O'Reilly Auto Parts review: discrimination / unfair treatment 36

My name is willis l. Price. I am a former o’reilly employee by my own choice. I began working as a delivery driver for the company on february 4, 2008 at store #680. At the time of my employment, i was informed that i would have the opportunity to move up within the company; be it at this store or at one of the other stores. I resigned on march 6, 2009. During my 13 month tenure with the company i experienced many instances of discrimination and disparate treatment. Following is my summary of many of the events that occurred. (Please note: some items documented are to provide a picture of the overall working atmosphere at o’reilly.)

Working at store #680 (The hub) was an experience in itself. There was a very big turnover because of the working environment. This place was very dirty; the upstairs portion was an ashtray to say the least. There were cigarette butts everywhere, there were butts on the shelves and tossed on top of the shelving units below. My manager and most guys and women that were smokers would always do this; if the guys working the counter had to go upstairs to get a part for a customer, you can pretty much guarantee that it was going to be a smoke break. The so called break room was a pig pen; the fridge had stuff in it from employees that were long gone. I remember asking my manager why the break room was so nasty. His response was, “why don’t you clean it up; so i did. That did no good because the employees would throw their trash on the floor or leave it on the table after they ate. There were times when the trash can would be running over and they would still stack trash on top of the trash. I would inform the manager and once again his response was “i don’t care, i don’t eat up there”. I was starting to get the picture real fast.

Well after busting my ###, doing a great job and seeing employees coming and going, i was asked by my manager if i would like to be third in charge of the hub with a whopping. 50¢ / hr pay increase. All this meant was that you would very seldom have to go out on runs anymore unless someone did not show up for work or was late, which was quite often. Well before i had even taken this assignment, i was already helping brenda and john check in the truck on occasion. If i were doing runs, i would pull the totes from the top of the pallet for them. This was due to the totes being stacked higher and heavier than what the standard requirements were. It was unbelievable how heavy some of those totes were and this was an everyday thing. There were times when we would receive in forty to fifty totes daily and had to have them checked in and put out front for the guys to put away. What a joke; why?, because we busted our ### to get stuff checked in and take to the front only to come back the next morning and see the totes still sitting right where we had put them. That was strange because according to policy all merchandise must be put up before employees leave the store, but not this store.

There was a truck that had been wrecked before i started working at this location. I asked an employee why it wasn’t fixed and they responded by saying “someone” had a wreck in it. I will tell you why it was not reported; within the o’reilly auto parts stores that i have worked at and delivered to there are quite a few employees that do illegal drugs. This i know for a fact as i have been told by the employee (S) doing the drugs themselves. As third in charge and trying to do the right thing for the company, i had expressed to my manager on several occasions that if you would not let the employee go to their vehicles or home prior to being sent for a drug test you may see for yourself how many of the employees were on drugs. The manager did no investigation and would not even check out the situation with the employee in question. I did realize that had i gone up through the chain of command there would have been a good possibility that i would have lost my job.

While working in the hub they rehired a black woman who was nothing but trouble since she was there the last time. Anyway, i became somewhat friends with her and then found out she was a major pot head. This woman had her boyfriend come up to the job to beat me up without my knowing; although everyone that i worked with knew about it including hank which was my manager and brian matthews my district manager. Their reasoning for not telling me was that he said he knew him and he was not like that, it was her. This did not make me feel any better, what if he had done something to me while i was walking to my vehicle? Then what would my manager and district manager have said, what would he tell my wife if i was seriously injured or killed, explain that.

