Fired for not being a racist.

Kevin_77006 submitted 521 days ago

Ok I've been fired twice in my life and both were for really stupid reasons.
Here is the first:
Just out of college in early '90s, I landed a job working for one of the largest real estate development and management firms in the country in their new "affordable housing division". The manager of this division had the looks of a middle-aged german haus-frau and the attitudes of a lifelong Klan member (she actually bragged about her Klan membership). (what genius put HER in charge of a division that deals with alot of minorities?). I was assistant manager of a moderate sized (200+ unit) "Low Income Housing Tax Credit" (LIHTC) community and in charge of making sure that we complied with federal regulations for LIHTC communities. (as long as we complied with the regulations, we would receive back 90% of the total construction cost back as tax credits over 10 years- this was millions of dollars just for the community I worked at, and the company had just build around a dozen others just like it).
After being there for almost a year, our division manager (the aforementioned openly racist lady) realized that almost all of our "section 8" residents were african american. (section 8 is a welfare-type program where part or all of your rent is paid by the government)
Next thing you know, She sent out a memo to all the LIHTC properties that our new company policy is that we will not be accepting any new section 8 residents or renewing the leases of existing section 8 residents. Later that afternoon, when she stopped by to inspect the property I overheard her telling my manager that "I know it wont get rid of them all, but at least it will get rid of the worst of the damn *racial slur*.."
Now being the good little compliance officer that I was, I found out by the end of the next day that we were REQUIRED by the feds to accept section 8 as part of the LIHTC program. (it took me that long because the regulations are roughly the size of a telephone book).
Then being the good little employee that I was, I started it up the chain of command.... First I told my manager... She told me to forget about it, that nobody else is going to bother looking through the regulations to realize that we were doing something wrong. So then I went over her head to the division manager, with foreseeable results... I was cussed at, threatened, and repeatedly called a " *racial slur* -lover" and she promised that if she had anything to do about it there wouldnt be any African americans at the properties in her division (she was alot more vulgar saying it...).
(now mind you, this was before email) So I went to the local Kinko's armed with a list of all the fax numbers for the corporation. I simply photocopied the page of the regulations, circled the specific regulation and faxed it to the whole company (with no comments, just showed them the regs) in the hopes that someone in charge would see it. (I had no way of getting in touch with anyone higher then the division manager)
The next morning I found two things on my desk. A memo from one of the VPs of the company cancelling the earlier orders regarding section 8 and a pink slip signed by the division manager for having been late to work 4 months earlier during a blizzard (my manager didnt even manage to make it in that day).
Hows that for a thank you for saving the company 50+ million dallars that we would have lost during our next audit when they found out that we were breaking regs?