At my work i got a new boss, and i feel like he took me off the phones, at first i didnt think anything about it until i overheard him making fun of my speech impediment
and i went to hr and they did nothing
what do i do? i really feel like he's discriminating me
my old boss let me do phones and everything
thats kinda why i feel like im being discrimination

Did you speak to him directly?

What did HR actually say? If you feel you're being discriminated against or otherwise treated unfairly they should take it seriously, and if you feel that they haven't then you're justified in taking the claim higher up.

Is there a union at your place of work? If you're a member, they should be able to help you; most unions have legal departments which can advise you on this sort of thing and help you to make a formal complaint. If that's not possible you probably need to get legal advice privately, from a lawyer who specialises in employment.

It's extremely inappropriate to make fun of someone's speak impediment (which eclipses the fact that it's also extremely unprofessional in this situation). I'd suggest talking to him about it - if he gets upset at least you've already been to HR and they know of your concern.

Without knowing more about your job and your speech impediment it's hard to say whether this is discriminatory or not. I suspect your boss would argue that a speech impediment is . . well an impediment on the phones, although clearly you managed in the past which goes a long way towards undermining such thinking. Again, it's hard to gauge this without knowing more about the situation, but I'll point out that I manged to moderate these forums just fine despite my mild dyslexia.

Go back to HR and file a formal complaint. If that doesn't work and you still feel discriminated against get in touch with a lawyer versed in the appropriate fields of law.

The next step is asking a bunch of strangers on a forum what to do.

...

Good job! Now talk to him about it.

It's not really discrimination if he feels your speech impediment gets in the way of the job. That's just evaluating your skill set. Ask him why he took you off the phones.

They said they couldnt do anything or some kinda crap
which is crap
Ive been on phones for a year a half and he comes in replaces my former boss and kicks me off
explain?

Restructuring. he is asserting his authority and showing his bosses Why they hired him.

Were you the only one? What are you doing now? What were you doing before phones? Is it a solid demotion or is it just moving you to another department/job? What was his reason? Was there any pay change? Do you like what you do now?

I am the only, i do the same job but no phone exp,and yes its solid, he didnt give one, yeah -5,000, i hate not helping people

Violence solves everything, challenge this man to a duel, if he thinks he can make fun of your speech impediment, he has another thing coming! You might not be able to out-talk him, but can he out-talk a fist to the face? I doubt it, once you defeat him in honorable combat, he will be forced to recognize your superiority over him and will become your minion quickly.

A solid plan to be sure but may I suggest pistols at dawn, then you stay up all night drinking red bulls and then when he arrives he will be all groggy and you will be wired and ready for action.

Ok... I'm not saying that these professions have any resemblance, but does this at least make a bit of sense?

Not being on the phones because you have a speech impediment vs not getting a job as a stripper because you don't have the body for it? Or not being allowed to operate a forklift because you don't have any arms?

The guy is a piece of human garbage, that's easy to see. But yeah your HR department should be able to do something about it, but they seem not to care one bit. Take it higher up if you can.

To the OP, do you have a speech impediment mainly around when physically around people? Does it go away when on the phone?

While I do not personally condone discrimination of any kind, don't you think you could possibly reflect upon yourself for a bit?

Think of it this way. You work in communications for some nameless company. You also happen to have a speech impediment. Don't you think it looks bad on a company to have "Shtanley Shamshon ready to sherve." on communication?

Or look at it another way than that. If everyone with speech impediments were allowed to do anything they wanted when representing a company, we would have very odd sounding TV commercials and movie trailers, don't you think?. That's what you're doing. You're representing a company. You are supposed to sound clear and presentable, you are supposed to sound like a confident gentleman ready to help someone, but that can be slightly skewed with even the smallest speech impediment. Heck, it doesn't even have to be a medical thing like this. You can have an slight accent and you'd have to be reconsidered for a customer communication position.

No one will want to admit it, but how someone speaks when helping you matters. If your child's teacher had a horribly incomprehensible accent, you'd blame possibly slipping grades on that reason.

It's life, don't deny. (I know someone is bound to come in and counter me, calling me a nazi or something. But this is all business.)

Yeah that makes sense.

But going behind his back and poking fun at the way he talks is a low thing to do.

That is probably the only thing that could bring this to discrimination.

Like I said, it's a business. It is definitely not professional to be poking fun at someone with a condition they cannot help.

The way it sounds to me is that your speech impediment is not that bad, seeing as you were able to perform your job correctly before the new boss came in.

What I posted was really a general statement. To answer SilverEagle's question, I do indeed think this is discrimination. He is blatantly laughing at you about your impediment and it's obvious that because of your impediment, you were removed from your position. He definitely owes you some kind of explanation for your removal, but this guy's just a dike.

Whoopi cushion time.

I'm not entirely sure what should be done concerning this.

Not to derail the topic, but I too am very concerned about discrimination in the workplace. Living in the South, it's stressful knowing that, should my boss find out that I'm gay, he could legally fire me for it. Not to mention possible harassment.

I do hope you get this sorted out. And he should definitely be reprimanded for making fun of your speech.

I think I work where you do, what's your name? Jk

It is horrible that you could be fired for such a thing. Sick thing is, no one would do a thing. They would just sit back and watch.

I find that HR usually doesn't like to deal with this sort of thing. I think you just need to be persistent with them. Unfortunately, if your boss gets wind of you talking to HR, you might get fired, it all depends on the type of work you're doing.

Unfortunately, you're probably screwed. Your boss is definitely an ass, but a speech impediment is something related to the job of talking to people on the phone. You might be able to get somewhere if you keep pestering HR, but even if they side with you he can just do the same thing and give some cockamamy excuse.

Sorry, I wish you the best of luck, though.


I can't imagine how [censored] it must be to be LGBT down there. I'm trans, so I've certainly got the threat of discrimination hanging over me, but at least I'm in a fairly progressive area of the country. =/

Make him know, that you are the dominant alpha male.

Everyday life is pretty normal, but there's always the risk, you know? Thankfully as the younger generation grows up, people around here are becoming more accepting.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to who's accepting and who isn't, at least as far as I can tell. Some of the people who are the most accepting are those I least expected to be, whereas the few people who have been judgemental and difficult are the sort who pride themselves on being broad-minded and accepting.

As for the OP, I think I'd have to wonder if I wanted to work for some halfwit like his manager at all. Although it might seem unfair, if he's here to stay I'd make a move elsewhere: I've stuck it out in not very pleasant jobs much longer than I should have in the past and I don't recommend it.

I also live in the south, and being NS, I could get fired at any moment as well.