Ok, back to me obtaining a different position within the company, this gets good. I had shown interest in moving to the front counter, i was told by my manager that it’s a good possibility that they may have a spot for me with the hours that i had inquired about. I was excited and told my wife that i could be getting out of the hub pretty soon. This was my goal to move up slowly yet as quick as i could. Well everything fell into place, the position came available and then i was told that the hours were no longer available. You tell me then why can an older white man come in and negotiate his hours which allowed him to go play golf in the mornings and stop by the local slot game houses pretty much every morning, but me being black was not allowed to pursue the same type of hours. Once again i was informed about another opening at this location and what the hours were and what the job involved. I was passed over again for a white female employee who was a driver that could no longer drive because of medical reasons. She gets the job and i find out from her that she will only be in this position for around three months. So why then would you waste your time putting someone in a position and training them knowing that they were not going to stay in it? She should have been placed in the hub to help pull orders and put up stock. I have done merchandising for a major company some years ago. I have done complete resets and also handled specialty food products all over south texas, but i was not qualified for the job. I’m starting to realize that a black man was not going anywhere within this company and in this district. So now i’ve been passed over twice for employees with less experience and ambition and the drive that i have. So here we go. This is when i learned that there was another player in the game. He was none other than the snake brian matthews. I hadn’t had any dealings with this guy at all, but i soon found out a lot about him. You either played on his team by his rules or you weren’t going to play at all. Yep this guy could charm anyone, strictly a ladies man and he had no shame getting to the point and asking them out for lunch or let’s go somewhere after work this is how one employee ended up getting a dui after going out drinking with him. The employee had a little too much to drink. Why didn’t he offer to drive her home or call a cab and pay for it and if needed the employee would pay him or the company back somehow. Was i there, no i was not but word travels fast within o’reilly, trust me, do not judge me by saying this is hearsay because there’s a lot more to come. Mr. Matthews would always walk up to certain women and touch them on the shoulders or give them a little squeeze. He once asked a female employee what kind of work does you boyfriend do. The woman did not show her dismay towards him but she did show it to a few of us here. Exact words were, “it ain’t non of his f*****g business what my man does for work and if that mother****** ever puts his hands on me again i’ll get his ### for sexual harassment. ” he does not know to this day that the employee at hand is the one that got the dui. But to move up in the company; after the lady that was first in charge resigned and i refused to take the hub position; she was more than eager to fill the position.

Let’s take a step back may we. After my so called hub manager resigned, i was asked if i would like the position and that it would be salaried position which would involve working around forty - five to fifty hours per week. I was told the job was mine in fact. Then i had employees at store #680 and other stores telling me personally that the job at hand had been offered to them. Needless to say i was disgusted by this so after discussing this with my wife we realized that the best thing for me would be to decline the offer and transfer to another store. Well after everyone turned them down cold, including the young lady that is now the hub manager, they come back to me as a last resort. I’ll never forget that morning. Here comes my manager smiling. Willis do you still want the hub manager position? Nope i said i just want to get out of this hub. Talk about pissed, he was. The look on his face said it all.

He then starts to question me and tell me this is what you wanted and now you’re saying no. Now here comes the threat. Well this is your last chance. I stood my ground and he didn’t say a word to me for almost two weeks. Brian matthews would insult you by saying if you learn how to mix paint and learn how to turn rotors i will give you an extra quarter per hour for each of those. Let’s talk about team member development plan, what a joke. I believe that i’ve never received anything less than a four on my evaluations and when asked what my career goals are, i always put to move into marketing after i stop racing. I also stated that people who worked in the corporate office should introduce themselves to the employees in the hub. My first encounter with one of the unknown was none other than malcolm; this was my first and only experience with this ###. I was interrogated about a large amount of parts that i had purchased. Not a problem as all of the parts in question was for my race car. A 1985 monte carlo ss dirt track car; i was completely redoing all of the suspension, brakes and lines, calipers, well you get the picture. I felt like i was on trial for murder. I suppose he thought that i was either selling the parts or repairing people’s cars. Wrong, i am the owner and driver of a dirt track team and car. This is my fifth season and i was so excited about working at o’reilly that i put huge stickers on the top of my trunk area and on both front fenders but never named the company as a sponsor. So happens my car was voted the best looking care in the nation for the month of june 2008.

