Boss got demoted but she's still a crook

My evil boss finally got demoted last month, but they kept her on chromatography where I work. She tried to commit fraud AGAIN and the chief didn't seem to think it was a bid deal. I reported it to the QA manager. They still won;t take her out of chromatography in spite of me being very blunt and saying that she's a CROOK. Then today the chief gave me a reprimand for talking about her fraud out in the open where people heard me. My ex-boss is making a case against me for creating a hostile workplace. A couple of months ago when she was my boss she threatened to get me fired for refusing to participate in lab fraud. Now she acts like she's the victim. I have 4 years 8 months to retirement. No way I'm going to make it.

I think you should take the advice of your current boss and leave it alone or you will end up fighting for what's "right" and end up unemployed...and "right." Your ex-boss will continue on with life.

So the crooks always win. That's the way it was at my last job. The honest hard workers got laid off and the crooks kept their jobs. The problem is that if I don't at least push back I become one of the crooks. And being the low guy on the totem pole I would get the blame and get fired.

Yes, generally they do. If you mind your own biz life is a lot easier.

I could get charged with fraud. I'm ethically required to report fraud when I see it.

If you are required to report fraud, then of course make a report. Privately.

Talking about it in the open when others could hear is a different story. Or keep pushing it by calling her a crook. Make a report and let them deal with it

If you already reported it, then you can’t be liable as you addressed it. The fact that they do nothing about it or aren’t firing her isn’t your business really. If you continue talking about it, you will be seen as the one causing problems.

Now if you feel you are forced to commit fraud or crime despite you making reports about it, perhaps you should look for a different job.

But they are not dealing with it. They are incompetent. The chief let improper procedures got on for an entire week after I e-mailed her and said it was an ethics violation. I've implored everyone to take my ex-boss out of chromatography but they won;t do it. It IS my business because I am in chromatography and I have to review the work there. If I sign off on fraudulent data I am in trouble too.

A different job would be ideal, but it's not easy to get a good job. My other option is to report this further up the chain ti the head of HR. Lots of people at my workplace did the wrong things because my ex-boss convinced them that it was ok. I just found out that our HR administrator was changed. It may be one of those things I was told is happening behind the scenes that I'm not allowed to know about. But our HR admin is still 2 levels below the head of HR. This is a big government operation and there is a huge bureaucracy.

I would try going further up the chain, though it’s also risky because your chief is likely to figure out who made the reports, even if you can do it anonymously. Is it worth the risk, to you?

I am not saying you shouldn’t care about it but it’s not up to you if they do anything about it or not. Report it to higher ups and if they demand you sign on fraudulent data, make report about it too showing what you were told to sign. Or make police report. You can’t make them do what you want them to do though.

Telling the law is a step even further up. That's a last resort. I don't want my workplace shut down like my last one was. I just want the crook out of chromatography. I don't think I can stand by and keep letting fraud happen if they refuse to do anything. It would make me guilty too. If they do nothing I have to either quit or keep reporting higher up the chain.

What kind of fraud is she committing? Is this the same boss that wouldn’t let you take time off?

Yes. The one that wouldn't let me take breaks in violation of the policy manual. She roped the chief and executive director into going along with that. I knew the policy since I was a supervisor for 8 years and I told them that but they didn't listen. I finally told HR by rebutting my performance evaluation where she wrote that I took unauthorized breaks. That was a lie and I was furious. She got demoted after that but she should have been far earlier for lab fraud.

In a chemistry lab t is fraud not to conduct analysis according to proper methods and procedures and she likes to make up her own methods. She bullied me and my coworker and ordered us to run an instrument in a way that would lead to inaccurate results. It's chromatography and she made us use a setting that allowed nitrite to co-elute with carbonate - that means they weren't separated. Then method clearly says you must separate the analyses. It's basic to chromatography. She then threatened to get me fired when I had her order countermanded. But that order was not countermanded by the chief for an entire week. That's really bad for the chief. She should have jumped in right away when I e-mailed her and said it was unethical. So she's guilty too. Then when I told the QA manager and they did an investigation they whitewashed it. The QA manager and director had a meeting with me and said they wanted to 'move forward.' Instead of dealing with a week of compromised data. I told them in the meeting that moving forward isn't so easy because that data is on the instrument and in our files and any auditor who looks at it would see what happened. It would e very difficult to answer for what happened. There is no way that it could be justified in my opinion as a scientist who has 10 years experience in chromatography. The cover-up is often worse that the crime in many cases. They never told customers that the results were in question and should be rerun. They are guilty of a cover-up.

