For years, you’ve worked well at your job and gotten positive feedback from your coworkers. Management always seems to be happy with the job that you do and you don’t have serious conflicts with any of your coworkers. Things seem to be going well.
But then things begin to shift. You feel more isolated. Maybe your responsibilities change. Perhaps your boss stops talking about what the future looks like.
One of the biggest issues is that you start getting written up for everything. You feel like every minor error is being heavily scrutinized and you’re being punished for it. These are the types of small things that happened before, but no one made them into a big deal. Now, they are suddenly the subject of write-ups or other disciplinary action. What’s really going on?
Covering up discrimination
In some cases, employers will do this because they want to fire someone but they are worried that it will be a wrongful termination. So they will create an artificial case to fire that person by amplifying their mistakes and trying to create a paper trail that justifies the termination.
For example, if you are a female worker, perhaps you recently became pregnant. Your boss knows that they can’t fire you for getting pregnant, but they do want to replace you with someone else. They may spend a few months writing you up for every little infraction, only to fire you right when you are about to go on maternity leave.
If you see these signs in the workplace, things may be about to get very complicated. Be sure that you know about all of your legal protections as an employee.