“Owasso tech job”

Nov. 1, 2018 / updated 2022-10-28

by Keith Purtell

9:36 a.m./March 16 2016  While doing a job search from Hardesty Regional Library in Tulsa, Okla., I received an unexpected phone call. The caller identified herself as T.M. at AppleOne in Tulsa, saying they found my web developer resume online and were offering me an Owasso tech job.

I had never heard of AppleOne, but this offer matched my career path. T.M. spelled out her first name for me. She followed up on the call by sending me emails with Owasso tech job as the subject line ( PDF | Image ).

C'mon down

1 p.m./March 17 2016 I arrived at the Tulsa AppleOne offices on 41st Street to discuss the Owasso tech job. T.M. met me at the counter. She quickly directed me to sign some electronic documents before meeting her associate.

A computer was ready to go, because Mr. K. was waiting to talk to me about the Owasso tech job. T.M. instructed me to open each document, scroll to the bottom and sign it (electronically).

In a meeting room, M.K. asked me What brings you here? I told him that I was a web developer looking for work, and I had received a call from his co-worker T.M. offering an Owasso tech job.

M.K. said Huh, that's funny. We don't have any tech jobs. He went on to offer a detailed description of his career and employment struggles and his opinion that the Tulsa job market was so bad that most would not pay more than $15 per hour.

He then said AppleOne was going to send me to be a bill collector at Capital One financial services in Owasso, just north of Tulsa.

CONTEXT: In Oklahoma, laid-off workers survive on unemployment insurance until they find a new job. A branch of state government named OESC administers the insurance. Politicians in the state legislature require the OESC to make the U.I. lifeline fragile. This expresses an ideology that assigns negative moral weight to bad luck. EXAMPLE: Your wealthy employer exported your community's jobs to another country, so your application for unemployment insurance proves that you are lazy.
There are a number of things that will cause you—as a worker—to lose your insurance, including refusing to follow instructions from an employer you just started with.

I was dismayed at this prospect. I was barely staying afloat on unemployment insurance while looking for work. The documents I had just signed in order to hear about my Owasso tech job made me an AppleOne employee. Arguing with the company that just hired me would virtually guarantee losing my entire financial safety net.

Someone from a rich family or with friends in high places could have marched out the door. When AppleOne subsequently stripped that person of all of their unemployment insurance, it would not matter. rich people have other options.

I realized why AppleOne put document-signing in front of the current conversation with M.K. My signature on those items was now hanging over my head. I asked M.K. for copies of the documents. His response was a vague I don't think so.

I kept trying to think of a way out.

Getting me to sign documents when I walked in the door enabled AppleOne to control my financial viability while I was searching for a job.

Suddenly, I knew why T.M. did not look me in my eyes when I gave her my name at the counter.

The only thing that came to mind was to start keeping track of every scrap of documentation. Maybe, through that level of attention, I could prevent AppleOne from again catching me off guard.

The bill collector job was a disaster. I flunked the Capital One training exam. Most of the people in the training class seemed to have aptitude in finance or math. It was strange to be in a room surrounded by people whose skill set and professional experience was so different than mine.

I was also unable to meet the floor manager's basic requirements. I tried to put more energy into my external job search but it was already maxed out, and I was burning a lot of energy trying to be a bill collector.

Capital One managers monitored performance by displaying each person's name and rank on a large whiteboard. Each time I walked past it, I saw my name at the bottom.

One day a co-worker heard me trying to handle a phone call. She sat down at my computer and typed some financial material. The successful processing of that material briefly resulted in my daily rank within the pod going up a notch. Our manager did not know it was her work not mine.

After a career of successful work in technology, this was corrosive. A number of the temp and permanent workers told me the standard practice for anyone deemed Not a good fit was to have security guards frog-march them out of the building like a criminal.

Escape, escape. It was difficult to think of anything else. My job search had already been six-and-a-half days each week, and now the distraction of being roped into AppleOne's "tech job" scam. A difficult situation was much worse.

The stress was becoming intolerable. There was one AppleOne manager on the floor, and every time I saw that person, I remembered the stunned feeling when M.K. at AppleOne admitted the truth.

9:50 a.m./June 8, 2016  I submitted my resignation to managers via email, and mentioned that the only reason I signed a piece of paper making me an employee was that I was told (in writing) that I was getting a technology job. At least the folks at Capital One would have a better understanding of what went wrong.

Going Forward

10:51 a.m./June 9, 2016  I wrote and asked AppleOne for a normalization in our relationship; that the work they arranged for me be something where I had experience and demonstrated aptitude. In legal terminology, this was my good-faith effort to resolve the matter. My email said ...
Folks I'm keeping in touch with [you] going forward. The job search I'm doing now will be based more on networking, since the resume-distribution approach has not been fruitful. Please let me know if you have a role for which my internet and communications skills would be appropriate.  