It just seemed that the corporate people felt that we were nothing compared to them. I myself am by no means an idiot; i’m educated both in law and real estate and have had dealings with some of the top motorsports organizations in this country. Sometimes i would bring a photo album when they would question my dealings, oh well i know what i’ve done and whom i’ve had professional dealings with, this is why i had aspirations to be in marketing. Did i just mention the word professional, ha! That word i believe was tabbed from mr. Chubb o’reilly himself. It’s an absolute travesty that what he set forth for his company does not exist. Most of the store managers hire a woman that is willing to do whatever they say. Here’s a good example, store #1700, a woman by the name of stephanie / steph. She would wear her shirts untucked with only the bottom two buttons closed. She always wears a tank top with her breasts bursting out of the top. This is everyday and nothing was done about it because i was told that she goes out to dinner and drinking with the district manager and that they have slept together. Well i did ask her about the rumors and she did not deny any of it. So i made a comment saying you slept with brian and she stated that he wasn’t all that. Last year when her one year review came up she was very pissed because she only got a twenty - seven cent raise. She told me that she had to get out of his district and tried to move to the store where i had transferred to. She asked me if i could help her do a resume and i responded yes. She came by and my wife did it for her. (We still have the resume in case she denies it) she was also pissed at ashley from store #547 saying that she was trying to talk to her man and that she was going to the store to kick her ###. I said what is that going to prove, and she stated that i don’t know what the f*** she wants with my man. She’s brian’s new piece of ### - in other words steph was no longer number one and now ashley has been prompted to hub manager. Steph was on probation in tarrant county for drugs of some sort, she came up dirty on a ua and she was going to be retested a few days later. She called me while at work and asked if she could borrow some money so that she could go to walgreens and get a test to see if she was clean because she had smoked some ice. This is not a lie because she had also told another employee about this. I had purchased this woman some jeans and socks when we were told that we could not long wear shorts anymore because the season was over. I do have witnesses to this and i do still have the receipt and yes my wife does know about this because i let her know while i was on my way to the store. So let’s not have any bull s*** about me trying to get in her pants because i told my wife about every dime that i loaned this woman. Needless to say she came up with every kind of excuse not to pay me. I could go on and on about this woman, but let’s get back to store #680.

We had an employee transfer to the hub, she would take forever on her routes eat and drink and spill food and drinks in the company vehicles. She actually convinced brian matthews to change the rules about this matter because she refused to stop eating and drinking in the vehicle. Brian and hank came up with a solution to allow employees to carry a ice chest in the back of their trucks and that we could eat and drink during our stops damn, this was not part of the company policies. Just goes to show you what you can do if you’re white and a woman. That store had pot heads and pot dealers and former meth heads. I saw drug deals transacted within a foot of me. I even saw an employee go to their vehicle and get a bag of pot for an employee that had gotten off of work and came back to work to pick up pot. Guys and women alike would come to work high and drunk, don’t think the manager didn’t know it. How could he not especially since his assistant day manager smelled like a walking beer can. He was fully aware of it because you could smell it on him. When i was third in charge we had an employee come in one morning a few minutes late. She walked in and her eyes were glassy as hell. She was speeding around the place and licking her lips and could not look you in the eyes. She was allowed to drive a company vehicle. This was one of our former meth heads except she was on it that morning. The same person would speed in the vehicles, be on her phone talking to her daughter and son and boyfriend and of course nothing was done about that because she would flirt with the right people and is still employed by the company today, check that, heard from a reliable that brian had his new girl ashley fire her. Her daughter has even been promoted to iss which is in store set up at the store that she works at, and she hasn’t even been employed by o’reilly a year yet. Man, just be a white woman that goes out to lunch and have drinks with your district manager and just look what you can accomplish however she can no longer drive due to her night out drinking with brian matthews. I had asked brian if i could transfer to another store and he said yes if i could find an opening and there were enough people in the hub. Bingo, got my break, opening at store #726, i would be out of the hub and away from brian matthews and my manager who had still not done my six month review. More about this later. Going to another store and district and manager was a blessing at first. I figured i’d give everyone chance as i always have. Beverly summeral, what can i say, she is truly one of the best superiors that i have ever had the pleasure to work with. She was very fair and listened plus she would respond and investigate any situation at hand. Beverly is an example of what mr. Chub o’reilly meant by professional and other employees should follow her lead. She saw how hard i worked in the hub and welcomed me to her team with open arms and i thank her for that. If she had still been our district manager, i would still be working for o’reilly, as as you will see in the short time after she left and the snake, brian matthews took over it became the boys club all over abain. Let me enter mr. Mike chapman, this man was very respectful of all of his employees, he would speak and greet you with a firm handshake and even ask you how are things going. I wish i had gone to him about some of the things that were going on within the company, but you have to remember that this is the boys club and if you stepped on their toes they would cut yours off at the leg. They would get even and then some day at store #726. I was assigned to ride with the happy hooker lacey mungia, this name is well deserved as you will see. As we pull out of the driveway of the store she has phone in hand and is texting which i realize is something that she does all day every day were driving and after a few stops she tells me i’m not wearing any panties and i need to know why this is. I also find out from her that a lot of guys that work at the commercial accounts in which we services she claims want her. Needless to say she has slept with quite a few of them. My first couple of weeks she pulled some stunts on me, she would come to me and say willis what time are you getting off today, knowing quite well my hours because they are posted right by the office. If i were getting off at five o’clock she’d say can you work until six, i’d say yea only to find out that she has taken off, she would tell the manager ben that i said that i would work until six and he would let her leave. That happened three time and never again. It’s pretty sad that the manager knows that she does this to people and did nothing about it.

