him, Moreno has constantly threatened my job, stating "I'm in charge of your promotion, you can't advance unless I say so", and bragging about his friendships with company executives.
Three weeks ago, the next to last time that Moreno screamed at me, I told him that I had had enough; that I would no longer tolerate his abusive behavior and that I expected him to treat me with respect from that day forward. I told him that the next time he yelled at me I would not stand there and do nothing. For weeks he tip toed around and spoke to me politely, obviously at great strain to himself.
Today he exploded. I can't take it any more.
Six times I have tried to give Moreno my vacation dates for February of 1995, he refuses to discuss it, dismissing me by saying "How do you know we will be working together then?" I think that is an excellent question.
I am sick of the shame and humiliation that I have had to endure at the hands of Luis Moreno. This situation has affected my health, it has affected my career, it has affected my relationship with the man I love; it is time that this nightmare come to an end. I am going to contact every person who can possibly help me resolve this matter. I sincerely hope you take immediate action to resolve it.
Sincerely,
Rosie C. Grant
cc: Robert Autry (Hardee's C.E.O.)
Deborah Hollis (Hardee's Vice President for Human Resources)
Paul K******* (Hardee's Operations Manager)
Martin Harrell (Hardee's Regional Manager)
Hakan Yavalar (Hardee's District Manager)
David Roach (Hardee's District Human Resources Manager)
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