unfair termination: do I have a case?
I fear that my employer is angling to terminate me, but I feel it would be an unfair termination. I need someone to let me know if this is the case.
I work hard, I rarely call in sick (1 or 2 days a year), and everyone compliments me on the quality of my work. Despite this, my boss and I don't see eye to eye, and he seems to be desperatly trying to find reasons to terminate me. Yesterday, I had a closed-door meeting with him and his boss where they gave me a written warning saying I need to immediately turn things around. Again, I feel this is simply a matter of looking for reasons to get rid of me. Examples:
1) Last year, I got a solid review (between "meets" and "exceeds" overall) and an above average raise (about 1.25% over the overage, which at our place is very, very good. The spread is about +/- 1.5% on either side of the average.) In the review he marked "needs improvement" on punctuality, and said, "I know you usually get in a few minutes after 9 every day, but I also know you work past close, so that's not a big deal. Just try to be on-time for meetings, because you're usually a minute or two late to those." Now, in the written warning, they cite punctuality as one of the things that I need to correct "immediately" or face termination.
Further, other employees come in a few minutes late here or there. There's no timeclock or anything, so it's fairly lax. No one else gets reprimanded for being a little (1-7 minutes) late... just me.
2) Our company workweek is 35 hours and most employees are salaried. Overtime is not approved, and there is no company comp time policy. When Ohio passed Issue 2, we had to start keeping timesheets, where we were told emphatically not to lie on them. So the first week, I logged my time which resulted in several hours of "overtime". (I'm kept very busy, and frequently have several large projects going on at once, which are interrupted by numerous small projects here and there. I strive my best to get everything done on time, but invariably some projects fall behind deadline due to changes or waiting on other departments to finish their parts.) So after receiving my first timesheet, my boss came over and enforced the fact that "overtime is not approved" and that -- without lying -- I needed to keep my workweek to 35 hours.
So one week I had worked over a few days, and knew that if I worked a normal 7 hour day on Friday I'd go over 35. I had spent a mentally strenuous day on a project and was fried at 4:30. The guys in IT have an online game server running, and knowing that since I couldn't go over 35 hours, I decided to releive some stress by joining in the game. (The game server is no secret, and the IT director is aware of its existance. Further, the IT department has received no reprimand for having the server or playing the game. We typically don't play until after 4 or 4:30 on Fridays when everyone is gone.) My boss walked by and saw me playing, and asked "what the hell is that?!" I told him it was a game I was playing with the IT staff, and that I was fried for the day. He said, "Well, just so you know, anyone walking by can see it," and left.
Now, part of the written warning references this activity and alludes to the fact that I was playing games when there are projects that need to be done. (Despite the fact that I'm reprimanded for working over 35 hours a week and was on-track to achieving that.)
3) I set up a web-based task manager (at the requst of my boss) so that he could assign me tasks and due dates. Frequently he'd mention things in passing or in meetings that he wanted done and a generalized timeframe, not put them in the task manager, then chastize me when I'd forget to work on them.
Now, as part of the written warning he cites "inability to accomplish small tasks while working on bigger projects."
So.... given the above situation, should they decide to terminate my employment based on one (or several) of these reasons, would I have a case for unfair termination?
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