An older man named tommy said she did the same thing to him when he started there. Every time that beverly or mike chapman would come to the store unannounced the first thing out of lacey’s mouth would be what in the f*** is she or he doing here. Why in the f*** didn’t somebody tell me that they were coming. This is because she followed non of the rules / polices set forth by m. Chubb o’reilly. Shirt untucked all the time this girl’s mouth would make a sailor blush. She would use profanity towards employees and commercial customers. I got cussed out by the little ### more times than i care to remember. This girl would belch really loud and pass gas right in you face and laugh about it. Ben would do pretty much nothing. His resolution was always you guys need to get along and figure something out. He would not take charge and do his job as a manager. I had never in my life been subjected to this type of verbal abuse fro many employee. She was allowed to punch in, get in the company truck and ust take off and disappear without saying a word to anyone of course ben didn’t know because he wasn’t at work. She came in one morning and was complaining about her car, so she gets in a truck takes off and comes back with a passenger, she went to one of our commercial accounts and picked up one of the owners at advance tire and auto, totally against company policy. The guy took her care back to his business for repair. She didn’t even ask for permission because she didn’t have to. She had ben in her pocket and wraped around her little finger. This girl could throw parts in the back of her delivery truck, speed in it, wreck a truck without having to file a report or take a drug test. I took pictures of the truck that will be sent with this letter. Why wasn’t anything done about the incident? Because ben allowed her to do whatever she wanted to do. There were actual witnesses to this unreported accident, it happened at one of the commercial customers accounts. The place is called corvettes north, scott parrish and ej forrest saw this transpire. . We had a bbq at ben’s house on one saturday night, lacey got really drunk and was swearing all over the place. Well at one point it was just she and i on the patio and she made a comment to me that she wanted to make out with ben. I brushed it aside as no big deal, well couple of hours later she say it again, except it was like this – i wish all these people would get the f*** out of here so that i can make out with ben. This leads me to believe that this would not be their first rodeo together. She also told me that she and ben had smoked pot together and that dino also smoked pot, but that his doctor gives him stuff so that if they ever test him that he would come up clean. Now since everyone pretty much believes everything that lacey says, will they now believe this. This girl after she transferred to another store #700 – she said to an employee when she saw me pull up in the truck that she used to drive, she said i can’t believe that ### is driving my truck. The employee responded to her comment by saying that she should not have said that and that this was not her truck and that it belongs to o’reilly. That employee told me about the incident in front of another employee so i have a witness. Needless to say when i mentioned this to brian matthews i was assured that he would investigate. Yeah right!. She is still working at that store and this is even after she wrecked another truck. She was given a drug test which was diluted and given a chance a week later to be clean. Don’t say that this is a lie, like i’ve stressed here employees talk a lot including the district managers. She wrecks two trucks, calls me a ### and still is employed by o’reilly. I will have these witnesses brought forth when the time comes. This girl was a thief, she would take cash money from a commercial account and most of the time not return their change instead pocket it. I know this for a fact because when i would make a delivery to them they would ask me if i had their change. I in turn would say who did you give your money to, well you know the answer. Lets add some more, drive right, one of #726’s biggest commercial accounts – lacey sleeps with one of the mechanics there. He drops her after sleeping with her in only a couple of days. She is blowing his phone up texting and calling him all day long. Well the owner tyler is so pissed about what is going on that he confronts me and asks me if i know anything about this. Of course i did because she told me everything. He was ready to fire the mechanic because there were police officers coming to his shop asking questions about lacey. Needless to say lacey was not allowed to go to drive right for quite a while. The store almost lost a major account because of her and once again nothing was to her. Ben must have really cared about this piece of ###. She would openly tell us and most of the commercial accounts that she has stds. This is not a lie, this girl also lied on one of the accounts, crawford and bargus saying that the owner rick had said to her, i can’t believe o’reilly hired that ### and what were they thinking when they hired that ###. This was told directly to an employee at store #726 whom in turn told me.

