Conservation Lands and Resources (CLR) department discrimination

Introduction to me: Who am I? I’m a 58-year old male, with all of the modern day stigma attached to me, warranted or not. I believe in people, all people, inasmuch that we all should deal with and treat one another equitably and respectfully. Custodian or CEO? Irrelevant. Everyone—regardless of physiology, life choices, social status, station or education deserves all of the kindness, dignity and respect, perhaps particularly in a professional setting. We all utilize similar waste holes, period. But not everyone thinks they do, or even practices it, or at the bare minimum even believes that we’re all equal. One common problem is, many people believe that they are rocking it, but they are effectively missing the mark. And when they’re in a position of power, like a supervisor, that’s a problem that can haunt their staff every day, even when said staff are not at work. The daily dread associated with enduring a chronically hostile work environment, particularly if an individual is singled out (i.e., inconsistent application of company policy) is traumatizing.

What if it was you, being treated unprofessionally by your supervisor, despite your fantastic performance?

The following is what your Friday and weekend would feel like:

It’s Friday. Serious TGIF. You’ve been talked down to by your supervisor in front of others, interrupted by her during a conversation you tried to have about her sending you to an incorrect location, and the incipient check-in meetings she initiated are becoming far fewer than the weekly meetings you were promised. You just overheard a conversation between your boss and the only other one of her staff (your peer, who rarely speaks to you, also a woman) that excludes you, specifically excludes you as a male, when they both laugh and express that they prefer to watch only women excel in sports (think about that) just a few feet away from you. You feel badly all of the time you’re there. You find yourself avoiding your female supervisor whenever possible. Strangely, the only other female staffer, your peer, never says ‘good morning’ to you, or ‘see ya tomorrow’, or asks if you need help with anything——nothing. She arrives after you do each day, and just walks right by your cubicle without a word. She’s in the cubicle next to you, you share a thin wall, but she never gives you so much as a courteous or professional word. Nothing, unless you initiate out of necessity. Never have I experienced this level of awkwardness, isolation and suppression in a work environment. Your drive home on this (and every) Friday is filled with relief; you don’t have to endure your supervisor’s passive-aggressive behaviors for two whole days, nor your only co-worker’s silent treatment, or so you think. You talk with your S.O. about everything and how you are feeling about it on Friday evening; it helps a little. Now it’s Saturday morning. You feel exhausted, and realize you didn’t sleep well again last night. Your brain——you tried to shut it off and force sleep, but your supervisor’s words and actions pry their way back in to your subconscious as soon as your mental guard lowers, right as you began to fall asleep, making you fully conscious all over again. You feel sick about it, then angry, then sad, then worse than sad. Sunday arrives, and there is only one thought that pervades the day: It’s the day before Monday. This thought looms foreboding and heavy all day, despite your attempts at levity and well-being with your family. Everyone knows something is ‘wrong with you’, but they don’t really grasp that the hostile work environment that you’re temporarily away from never really leaves you, at least not over a mere two or even three day weekend. It’s Sunday evening, and you have no words for the dread associated with Monday, which started on Friday. Your drive into work is a blur; you’re tired as hell, angry, sad, and…overwhelmed with a sense of powerlessness. Maybe it’s me, you tell yourself. But you know better. Your spouse, who’s not afraid to disagree with you (a good thing), also knows that the problem lies with a lack of applied training and ethical principles with your supervisor, as well as weak and ineffective management above her. At least someone understands, and agrees that I am accurately not the problem there. You arrive at work, and the dreaded week begins anew. You find yourself speaking less at meetings, contributing minimally, increasingly turning inward because there is no one within Pima County that can help you. You were a highly functional and successful employee at every other place you’ve worked for decades. Working for Pima County, in the Conservation and Lands Resources department, you’ve become withdrawn, you’re being strangely dominated and suppressed, have no sense of secular value, and your supervisor is unapproachable. You are absolutely powerless. You don’t have a move: you feel…stuck.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Not the relaxing or fun days that they once were. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This is what I endured for many months following my first few weeks of employment at Pima County within the Conservation Lands and Resources department, formerly Parks & Recreation and Natural Resources. Worse than that, a version of the painful experience above is repeating itself, unchecked, because it’s what a new employee is suffering through——right now.

