Former Dolphin: Martin didn't tell Philbin about bullying for fear of being let go

How could he be taken seriously when, by all accounts, he seemed to be friends with Incognito?

 

Contracts in the NFL are not guaranteed, and are actually treated as a series of 1 year contracts unless there is a guarantee written into it. So absolutely you can be cut (fired) at any time.

 

Former Dolphin: Martin didn't tell Philbin about bullying for fear of being l...

I had a situation where I had issues with my boss' abusive treatment. I 'felt out' how receptive his boss would be to that feedback and immediately got strong vibes that e had my boss' back and didn't like talk about dissenting voices.

So I just grit my teeth and bore it for six months. Evetually I was ready to snap and one day when I was already sick of my boss' abuse and he said "Do you have a problem Barry?" in a belligerent tone, I pissily responded "Yeah, actually. Yeah I DO have a problem." In a clearly FED UP tone. He got off the phone quicker than ever. "Uh, okay gottagobye."

I realized things would turn bad soon. But I didn't want that. I tried to handle it... Until I got sick from the constant stress and he basically gave me **** for not showing up to make him look great in meeting (I was his star and it let him slack off)... I wasnt there because I was at the doctor. He didn't care. He gave me **** and wanted me in ASAP. Zero concern for my well being. I was like "Are you serious? i am SICK and at the doctors office now."

I still resisted quitting or going to HR to report him. Just felt like that was.. Weak? My future wife was saying I had to do something because this was gradually breaking me down. She hated him.

Well another month or whatever goes by and I end up with a rash that turns out to be a stressed central nervous system and depressed immune system. Doctors first question, "Are you under stress at work?"

I talked to some trusted co workers and ine nice guy who had known my boss for years and all were like, "Dude, he wont change, and his bosses dont give a **** because he is producing." The irony is, he was producing because I'm damned good at what I do. But I was sacrificing my mental, emotional and physical health. And he was consistently berating and putting me down.

I put out feelers to see if HR would have teeth to fix this. The HR girl said nothing would happen because they ignored her too. That management walked around saying things daily that were potential sexual harrassment suits. She said whenever she raised issues she was ignored. She could not help.

So... I kept trying to think of a solution other than losing my job by quitting. Eventually, after a hard stretch of around the clock editing to meet yet another unrealistic TV deadline I ended up in an emerg room with severe dehydration.

My future wife was the one who insisted I go to ER. I'm lying there with an IV bag thinking "What the **** am I doing? This ******* is not worth doing this to myself and neither is this job."

So I took it outside the company. I went to a doctor at a reputable hospital and had him diagnose the health effects of an unfit workplace environment. It immediately qualified me for paid leave. Which I took. And I owed them zero explanation.

8 weeks later I returned and as I entered, my boss' boss sees me. Does he ask how I am doing? Nope. He tells me my BOSS was upset by all this and I better go explain myself to HIM. Lol. Poor guy.

I immediately went not to my boss' office, but to HR and told them I was filing for full unemployment coverage for an unfit workplace environment. She was surprised but kinda happy to see someone finally stand up for themself. I quit and was approved for EI until I found a job.

I went to the parking lot, opened my windows and sunroof and circled the company parki g lot twice, blasting Slim Shady "Saying I don't Give A ****, With His Windows Down and His System Up" then drove off to better shores.

Post-Script: to get closure I wrote the owner an email detailing what went on. Including the lack of means for an employee to resolve it. I also said I would not sling mud with any outside customers or vendors to protect my boss and the company's reputation (this was to ensure they didn't feel a need to smear and discredit me). I kept my word on that.

And of course, I cc'd my boss... And his boss.

Never heard back. But I smile knowing exactly what that meeting sounded like that day... And without my boss' star there to defend him.

 

First year on the job is not a mulligan.

Dawn Aponte is damaged goods and is part of the problem. If she or Brian Gaine become GM, nothing will change in the organization, the roster composition, the on-field play, or in the seats.

 

Former Dolphin: Martin didn't tell Philbin about bullying for fear of being l...

To be fair, my boss forced me to hang out with him quite a bit under the guise of us needing to discuss stuff for work.

Even dragged me to a strip club. It was weird.

Didn't like that guy. He was an abusive a-hole.

 

Better yet, why did our GM draft him ?

 

That's why when you are a rookie or near rookie owner, and near rookie GM you don't hire a never before EVER on any level head coach. There was so much lack of leadership & vision in Davie that I am surprised its taken this long for it to all implode on them.

 

Martin didn't even start going down the right protocol path, let alone continue. Martin didn't talk to any team official staff or leadership council, about the bullying. Philbin has made that abundantly clear.

 

I'm a chef now. I spent Friday night being nice and friendly to one of the biggest ********s I've met in my life. Why - because he's an influential winemaker and being nice to him is good for our business. I've lost count of the number of co-workers I've not got on well with who I was nice to and socialised with.

