Looking for thoughts on this situation.I am a skilled facilitator presenting a mandated program to adults about awareness and impact of alcohol and drugs.

13 Comments

1. AnonymousJanuary 13,2023 at 7:41PM UTC

   Document the event in writing and send to admin and HR.

2. AnonymousJanuary 13,2023 at 8:25PM UTC

   Holy gaslighting, Batman!
   Wow, just stunned that administration responded to such a public and wildly inappropriate, unprofessional outburst by blaming you. Have you had any feedback from any of the other attendees? That sounds like a dangerous workplace violence episode waiting to pop up on the nightly news. Lots of liability in the company knowing about and not addressing someone that volatile. For the sake of everyone else at the company, I agree with the response to write it up and send it to HR and whomever else. That will help whoever needs to bring the lawsuit in a year or two. For yourself, write that up and jump ship ASAP. Best of luck and good for you for keeping yourself and your learners safe.

3. AnonymousJanuary 13,2023 at 9:44PM UTC

   The administration was not there and you have knowledge and experience to bring to bear on this situation. You kept the safety and welfare of your attendees foremost and made a great call. I would draft a first hand acount of what transpired and conclude that your decision was based on safety first and the desire that the attendees got off the premises without harm.

   Your priorities were right on point.

4. AnonymousJanuary 14,2023 at 8:43PM UTC

   The same thing happened to me twice at a previous company. I was working with homeless and disadvantaged people. One person, known for violence and suspended from services by the facility more than once for fighting, assaulted an elderly gentleman requiring us to call an ambulance, where he got stitches. I got called on for clearing the room, as the weather outside was cold and snowy, and many of them had no place else to go. My concern was keeping the staff and the other clients safe inside an enclosed space.. Another time, a client got mad and started shouting threats, and when we asked her to leave, she picked up objects sitting on the counter and started throwing them across the room. I called the police and was going to press charges when I got a call from the higher-up boss that said I could not file charges on behalf of the company. I was free to seek a restraining order for myself if I chose to. I retired shortly after that episode (for different reasons, but it played a part).

5. Joan Williams, Senior Talent Acquisition SpecialistJanuary 16,2023 at 3:01AM UTC

   I've re-read your post twice and honestly can't see where you are in the wrong here. Personally, I think safety should be number one priority and that's what you did.

   Administration seems more concerned with the inconvenience of having to rerun the workshop - not the participant's safety. I would follow the other commenter's suggestions to cover your butt and write this incident up and send it to HR - I wouldn't necessarily expect any help from them though.

   You may have no option but to take the additional training - they may make it a condition of employment. I would fire up my resume if I were you.

6. AnonymousJanuary 16,2023 at 1:49PM UTC

   Find your company’s policy on aggressive behavior and follow it. Be succinct on why it was aggressive behavior. Include a statement about vicarious trauma.

7. Johanna Parrish HoultJanuary 16,2023 at 1:58PM UTC

   Talk about blaming the victim! An organization that runs such programs should have a protocol to follow when a participant acts out. There should be a form that is required to properly document what transpired. There should be repercussions for the actor and support for you. Sorry that this did not happen. As previously suggested, document everything and go to HR. Maybe even suggest their review their policies as they appear to be lacking.

8. AnonymousJanuary 16,2023 at 3:45PM UTC

   Unfortunately this is often the case even with public schools. I would not have ended class early. But I would’ve still called security to let him know this person is roaming the halls. You are allowing one person to dictate the flow of your class and that’s not ok. I would see if you can find policies on these types of outbursts and what to do—document what happened and find out what your administration is doing to implement the policies! They shouldn’t be blaming you as the teacher. Furthermore these are grown adults, acting like kids. SMH

9. AnonymousJanuary 16,2023 at 8:16PM UTC

   Where I worked before, we had a standard incident report form required for any call to police or ambulance or any time we had decided to bar a client from services (usually a time-limited decision). If you don't have one, this is a perfect time to implement one and an ideal test case for communication. At the very least, I would write it up with details of why you felt threatened, which was confirmed by the confrontation later. Except for the disruption, why did you believe it safer to dismiss the class since the threatening person had left instead of continuing the course and notifying security to remove him from the building altogether?

10. Kimberly GrahamJanuary 17,2023 at 5:47PM UTC

    Yikes!

11. AnonymousJanuary 18,2023 at 3:48AM UTC

    There was more than one way to handle this. Sounds like you made a judgement call. I think you should put this right back in managements lap and ask them what they believe is an acceptable level of risk that you should be subjected to. No-one can predict an outburst or someone dealing with undocumented mental illness. This is the time when you see what your managers and chain of command are made of. Guidelines should be created detailing how these situations will be handled. Don't allow them place the majority of the burden on you.

12. Liz MilneJanuary 22,2023 at 11:41PM UTC

    Refuse to run the class again until you've been sent on a training course about how to deal with volatile situations like this.

    I was put into a similar position: employee was lazy, irritating and annoying anyway swore at a colleague (really nasty language) not realising he was overheard. When the witnesses told me about it, I sent him home, but another colleague who didn't overhear the swearing but did hear me sending the guy home told management that I'd handled it badly.

    I then went upstairs (to management) to ask what I should have done, and explain what I had done (not realising the other guy had already told them what he'd seen) and they kind of glossed it over like: 'Oh, yeah, you f**ked up, but don't worry about it.'

    (Which infuriated me, I'd asked for the swearer not to be kept on, he was such a bad fit!)

    So I refused to train anyone new until they'd given me some people management training - but that never happened, half of management were fired and the rest of us just had to get on with it!

    Ask them what will happen if you persist with the class and get attacked by the angry guy - what are their safety and duty-of-care procedures in those cases?

13. AnonymousJanuary 26,2023 at 8:49PM UTC

    Hello, I wanted to give an update to this situation. I went back and provided a detailed description of events and what occurred. The narrative changed quite quickly, and responded with an apology, and now see what I was dealing with.

    That said, I am considering resigning, as this seems to be reoccurring problem with reactive clients. As one person commented, I dont really want to be on the nightly news as a victim of person losing their cool and stabbing or assaulting someone. They really do need to have a policy in place for aggressive behavior and not just asking them to leave or calling security or the police.

    Thanks to everyone for the feedback and supportive comments-I especially liked "Holy gas lighting Batman"