In my 42 years of secular experience, I have observed that there is a behavioral type of individual in the workplace that goes through all of the motions, believing themself to be a ‘good person’. They think they’re doing all secular things correctly and properly; they believe they’re a model citizen. I’ve also noted in some folks that there is a pretentious and hardened arrogance worn in the guise of ‘determined professionalism’, as they sport this plastic veneer like an actor or actress playing the role of a lifetime. I’m not referring to the standard workplace professionalism that we all manifest transiently throughout our workday, but rather, a hyper-compensatory need to constantly drill into select others who the big dog is. It is demonstratively a desire to dominate others, and the cyclic repetition of unprofessional behavior qualifies the statement. Again, I’m not speaking of the normal, standard manager mindset that is a necessary component of a healthy workplace hierarchy, but its ugly, un-necessary, and subconsciously practiced counterpart. As it turns out, these folks are a huge part of ‘what’s wrong with the world’, including at their place of work. They absolutely believe that they’re doing amazing work in every way, and doing right by others.

Wait a minute—annual training should prevent or halt this from recurring, right? We all know how incredibly ‘effective’ the annual ‘talent management’ videos with their associated quizzes are. Some folks dutifully accomplish their mandatory annual training modules in their offices each and every year, comfortable and at ease in their self-righteousness, while treating select others of their staff as less. They are unaware that they do so, weaving a fantastic work environment for some of their staff, but creating a hostile work environment for these select others. In this case, the chronic unprofessional behaviors emanate from a mid-level manager who happens to be female, white, early forties, sports a degree, and works for Pima County “Conservation Lands and Resources” department. She should know better.

The sequence of composition blocks within this blog are no accident as I hop from one topic, then skip back to another. In creative writing, even factual creative writing like this, this is dubbed ‘fragmentation’, and it serves the purpose of ‘encouraging’ the reader to continue on.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t elucidate a little more about my background. To those who know me professionally, I’m a capable biologist and zoologist, and can hold my own with regard to plant, mammal, reptile and invertebrate ecology within the region of and surrounding the Sonoran desert. So a nerd, I guess. To my family, I’m a few things: A son, a stepson, a brother, a half-brother, a step-brother, an uncle. Mostly, at least to me, I’m a dad, father to a super-smart 13-year old. The most meaningful thing about my son is that he is a, wait for it… a high-quality individual. This kid is, in part, a culmination of my life’s work and experience, and he is an outstandingly wonderful human. That’s hard to find in today’s world, even harder within the secular sector, and harder still regarding some individuals within the Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources department.

I have no college degree, however, I have work experience that makes an advanced degree pale in juxtaposition. My lifetime of learning and education includes: college, medical institute training, formal training classes in biology, environmental ecology, botany, herpetology, entomology, mentoring and endless field work with potent biologists, botanists, herpetologists, mammologists and entomologists, a lifetime of self-learning and instruction from scientific journals, biology books, and on-line classes, like GIS and R-coding. Folks that are the proud owners of PhD’s and masters degrees have consulted me for my expertise regarding the ecology and natural history of reptiles, invertebrates, plants and mammals, as well as their complex inter-relationships. I’ve been consulted by and advised the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Park Service, the Arizona Game & Fish Department and various national zoos with regard to many reptile and invertebrate species of concern, some of which are endangered species. I have held positions that I’ve earned, positions that are often held by individuals with various degrees of formal education. Yes, I earned them, I thrived within them, and my staff respected and favored my work ethic. Finally, I’ve taught college-level entomology and herpetology classes to adults, and am an author and co-author on a few scientific papers. I’m also currently writing a book.