I called human resources and had the employee explain this to them, however nothing was done. Some of the first things that i noticed at store #726 was that everyone pretty much has their cell phones either on them or in their trucks and so did i. When i worked at store #680 i carried my cell because we had no radios, well here we did have radios in our trucks. Hell, how could the manager say to you no cell phones when he would be doing returns and talking and texting. There were people smoking in the office (Steven good) in the early morning hours they would also smoke by the back door inside the building and put their cigarette butts in brake dust where they turn rotors. That was ben’s ashtry. Steven good’s ashtray was right across from the office on a shelf in some type of cup. It would sometimes get knocked over and it was gross. I have pictures of all of this, even cigarette butts that are still under the shelves. These will be given to mr. Mike chapman to see first hand. Doing deliveries and filling out your trip sheet did not reflect how hard you worked although some of us worked a lot harder than others. Example bernardino garza’s fake back injury, my god, i have seen it all. This guy would call in and say i have just taken my pain medication and i’m not going to make it. He did this numerous times, he would come to work and then find an excuse to leave. He missed more days than were allowed by company policy and had threatened to sue and had an attorney and they were scared. This guy would come in late and sometimes bring his lunch with him punch in and then take his lunch on the clock, nothing was said. He was allowed to take one item to deliver and walk out the door, nothing said. Here the shelf is full of deliveries and guess who gets to deliver it all, me. This usually occurred when he and i had to work together or even when there was enough drivers he would still pull this stunt. The commercial guys would say just look at it this way – that’s less s*** for him to f*** up. Come on now, so the rest of us pick up the slack and bust our butts so that you guys didn’t have to worry about him filing some type of suit on the company. So what in the hell do you think i am getting at here. By the time you finish reading this you will clearly understand the jest of this letter. I believe that i actually punched out for lunch maybe twice in six months. Hell when did you have time to eat lunch, steven goode would send lacey out in the mornings in the company truck to pick up breakfast for him and her. I was instructed daily to pick up lunch in the company truck by steven goode for most of the employees in the store. Yes i would get myself something but had to eat it on the run. I explained to store manager ben that this had gotten out of hand, he said that he would have a talk with steven goode, but it did no good. Working from 7:30 am to 4:00pm and sometimes 5:00pm without being allowed to take your allotted one hour lunch. Can you say wage and labor board? I can. There was an affair going on between two employees that got way out of hand. Disagreements, fighting and sexual harassment plus stalking, nobody was fired. Instead the guy was transferred to another store but still kept his job. Man just to be white has it's benifits in o'reilly. There was a guy that lived right around the corner that was a key carrier that could not come to work on time because he would get drunk the night before and come to work still drunk, not hung over. This guys drawer would come up short at close they they did write him up a couple of times, but i do know that he got a dollar an hour raise for being a drunk and a thief because he told me. After a heavy night of drinking on saturday the key carrier was supposed to report to work on sunday morn. Well he called steven the asst. Mgr. And said that he couldn't make it. Asst mgr. Calls ben mgr. , ben calls the key carrier bobby, bobby used lots of profanity towards ben and comes in and slams down his keys on the counter and uses a few choice words then storms out of the store. Now after all of this ben tells steve a couple days later, if bobby had of come and talked to me about what the problem was, we could have worked something out and he could still kept his job. Damn, now bobby can still go right around the corner and continue to purchase and warranty parts from o'reilly. I did none of these things and are not allowed to set foot in any store that is in brian matthew's district, and all i did was answer a question that he asked me. The week before i resigned they hired a woman that had worked for napa auto parts. She tells me that she had not had a job for three years and couldn’t find one. She gives me this long story about her husband going to prison for transporting meth and that she had no idea that he was involved in such dealings. It didn’t take me but a few seconds after she told me the story that she was a meth head. I could see it by the way she kept shifting her lower jaw from side to side. This is a tell - tell sign of a meth monster. Brian brought her in to move her up the ladder and she will move up because this is how the company is run. I have had my battle with drugs and it’s all in the open on my application and i didn’t hide a single thing. I spent ten years on probation for my crimes and drug use, never had a dirty ua, never missed approbation appointment in ten years. But you have employees working at every one of your stores that are using and selling illegal drugs and are under the influence and these are the types of people that climb the ladder. It seems to me that certain people within your organization do not want to see honest hard working aspiring black people move forward within the company. I wasn’t asking for much, just to be respected and rewarded for my hard working and being a team player. I know of a hispanic employee that had an accident in a company vehicle, they failed their drug test and were given a chance a week later to redeem themselves, but they still failed. Is it company policy to allow an employee to have multiple chances to pass a drug test? I truly believe had this been myself, i’d have been terminated on the spot. I had expressed interest in returning to my previous position at o’reilly but was however told by ben that he would have to check it out with brian matthews.