But they moved forward and stupidly let my ex-boss run chromatography after she had been demoted. That was also against my advise. It didn't take long for her to commit the classic example of chromatography lab fraud - peak shaving and peak juicing. The reporting limit standard failed in an analysis so she shaved a peak. When I said you couldn't do that she juiced a peak in the calibration.

http://www.shl.uiowa.edu/labcert/idn..._Practices.pdf

When you do that all data is compromised and reporting it is considered wire fraud or mail fraud depending on how the results were reported. A couple of years ago it happened here:

Tallmadge chemist sentenced to probation for falsifying test results

To finish rather than editing again after I refused to sign off on her improper integrations the chief said she would sign off on the analysis even though the reporting limits failed. I felt pressured and agreed, but then thought better of it and was going to e-mail HR. But my coworker convinced me to keep it inside the lab and report to the QA manager again. Our procedures say if the reporting limits fail you have to recalibrate and rerun. I had showed them how the data could ethically be reprocessed as a way of recalibrating but my ex-boss did not agree to that. We have used my new integration parameters in subsequent analyses but I found out they have been held up because my ex-boss didn't agree with them. She is falsely claiming that I said I would refuse to follow our procedure. I never said I wouldn't follow a PROPER procedure. I only said I would not do the improper things that were written into the procedure by my ex-boss. Yes, there is more. We spike samples and if they fail you are supposed to qualify results. She wrote into the procedure that you can dilute the sample and spike that. That would also be lab fraud so I said I would not to it. It never should have been in the procedure. I had objected to it in the past, but I was ignored.

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Originally Posted by AceRimmer So the crooks always win. That's the way it was at my last job. The honest hard workers got laid off and the crooks kept their jobs. The problem is that if I don't at least push back I become one of the crooks. And being the low guy on the totem pole I would get the blame and get fired.

Did she break the law or skirt guidelines and regulations? If so forget even dealing with it with your employer. Report it to the agency that oversees it. For example someone who works on wallstreet might report a coworker for insider trading. Most companies are so worried about their part in a situation whether knowing or not knowing what was going on they dont even want to know about these types of problems.

Hi Ace,

I totally understand your concerns. Other than the reporting you've already done (it's not your job to enforce or follow up on the reports) I'd say your options are to continue to report as it occurs and maintain yourself a standard of ethics that is above reproach and/or find a new job. I would document all the reports you've made and all conversations, because regardless, you don't want to get thrown under the bus for what your supervisors are failing to take care of.

That's whistleblowing. It doesn't usually work out well for the whistleblower. The lab could get closed and I would be unemployable in another lab. It's the nuclear option. If fraud keeps happening I may have to do it.

My coworker was on the verge of tears after work today. She says she's going to retire soon because the stress is too much for her. Her name is on some of the fraudulent data and she's worried about what happens if an auditor starts asking her about it. I told he we could try taking to HR about the situation and say it's a hostile work environment. She doesn't think that will help, but I said we don;t have much to lose at this point. The department head hired a mediator but I complained to him that my she threatened to fire me. But now the unit coordinator says that wasn't really a threat to fire me. Head games.

They finally kicked my ex-boss out of chromatography permanently. It's a huge relief. It still means that she gets less work and I get more. Next year we get audited too. I don't know what will happen then. The ethics investigation should be on record. I can't imagine that the auditor won't have questions about it.

The ex-boss is going to retire at the end of the year. We have a new executive director too. I don;t know if I should let her know about the turmoil in my section. I still may have to report the lab fraud and I don't think it would be right without going to her first. The previous exec new about it and covered it up.

The ex-boss did retire at the end of the year. They had a small party. Now my coworker has retired. I thought I had until spring. It's awfully lonely at work now. She had a big party. It's been an hour and I already miss her...

This is pretty much what I have done. They pulled a guy from another section to help with chromatography and I felt I had to tell him what happened. He hasn't touched the instrument since then. He's not even trained in some time sensitive analyses and that make me the only one who can do them.

We had a horrible meeting with the department head a few weeks ago. They had been trying to get an expert to consult about the procedure. I thought they were lying because they didn't want anyone looking at the corrupted data. But they e-mailed someone from the EPA and asked some idiotic amateurish questions that a novice might have. That was no help at all.

Then they gave me a hard time about what I was doing. I had used a procedure that we have been doing for 9 years to get time sensitive samples run in time and the department head said it was improper. She doesn't know anything about it. I told her that what I did - extending a batch beyond 24 hours -doesn't violate any rules. They had the QA manager look it up and I was right - it doesn't violate ANY rule. Then the other QA woman said that things are changing. So now we have to anticipate future rules?? I said we are bleeding customers and if people start using other labs we get shut down. They were totally unconvinced.

I wonder which department was this lady placed in? (shocked)

One question, from my ignorance, what did this lady win by committing this fraud?

Is it that she’s ignorant or she only wants to do things as her tw@t wants?

Thanks god, she’s out of your department now.

I have no idea why she thought it was ok to commit fraud. She seemed to think that it was an acceptable procedure. I had trouble convincing the program chief that the procedure was unethical. STUPIDITY. But ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law - especially when I told them that the procedure was unethical. It shows how little I am respected at work. They named the guy who they assigned to help me as the technical coordinator for my section - he is now my boss. He isn't even trained in many of the methods we run! I've been running those methods for a decade but I'm not considered good enough to be in charge of anything. I was a supervisor for 8 years in my last job too. I'm totally qualified. What a kick in the head.

I read the data integrity rules and it said to report to HR if you feel unable to report to the lab administration. The lab got audited by the EPA last month but they didn't say anything about the ethics investigation or look at any of the bad data. So I reported it to the head of HR. Merry Christian maggots! I didn't actually do it out of spite though. It seems to be required of me to uphold data integrity.