When it comes to my work at Pima County, I worked eleven of my twelve months of employee probation before I was fired by my ex-supervisor Kelsey, her middle-manager boss Brian, and HR representative Angie. I was emailed ‘out of the blue’ at around 1:00pm on a Monday and informed that I would need to drive to another location for a surprise meeting. It seems it took 3 people to fire me. Bully much, Pima County? I recorded the conversation, as well as a conversation that my ex-supervisor had with me on a standard ‘check-in’ meeting just six days before I was terminated. I will post complete transcripts of those meetings later—they are telling.

Additionally, why would anyone be so heartless as to terminate an employee on a Monday, and then refuse to inform them as to why they’re being let go? As a former high-level manager, terminations were done on a Friday. It was the ethical thing to do, so that they had the weekend for recovery and rebound. You are, after all, affecting someone’s life, and that of their family.

I should also record here some of things that definitely support that I was wrongfully terminated. Please note that I’m not averring that I was illegally terminated; but I was most certainly wrongfully terminated. Pima County, like some employers, may choose to fire anyone within their 12-month probationary period, and may do so without informing the probationary employee as to why. It’s an unethical and unprofessional practice, but that’s the way it is at Pima County. Please consider the following:

1. I asked the overwhelming panel of 3-terminators why I was being fired. They refused to tell me, which of course I recorded. Why wouldn’t they inform me? That they lawfully didn’t have to is irrelevant. This is highly unprofessional and poor practice on the part of Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources. This counterproductive practice does not allow any potential to improve for the soon-to-be ex-employee, and in this case, it re-enforced and enabled the supervisor’s misconduct to continue unabated and without accountability.
2. Pima County managers are required to perform employee evaluations every three months until the 12-month probationary review is completed, then annually thereafter. I should have had three of these required evaluations during my 11-month stent there. Instead, and in violation of Pima County policy, I received only one evaluation at three months, and it was without blemish or concern. There were no performance evaluations presented to me at six nor at nine months of employment. My supervisor Kelsey failed at this basic part of her performance as well. Even considering the medical leave I had to take for surgery, these missing performance evaluations had the potential to inform either another great evaluation or the future termination process, and could have served as both a performance metric and a means by which to improve that performance. In fact, these missing evaluations as well as the mandatory discussions that should have accompanied them would have served as tools for success, something that I was never set up for. I qualify the latter statement by mentioning that my female peer did receive her timely evaluations.
3. During all of my weekly ‘check-in’ meetings with my supervisor Kelsey, I never, not once, received any input that there was any issue of any kind with my performance or other workplace attributes. Not one concern, not ever. Interestingly, the casual check-in meeting with my supervisor six days prior to my termination yielded not so much as a hint of any issue whatsoever (transcription of that recorded meeting pending). Why? Either my supervisor was continually enabling me to fail at my job by not communicating an issue or issues that existed, or there simply wasn’t any issue with my performance or performance-based attributes. Either way, that is a not only a Pima County failure, it’s is a violation of Pima County employee policy.
4. I have never been terminated from any position in 30-years of gainful, thriving employment. There are many quantifiable reasons for that. This speaks for itself.

It would be inequitable to report anything about the unprofessionalism of Pima County without including anything specific about my work history. In brief:

• 22-years with the University of Arizona as a cardiac researcher in a basic science laboratory accomplishing translational science, many of those years as the laboratory manager. I had a female supervisor who was amazing, and we worked very well together. I specialized in experimental design, creating surgical models, teaching surgical techniques, cell culture, performing in-vitro and in-vivo experiments, gene transfer and much more. I headed up labs at the VA hospital in Tucson as well as a sister lab at the U of A Life Sciences. I enjoyed some fame and notoriety there- which was a little weird for me, but okay. It was a solid paying job with the best benefits I’ve ever had. I left this job voluntarily to go where my heart went.
• 12-years with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, with five of them as the department head, or Curator, of a verbosely-named department called HIIZ: Herpetology, Ichthyology & Invertebrate Zoology. It was my job to oversee the massive aquatic and terrestrial programs, department outreach and education content, the veterinary animal programs for these huge aquatic and terrestrial programs, project management, budget, payroll and management of 13 staff and countless volunteers, mete out and track disciplinary actions, hire, fire, train select others to safely interface and restrain venomous reptiles, and much more. I also sat on the Animal Welfare Council and was a leader on the Dangerous Animal Escape Team. I was highly valued, highly skilled, and very well thought of. I left this job voluntarily, due to a lack of promised and much needed program (and Curator) support that never materialized. I was effectively performing the job duties of two Curators. I had the highest number of staff, collection animals and volunteers of any living collection Curator at this institution. I also held the AZGFD Scientific Activity and Collecting License for my staff, the other Curators, and all of their staff. It was acknowledged that additional people resources were needed for the ever-growing programs that I ran, but some institutions seem to enjoy getting more than their money’s worth from highly capable go-getters until they exhaust that human resource. My supervisor told me upon my promotion date that the job would, and I quote, “eat you alive.” Turns out that he was right about that. He told me and many others at gatherings that I had a much more challenging department to manage than he did when he was overseeing it, but did nothing viable to hire the Assistant Curator that I desperately needed. The job aged me, took a piece of my soul, and stole my happy.
• 1-year with the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance (AVCA) doing habitat assessment work for the endangered masked bobwhite quail on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, identifying all plants within the Sonoran arid grassland community that these cool little birds call home, scoring habitat zones for suitability, and even radio-telemetry tracking of the quail that were released there. I had a female supervisor in this position as well, and she was fantastic at her job. We worked seamlessly together. My extensive animal sciences experience became buoyant once more as I helped shape animal treatments, quarantine regimens and other protocols there. My female supervisor told me, “You are the smartest person on this refuge.” She exaggerated, of course. However, considering the level of competition that the refuge manager and his side-kick pseudo-biologist offered, I didn’t really have any. This job expired after a 1-year contract. My female supervisor there was forced out by the two abovementioned clowns shortly after I left; too much unwelcome hands-on by the USFWS refuge manager, and outright aggression from a petulant and self-centered supervisory biologist. She deserved so much better than the USFWS did for her, but that’s another blog. Why do I mention this? Like Pima County, weak leadership resulted in unchecked discrimination against this young, bright, up-and-coming young woman. She was so very committed, unlike management there from late 2023 to present day. It’s pretty obvious that discrimination isn’t confined to melanistic hue, gender, age or lifestyle. It can find anyone, given opportunity that’s often enabled by blind, ineffective or lazy management, and is frequently tempered with a heavy dose of CYA, shove-it-under-the-rug actions if it even gets acknowledged at all.

• 11 months with Arizona’s local Pima County government doing land inspections and assessments. The department was called “Natural Resources Parks and Recreation”, and while I was there was merged with another: “Conservation Lands and Resources”. These assessments included flora & fauna inventories, as well as assessing infrastructure, erosion progression, recent human incursion effects, and prescriptions needed to improve these issues. I was hired as ‘overqualified’ by my supervisor for this Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources job, as indicated by a text conversation between a former supervisor-friend of mine and the following text that I sent to my S.O. referencing that conversation. My former USFWS supervisor-friend that I mentioned above was told that I was overqualified by my ex-Pima County supervisor Kelsey while reference checking me pre-hire:

“One could say that discrimination itself does not discriminate; it’s admirable in it’s impartiality but despicable in its application.” -Desert Byrne

Pima County, specifically the department labeled “Conservation Lands and Resources” is the focus of this article. It’s a not-so-novel example of how some people within the Pima County government are allowed to operate unprofessionally while employing and promoting chronic discriminatory practices within the work place. These recurrent behaviors created a hostile environment not only for me, but plausibly for another male that occupied my position previously that my female supervisor said ‘just didn’t make it’. Alarmingly, these unchecked discriminatory behaviors continue with a third male employee in the present day, which I’ll include text evidence of. I was very fortunate to come across a friend of this current-day male employee who shared what sounded all-too-familiar to me.