I left on good terms, i thought. I was constantly told that “willis you rock, all i hear is compliments about you from the accounts”. Well i know this to be true because i have i believe twelve letters of appreciate from all of store #726 commercial accounts but you would have to think about rehiring me. I, out of curiosity asked ben what my pay was per hour before i resigned – he said $8. 00 per hour – i took a pay cut when i came to his store but was never informed so then i realized why he never pushed hank to send over my 6 month evaluation from store #680. I was also told by ben that he was trying to get me a dollar an hour raise while beverly was our district manager. He told me that she was cool with it and that it was going to happen. Well once i found out that brian matthews was going to be our district manager i knew that there was no way in hell that i was going to get that kind of a raise. I expressed to ben that we needed to get this done before brian takes over. Are you kidding, this guy drags his feet on everything unless it’s for him or his buddy. My one year review was thirty days late and i received it two days before my last day at o’reilly. I found out that there were eight reviews that were past due and six were at store #726. Not a surprise. How can you call yourself a manager when you come to work late every day? Your schedules hours say one thing but you show up one to one and a half hours every day. But never fear old steve good will lie for you to beverly when she would ask him what time did ben get here and he was always quick to cover for him. But he sure would talk about him behind his back everytime that he was late and take bets on what time he’d get there. During my last week at o’reilly i found out from ben that i had said things behind his back about him which was a total lie told by steve good to cover his own ###. My last three weeks at store #726 were pure hell. It was friday the thirteenth, i’ll never forget it myself. Steve and ronnie everage are in the store, it’s around 7:40am and miguel calls from store #700 needing an alternator which we had in stock. Steve instructs me to take it over to their store which i responded, let me finish putting the statement with the return tickets and then i’ll go. Needless to say our fearless manager would not be here today because he is sick. Then i asked him don't they have a driver that can come and pick this up? I had some items on the shelf that needed to be delivered to our accounts and going to that store was going to put me behind. Ronnie told steve that the hub driver is going to be here in about ten to fifteen minutes. Steve told me to go anyway so i did. I get to the store, go to the back door and beat on it and no one answers. So out of frustration i threw the alternator in the back of my truck. An employee saw me do this and i didn't deny it. I dropped the part off and go back to my store. I start doing my runs. Later on ben shows up and calls me outside. He says did you throw a alternator and i said yes. Then he said did steve explain to you what’s going on and i said no. Anyway i was given a first and final and i was very pissed off about that because nothing was explained to me how this process worked and how they came to this conclusion. I was just left in the dark so to speak. Ben didn’t give a s*** because he was mad that he had to come in and do this. Steve lied and told ben that he had already talked to me. A few days later when i tried to discuss this matter with ben, i was told to get over it and it is what it is. So let me explain how this is going to play out for o’reilly auto parts. Anyway, i left the company in pursuit of other employment, and things did not work out the way i had hoped they would. A few months passed and i had expressed an interest to my former manager ben about coming back to work at o’reilly. He would not give me a direct answer even though he knew that i was a very good employee. I had applied at another store in mansfield texas and the manager took my resume and looked it over and he seemed very interested especially when some of the employees knew who i was and they had told the manager that we could use him. Well i waited a couple of days and decided to go back to that store. Boy what a difference in attitude, the manager would not even look me in the face and told me that we don’t have anything here for you. I felt like i was back in the 1960's do i need to say that i was in brian matthew’s district / a few days later i went to talk to ben about rehiring me, well to my surprise he told me if it were up to him he would hire me back in a heartbeat, but brian matthews ain’t going to let me. I told ben you have to be kidding and ben told me i know brian better than you do and that was the end of our conversation. I was a bit puzzled so while on my way home i decided to go and have a civil talk with brian matthews at store #680 on matlock rd. I walked in and he was talking to one of his managers named marco. I suppose that he could tell by the look on my face that i was not too happy, so he says what’s on your mind? I said to him who makes the decision on being rehired at o’reilly? His response was human resources.