The simple fact is people spend their lives being nice to people they'd rather strangle because it makes the world go round.

 

We'll see when the evidence comes out. But would you go the leadership council when it's someone on the leadership council that you're having a problem with? Would you go your boss with a problem when he has a history of firing people who come to him with problems?
Philbin isn't a disinterested observer, he's a player with skin in the game. I have full confidence that Philbin thinks he has on open door policy and he thinks that he has done everything right and that he thinks that he has proper systems in place to prevent bullying/harassment. What will come out in the investigation is whether there is a discrepancy between what Philbin believes and what actually happened.

 

Philbin does not fire people if they come to him with problems that is complete horse****. There is no record of that ever happening.

Protocol is protocol. He could have skipped the council and gone to any number of assistant coaches. He went to no one about any of it. If a person hides a problem they are equally responsible for its continuation.

 

Why, was it Chippendales or a midget strip club?

 

Then what happened to Marshall, et al last year. Philbin goes to Ireland and says to get rid of them and they get gone.

FinD, having seen co-workers decompensate, having investigated it for a living and having gone through it myself I can guarantee you that it would have been plainly obvious that Martin was having serious problems. People don't go along all puppies flowers and happiness and then snap without warning. For the coaching staff to claim they were unaware of it took denial, or a complete lack of empathy.

 

I understand that, but Martin is basically on record for seeming like they got along, and that's all that matters.

 

I don't disagree. I don't think Aponte is looked at as damaged goods in NFL circles, but if she's around, Parcells's fingerprints will still be on this organization.

 

Jeez, Barry... you coulda just found another 7-Eleven to work at. Maynard doesn't manage them all.

 

Marshall never went to Philbin with any problems. Long chose not to sign back up. Reggie was at the end of his deal too. Dansby was expensive. CJ was cut because he got arrested for hitting his hose monster.

WADR, your experience has nothing to do with this scenario, because this scenario is centered on a pro football locker room. That's not me condoning anything. That's not saying its right or wrong. This is me saying, simply, its different.

In the NFL they don't see someone has introspective or shy. They see weak or strong. They saw something different in Martin, it was deemed weak. Again, I'm not saying its right, just saying its what happened and its how it happens in the NFL. Martin did not talk to Philbin about Incognito. He talked to him about himself and his wavering desire to play football. You cannot pretend that isn't true unless there's SOMETHING, ANYTHING to say different, then your own, not particularly relevant experience in a completely different environment.

No disrespect, but it sure seems like your previous problem in the workplace is coloring your view of the actual facts we have.

Much like the other people who are siding with Martin, you are doing so in light of all the facts we have currently.

Its very possible that Martin didn't "snap", but simply ran away when the shame of the demotion then benching was too much. Maybe, just maybe he did feel bullied this whole time too. I've never argued that he didn't. All I'm saying, is that I don't think Cogs intent was ever malicious based on the facts we've been given and Martin never tried to correct the problem through any of the proper channels.

 

That is complete and utter BS. If a person is new or uncomfortable in an enviornment for any reason, he or she may be afraid to share a problem that they have. Happened to me numerous times when I was in school, and has happened several times as an adult in the workplace. When you don't think that you can trust your supervisors it can be very difficult to resolve things. I've let things simmer for months because I was unsure how to handle it.

A lot of you guys seem to assume that every human is an agressive, forceful "alpha" male or female. Can you at least pretend to understand that a lot of people arent, even if you cant put yourself in those shoes?

 

I think its absurd that telling a superior you have a problem is being an aggressive, forceful "alpha" male or female.
You may not be responsible for other people being jerks to you, but you do share responsibility in stopping it. Its your duty to follow the proper channels in trying to get the issue corrected. Martin didn't do that, sio the fact that it was never remedied is on him and him alone. If he did what he was supposed to and things didn't get better, then its his superiors fault.

 

Man, absurdity abounds in this soap opera. The notion that a Stanford educated, 6'5" 320 lb, 24 year old man suffers 15 months of bullying in silence, is itself absurd.

 

I dunno man. Bullying is a real thing and it has nothing to do with size. The problem isn't that a large got bullied, its a guy felt he was bullied when he may have not been and he didn't follow any protocols to try and stop it.

 

I think this bullying business is a sideshow. My gut tells me that Martin was upset because he got moved to right tackle and the Dolphins hired McKinnie for left tackle. Heck, they could have hired a new guy for right tackle and left Martin where he was, right? And that's the second time he had to play right tackle, and dammit he's a LEFT tackle. So I think he got mad and stomped out, and had to save face somehow that it wasn't his shortcoming that led to his departure, it was...was...someone else's fault! Yeah that's it, someone else's fault!

This is all my opinion of course, but it seems to fit the events and the timeline.

 

The inference that they were friends could be a variation of the Stockholm syndrome .

A hostage feels no way out so he begins to bond with his captors out of a sense of survival.