The ‘male pattern’ here is only a facet of the Pima County gender discrimination equation, but it is relevant. Historically, Kelsey has had only two staff at any one time, and that was the case when I was there, rocking my job. This has changed recently; she has three staff now. Of past and present employees in the Pima County Conservation and land Resources, I am only aware of 2-female employees, and 3-male employees. Both female employees thrived or continue to thrive there. The two males that I’m aware of did not make it, and the third male currently employed there has stated that Kelsey has created a hostile work environment for him as well. Please note the following text shared with me regarding the current male employee, sent to me by a friend of his, and the mental hardship that he (too) is enduring each day:

Questions:

Did / Does my former Pima County supervisor realize that she created a hostile work environment for me? My opinion: Most likely not. Staff receive mandatory, annual training to prevent or stop this behavior, but arrogance and a strong sense of self-righteousness prevent them from applying the information to themselves. Pima County needs to perform an analysis of male vs. female successes and failures under Kelsey’s mismanagement, and should provide her with additional educational resources and mandatory, focused sensitivity training. Formal disciplinary is indicated here as well. Not only is gender discrimination against Pima County policy and unlawful, but multiple male employees that aren’t “making it” (Kelsey’s words regarding the male employee in my position before me) due to a manager creating a hostile work environment for her male staff has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars of Pima County taxpayer dollars.

Is this Pima County Supervisor aware that she continues to inflict unprofessional, discrimination-based behaviors on another employee currently, and that this individual is also experiencing daily trauma in the form of an unchecked (and thereby promoted) hostile work environment just as I experienced under Kelsey? Probably not. This supervisor holds herself to a high standard with other parts of her job, so she plausibly believes that she’s blame-free in the discrimination arena as well. In fact, self-ignorance is in-part what’s wrong with the world at large today, and is clearly at work in this department as well. Some minds are just simply incapable of critical auto-introspection. It’s not that they’re entirely ‘bad people’; they’re reasonably decent people who view themselves as above reproach, and not in need of refinement unless someone above them possesses adequate intelligence to recognize what’s really occurring, and then demonstrates the wherewithal to take appropriate action.

Does my ex-supervisor’s supervisor know what has been and is continuing to occur in the Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources department, and that multiple iterations of males in this position, but not females, have been set up to fail at their jobs? Please consider: I met a female Pima County employee while I worked there who used to be in my position. She thrived there, so much so, that she was able to acquire another position there as a result of her positive female : female relationship with Kelsey. Why is it that males, at least three of them, have failed / are failing to thrive under Kelsey’s leadership, while multiple females have no issues? So, no, my ex-supervisor’s supervisor Brian is not paying any attention to the repeating patterns of male attrition. Whatever Kelsey says the weather is in her part of the department is beyond scrutiny.

Does recently-appointed director Gade know that she signed off on my termination of employment following a lack of policy-mandated performance evaluations as well as Kelsey’s past failures with (at least) one male subordinate, and that yet another and current (third) male employee is reaching outside of Pima County with some of the same concerns of unprofessional, discriminatory treatment that I had while I worked there and still have? My opinion: Management has the ear of management. I come from a long line of seasoned managers, and I know that management subcultures exists, and ‘cliques’ of managers sometimes only hear each other’s voice. While I was employed at Pima County, I went to a few all-employee in-person meetings. All of the managers sat with each other, never with their staff, even though many managers have only one or two staff in total. It was supposed to be a “meet the new director” event. Instead, with all managers sitting together in the front rows and all of their staff seated dutifully many rows behind them (mind you, Kelsey had two, yes only two staff- one of which was me), it morphed into a managers-give-managers award ceremony, complete with surprised looks (who, me? I accept!) and pricey, taxpayer funded awards. There was no mention of their staff’s hard work or other contributions. The new director also ignored an email reply that I sent in response to her email, offering to lend my invertebrate and reptile expertise when she went into the field. No response. While elitism and arrogance are a rampant form of secular herpes within Pima County, that’s another blog for someone else. Check out Pima County’s reputation as an employer on the ‘Indeed’ jobsite reviews to learn more. To answer the above question, the new director is clueless regarding the deplorable circumstances recurring right under her nose.

