Should I report my boss’s illegal activity?
I work as a housekeeping supervisor at a hotel in Massachusetts. The general manager of the hotel had invited a prostitute to stay in one of the rooms at the hotel for sexual favors as payment for her stay. She also used the hotel room for clients and drug use.
The reason for me finding out all of this is because she was to leave the hotel one day earlier (Per: The general manager). She was not willing to leave the hotel at check out time, so check out time was extended until 2pm (Per: general manager). 2pm rolls around and she has not left yet and I asked her to please pack up and leave. She was not willing to leave, she was promised 3 days at the hotel. I advised her that I was going to have to call the police. She got very angry and upset.
She told me she had text messages that proves that she had a 3 day stays at the hotel by the general manager. Come to find out it was true, and along with that being true all the messages she had were all about the G/M picking her up to bring her to the hotel, sexual acts, lunch dates, all the conversation were between him and the prostitute. I do have a copy of all the messages.
The G/M does know that I’m aware of what was going on. He is not willing to speak to me about this issue, he keeps ignoring me and I want to resolve it. What do I do? Do I report this? How do I go about this situation. He put all of us housekeepers at risk when cleaning the room. There were used needles laying around and condoms everywhere. The place was a mess. Please get back to me with some advice.
I’m sorry you are in this position. There is a risk that if you tell the G/M’s boss about this situation then you will lose your job. If you lose your job, will you be able to get another job? Also, will you be financially okay if you get fired for reporting him?
I wish I could tell you otherwise, but it would be so easy for the G/M to have you fired for reporting him. And you would have very little ability to defend yourself. I know this is not right, but it’s reality. And while I know he broke the rules and he put you at risk, I worry that you would be at higher risk if you did not have a job.
So you have to decide if you want to keep your job no matter what, or if you want to risk losing your job to report him.
Good luck.
Penelope
Wow! Sounds so unfair… Why would he get to fire me for reporting his wrong doing? I’m not protected? If he was to fire me is there anything I could do?
You are not protected.
It’s very very difficult to prove you were fired because you reported him. I know it seems like it should not be difficult, but it is.
Even with all the text messages coming from his phone?
He did something wrong but it would hard to prove it was illegal. Because you’d have to prove he had an agreement that is illegal (it’s not illegal to have sex at one’s workplace) and you’d have to prove he knew there were drugs in the room.
It would be your word against his. And there is no telling who would win — it’s 50/50. His employer probably cares more about keeping the G/M than keeping a housekeeper. It’s a pain to hire a new G/M. And you don’t know if the owner of the hotel also brings prostitutes to the hotel. There is a lot you don’t know.
Also, in order for you to prove he did something illegal, you’d need a lawyer, and you’d have to spend a lot of time getting him fired. It’s not worth your time and money
There is really no telling what would happen to you. That’s why I said you should only confront people about this situation if you are okay losing your job.
Penelope
You know, police are pretty open to inquiries and can give advice, besides immediately reporting a crime and trying to get an arrest. You could just ask them hypothetically about what to do, and they will generally advise you on the law. What is the arrest exactly? That the woman in the room has needles? Do you know what the needles are for? They could be medication. There are so many privacy laws around this situation. She could be his girlfriend.
The issue here for you, is that if police do an investigation of ‘crime’ you report and there is no crime then you will probably be fired.
I stayed in a hotel over the weekend and the front desk messed up our reservation for a suite. The next day my husband complained and the GM gave us a free suite for the next night, but this was not without us talking to pretty much everyone in the hotel management the next day to go over what happened, due to inquiring housekeeping staff. I’m just guessing your boss is not the only person that has oked the situation.
It would annoy me if this happened all the time though, so I’d go get proper advice of my rights in the situation.
Just remember once fired, you’d need money for a wrongful termination suit, but they can claim they fired you for many other reasons, which is what is likely.