I said to him that i was told that you said that i could not be rehired, he told me again i don’t make these decisions that human resources does. Next thing he says to me is do you think i am lying. I said yes. This is all that was said, if he didn’t want to hear the truth then he shouldn’t ask. I told him as i was leaving his office that we’ll see what eeoc has to say about this and he responded i don’t care, you can go to eeoc all you want and that was the end of that so i thought. Well like the snake he is, he called my former store and told them that i was no long welcome on the property. This was told to me by brenda nash not by ben bearden which was standing there when i had stopped by the store a few weeks later. I was fine with not being able to go to that store no big deal, but when i go to store #1700 on new york ave. , less than a half mile from my home and am told that i am not allowed to be on the property and if i refuse to leave to call the police on me and have me removed. Now you talk about going too far just because you ask me a question and i tell you the truth you then decide to ban me from all o’reilly stores in your district. Now as you can see this is how it's done within o'reilly auto parts, brian calls hr. And tells them what he want's them to know and not the entire story. No one even contacted me to here my side they instead just agreed with the white man, and i thought we had freedom of speech in this country. Bobby sure did at store #726 let’s see here, i am a consumer that has purchased a few thousand dollars in parts from this company and a lot of them are still under warranty. So brian matthews has taken it into his own hands with help from the hr department to satisfy his ego. As a consumer or former employee i have not made any physical or verbal threats toward any employee or to company property i have been purchasing parts from o’reilly auto parts before i started working for them and will continue to do so. Brian matthews nor does the hr department have the right to ban me from any stores period. I have done nothing wrong except spoken the truth and brian matthews being a white male is in no way going to have a black man tell him the truth about himself. Like i told mr. Brian matthews i will let the eeoc take care of the matter. I am willing to subject myself to a lie detector test at my own expense to prove that i am speaking the truth. Let’s see if mr. Matthews is willing to do the same to clear his name and prove to the company of o’reilly auto parts that he has not in any way broken the rules withing the company such as taking women to lunch and having alcoholic beverages and asking them out to dinner and various other indecent proposals. I have people that are willing to step forth and speak up on this matter so let’s see if mr. Matthews is willing to put his job and reputation on the line. I don’t want my job back because it’s not worth the headache and besides i’m too old to be playing games with a prejudice racist, however i do want all of my back pay for not taking lunches at store #726 because i know for a fact i may have punched out twice in six months and i also want to be able to warranty all my parts at any store that i want to, especially since i was a consumer before i even started working at o’reilly and will continue to be a consumer for the rest of my life. I really had ambitions to be in motorsports marketing within this company however there was no way that they were even going to give me a chance because of the color of my skin. I have dealt with teams / owners in all types of motorsports all over this country from nascar, cart, irl, ihra, nhra, ascs and the imca. Man some people really know how to put an end to other people’s dreams just to satisfy their own ego. Everything that happens here will be done by the book within the legal system and i do realize that it does start with eeoc.
Mr. Chubb o'reilly has a slogan in all of his stores behind all parts counters on the wall. It reads professional parts people, so what happened to his dream of employees being professional in every aspect and to represent the company in a positive way. I carried myself in a professional manner and also dressed the part and was well groomed and tucked in my shirt and wore a belt.