Finally, what specifically happened in my case, and is still happening that makes this actual gender discrimination? More answers pending.

It’s been over a year since my wrongful (but promoted by Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources, as well as legal) dismissal on 26 August, 2024. I am still traumatized. Not a day passes where that abhorrent situation does not affect me. I still have ‘work-mares’ every week. At 58-years old, I am still not gainfully employed, and have no health plan coverage since I cannot afford it. My legal case that I pursued relentlessly for over a year has fizzled out to nothing (even though there was a viable case, per my attorney)…except for this blog. There is no Cease and Desist order from Pima County attorneys that will stop this blog from remaining posted and curated. Certainly, I would love to see any part of this matter head to court and wallow in the public spotlight. Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources has failed, department director Gade has failed, and at least two other middle managers above my former supervisor have failed. Kelsey has been set upon a can-do-no-wrong pedestal, so accountability for her unprofessional actions remains unchecked. It is incredibly stressful to deal with this mentally or to write about it, but it is all that I have and am able to do.

Now, to fill in additional details, more facts. Audio recordings or their equivalent transcriptions, documents, text histories, Attorney General, EEOC, ADES and employment attorney communications, all of it. This will be my only form of closure, and will hopefully serve as a form of permanent accountability for Pima County. I’ll report what happened to me, and what’s still happening now to a new employee. Pima County owes me a formal apology, an excellent job reference, a year of lost wages, lost retirement earnings and more. I cannot obtain these things that I’m owed, so I’ll reveal what happened and why, accompanied by fact validation checkpoints along the way.

Let’ reveal another text in the series, where a friend of mine reveals something that I can’t believe my luck that I learned. It reinforces everything that I knew to be true- that my ex-boss is continuing her unprofessional, discriminating behavior, but this time, it’s directed toward a new male employee. I’m responding in the green dialog boxes, as usual:

It’s not that I’m surprised, but rather that I’m not usually this lucky. Validation from an external source is an incredibly good feeling, although what’s being allowed to transpire in this department is truly awful. That Kelsey continues to realize no accountability for her unprofessional behavior and continues setting up male staff to fail at their livelihood is reprehensible. Additionally, this bad behavior costs taxpayers hundreds of thousand of wasted personnel dollars as her mistreated staff are not retained. At least her earned reputation precedes her here in Tucson. Here is the next text from the “.gov” friend of the new hire:

One should ask: Why would a person with ‘power’ hire male-after-male-after-male if she has gender discrimination behavioral issues? This is a valid question, and you have to have spent quality time with the perpetrator to understand their intent. In this case, it’s more likely a lack of intent. What’s been happening historically, and what is still happening to the new hire?

1. Some discriminators aren’t self-aware enough to realize that they’re behaving in a discriminatory manner, thereby creating a hostile work environment for a subset of their staff. Plausibly, they may not even realize that they’re doing it. In this case, Kelsey’s actions (and reactions) are likely subconscious, demonstrating a lack of secular self-awareness.
2. My case and the new hire’s case share a precise point of commonality: both of us have experienced Kelsey talking to us in a demeaning, child-like, denigrating manner, an action that was directed specifically at us and was performed in front of others. The affect on the recipients? Confusion, embarrassment and humiliation. Her behavior served to dominate. Are Kelsey’s female staff ever treated in this manner? Not that I observed during my near-year there.
3. She continues uninterrupted because no one is stopping her bad behavior. Kelsey’s supervisor is absolutely unaware. He is wrapped up in himself, but also in a striped shirt and red scarf, curls of hair oiled just so, trying too hard to be seen as some great mind of the ages. I observed him misidentifying a plant (instead of just saying “I’m unsure”, he said “yeah, I think so”) that an intern asked about in the field (I tactfully helped them both with the correct species ID), and mis-speaking about deer habitat we were driving through together. He tried correcting me, basing his so-called ‘reasoning’ on what he was told “from a friend who’s a hunter.” I in turn offered Brian accurate information, based on 30-years of archery hunting, a few deer biology books, and an AZGFD cervid biologist’s science-based website. So, her supervisor is simply too wrapped up in his limited world to identify a nearby problem, as evidenced by giving her a ‘you’re amazing’ award at a meeting inappropriate to do so, and at the taxpayer’s expense.

I have great empathy for the new hire. I know what he’s going through at Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources (CLR), because I experienced and endured Kelsey’s unprofessional, discriminatory behaviors for the better part of eleven months. I felt intensely isolated and alone there, something I’ve never experienced within a professional setting before. A few times I told my S.O. that I was going to try to speak with Kelsey about her singled-out treatment toward me, but I was fearful of losing my job. Each time I was in a ‘check-in meeting’ with her, my blood pressure would soar as I searched for a segue or prepared to broach the topic. I came so close, but viewed her as absolutely unapproachable. Each meeting I failed. My anxiety got the better of me. Then I began to see myself a part of the problem (though this was untrue), because I was intimidated by her. Which made me feel weak. Which caused me to feel sad, then angry. Which was why I was slipping into depression. I blamed myself for not having the courage to speak up, even though I had no one that I could approach about this horrible problem. Please note the parallel in this text from the new hire’s friend to me (I’m the green dialog box):

Speaking of that unprofessional and unwelcome humiliation in front of others, here is how Kelsey treated me one day, at Pima County Parks and Recreation on River Road in Tucson. My peer and I were sent to help the Horticulture Department clean up some storm damage on grounds. We finished up around mid-day. It was a good morning for a change; the horticulture staff were professionally personable, and we all worked really well together. Then my supervisor Kelsey showed up, and I felt myself withdraw into that silent, safer space, not wanting to be noticed, but knowing that was inevitable since she supervised only two staff.

“I have a meeting with the horticulture manager. Howard, go ahead and head inside to your old cubicle and you can finish the day there.”, Kelsey said.

I was in shock and disbelief. Not only was this cubicle no longer ‘mine’, but the entire floor belonged to the Parks & Recreation department where one manager was warring with Kelsey over spaces and things that were no longer our department’s. She was literally sending me into a different type of hostile work environment that she helped create to fend for myself, and I even had clearance to work remotely from home for this very scenario.

“There is no chair in that cubicle, but I guess I could sit on the floor and work”, I responded to her.

“Just take a chair out of another cubicle that isn’t being used”, she told me dismissively.

I just stood there, unmoving and dumbfounded. Now she has ordered me to move furniture around as I see fit while she is in-fighting with a manager in the place that she’s sending me?? That was when she did to me what she’s been doing to the newly hired male. Kelsey addressed me in a strange, condescending, sing-song voice and said the following about the meeting she needed to get to: “This is for meee, not for youuuu…”

She simply stared at me as I walked away toward an extremely uncomfortable situation. Why, I wondered, is Kelsey treating me like this? I did as I was told, wondering what I would say if I was challenged by another hostile manager within. Why indeed. Here are some more “Why did Kelsey treat me this way?” situations”:

1. Why did my CLR supervisor Kelsey offer my only other co-worker, Ellie, an office with a door in our new downtown location knowing that I’m hyper-sensitive to disturbances while in a cubicle setting? (discrimination)
2. Why did Kelsey still not offer me the available office after Ellie turned down her offer? (discrimination)
3. Why did Conservation and Lands Resources supervisor Kelsey insist that I follow a department SOP to-the-letter that Ellie did not have to follow to-the-letter? (will show a short SOP that Ellie wrote that demonstrates that various detailed steps of the larger SOP were not followed by her) (discrimination)
4. Why did Kelsey only give me (1) of the (3) quarterly probationary performance evaluations that she was required to, when Ellie had all of hers completed? (discrimination)
5. Why did Kelsey offer Ellie an invitation to a conference that I was not invited to that was more within my purview than Ellie’s? (discrimination)
6. Why did Kelsey completely ignore me on a trip to Colossal Cave, while only speaking with the property manager and Ellie as we walked along in a group during a property assessment that took hours? (discrimination)
7. Why did Kelsey arrange to have me fired after completing (11) out of (12) months of my probation, when there were never, ever any concerns about my performance or performance-based attributes? (discrimination)
8. Why did Kelsey arrange for me to transiently meet her in the mornings at Parks & Recreation to car pool to our new downtown location, but ‘stand me up’ with not so much as a text to indicate that she wouldn’t make it on most mornings? (discrimination)
9. Why did Kelsey interrupt me and justify her misdirection with, “Well, now you know where the other location is” when she sent me to an incorrect testing location, despite my respectfully telling her the correct location before and after testing, instead of apologizing like a professional would have done? (discrimination)

Discrimination at Pima County Conservation Land and Resources (CLR) took many forms with me: I was treated unprofessionally and disrespectfully; I was treated differently than Ellie: I was placed into hostile situations that Ellie was not; I was made to jump through hoops that Ellie was not; I was not offered an available office nor a conference that Ellie was offered, I was talked down to and humiliated in front of others while Ellie never was. My male replacement is enduring discrimination currently, with no end to Kelsey’s unprofessional conduct in sight.

Let’s rationally examine a conversation that I overheard between supervisor Kelsey and my peer Ellie from inside of my cubicle that happened only a few feet away, in Kelsey’s office, early August 2024:

“Have you been following the Olympics?” (Kelsey)

“Yes! But I only watch women that compete.” (Ellie)

“Me too!” (Kelsey, then they talked details after that)

Was this impactful within this secular setting, and if so, why?

Deductive reasoning follows:

1. Does Kelsey prefer watching males perform in Olympic events?
2. Does Kelsey take equal satisfaction from male and female performance at Olympic events?
3. Does Kelsey exclude males and solely include females when watching Olympic events?
4. Did Kelsey consider the impact of hers and Ellie’s exclusive conversation on her only other employee within her department?
5. Is it important to avoid exclusion and actively promote inclusion in the workplace, particularly as a supervisory role model?
6. Is it possible that a male in that workplace environment, particularly one that has been suppressed / oppressed by the female supervisor, could feel excluded, unvalued and even discriminated against under these collective circumstances?

The conversation seems innocuous enough superficially, so what’s the problem? In a healthy, otherwise inclusive, non-hostile work environment, there might be no problem at all, depending on the perceptions of the players involved. Within the Pima County Conservation & Lands Resources (CLR) department, that converstion spoke (and still speaks) volumes about the larger, serious, ongoing issue of gender discrimination that is allowed to persist.

Upcoming next: Transcription of an iPhone recorded conversation, namely, the entire, unedited conversation between my supervisor Kelsey and me at a routine “weekly check-in meeting” on 20 August 2024, 6-days before my termination.

Surely, 6-days before I’m going to be fired, there would be some conversation alluding to an issue with my performance or my performance based attributes, right? Any competent supervisor would not only do this, but would have set the employee up for success by coaching, reprimanding or applying disciplinary action as needed prior to this. There simply was no adverse event or performance issue of any kind, and nothing was ever discussed or mentioned to me. This in itself is a part of the discrimination issue—Ellie was not singled out, isolated, ignored, dismissed or not communicated with.

Secular life in my cubicle was near-absolute isolation. Ellie Never spoke to me when she arrived or left, and never made me feel welcome there. Neither did Kelsey. They were regularly laughing together and having amiable, friendly conversations, but I was on the outside of that. The day that all three of us went to the ‘meet the director’ meeting in our building, we did not leave to head over there together or sit together once there. It was absolutely the most unamicable, isolated and hostile work environment I’ve ever worked in. Neither seemed aware of the effects of their behaviors.

More to come.