T.M. responded eight minutes later (on AppleOne company letterhead) by openly mocking me, mentioning the timing of my resignation and saying AppleOne was unconcerned about the results of their recruitment practice. Then, closing with ...
... Going forward, we will not be able to help you in the future.

1:53 p.m./June 9 2016  In response to T.M.'s note, I wrote back:
... AppleOne has a certain degree of professional responsibility for the people over whom it has power, especially once those people have appeared at your offices and signed the paperwork. That includes a responsibility to be honest about job descriptions.
I copied the note to Patricia Bryant, a vice president at AppleOne/ACT‑1 headquarters in California, the only AppleOne manager whose email address I could locate. I hoped that Bryant would moderate the actions of her staff in the Tulsa office.

Not only did Bryant never respond (to me), she apparently tacitly approved of what the Tulsa office was doing. T.M.'s sign-off Going forward, we will not be able to help you in the future. turned out to be another layer of deception by implying a clean break.

Secret retaliation

Behind the pretense of normal office procedures, T.M. and her managers launched an expensive retaliation to deprive me of my financial safety net. That plan would have involved getting permission from local AppleOne management, and deploying an outside company with a long record of creating hardships for working people nationwide. But, that gets ahead of the narrative. About a month went by ...

July 7, 2016*  I telephoned the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission (OESC) in Oklahoma City. The OESC is part of Oklahoma state government that deals with employee/employer relations. I told the rep that my relationship with my most recent employer had unexpectedly ended and I was uncertain of the effect on my unemployment insurance. He dug through some records and said the OESC contacted AppleOne on June 14 about my status but did not get a response. He also said AppleOne had turned the matter over to a St. Louis company named TALX. I had never heard of that company. The OESC representative also said he did not understand why AppleOne was involving an outside party. There were several more exchanges as he pulled up documents on his computer screen looking for details. Eventually, I thanked him and said good-bye.

...increase their profit margin by cutting off qualified people from their unemployment insurance, rather than focusing on quality products and services...

Subsequent research revealed TALX has been repeatedly under scrutiny by the federal government and the target of investigative journalists for preying on unemployed people. Specifically, TALX was helping companies increase their profit margin by cutting off qualified people from their unemployment insurance, rather than focusing on quality products and services—the traditional path to corporate profits. As I see it, this is a well-organized form of illegal transfers of wealth from employees to managers.

Later, I received in the mail an automated printout from the State Of Oklahoma (OESC) stating my unemployment insurance had been cut off. I immediately went online and filed an appeal. They set a date for a hearing.

I began preparatory research, including contacting friends and fellow professionals. Carefully following the state government's procedures seemed to be the best path. I submitted the names of the Capital One managers (Derrick Shaw and Terry Ollar) who had closest contact with my work, including the man who ran the training sessions (Charles Zweifel). Obviously, I was making a painstaking effort to respond to the OESC's published description of their appeals procedure.

I had no way of knowing that AppleOne and TALX were making arrangements inside the State of Oklahoma (OESC).

Strangely, the hearing officer made almost no mention at all of the fraudulent job offer that kicked off the entire sequence of events. I say almost because at one point in the interview she spoke of it in a mocking tone of voice.

Here is a section from the State of Oklahoma website regarding witnesses: At this level of the administrative process, the parties participate in a hearing conducted by an State of Oklahoma hearing officer. All parties appear before the hearing officer at the same time. An audio recording is made of each hearing. Each side is allowed to present witnesses and documentary evidence in support of his or her case, and to cross-examine the witnesses of the opposing party. At this level, parties sometimes bring new, more extensive evidence than what was presented to the claims adjudicator for the original claim, protest and determination.

NOTE: Since I first published this account in November 2018, the OESC has quietly changed their wording about citizens presenting documents to the appeals tribunal:
BEFORE 2018: "Each side is allowed to present witnesses and documentary evidence in support of his or her case, and to cross-examine the witnesses of the opposing party."
AFTER 2018: "Ask that the documents you want to be considered be entered into the record of the hearing."
See that courtroom jargon "entered"? The fact that you carefully gathered relevant documents and sent them in to the government is no longer enough; you now have to ask a second time to be sure the hearing officer does not think you submitted documents for no particular reason. Like, sent them to the government just on a whim.

Image below is from the OESC website circa 2018 before it was tweaked. This is their promise in list form...

As best I can tell, the published OESC policy on hearings was originally intended to be part of a core U.S. legal principle of due process. It seems telling that OESC has since moved away from that principle, and moved toward appeasing dishonest business owners.

The Appellate Tribunal hearing officer violating State of Oklahoma (OESC) policies on calling witnesses served an important strategic goal, at least from the perspective of AppleOne/TALX.

Blindsided by the unexpected twists in the hearing, I didn't stop to think that perhaps individual state employees don't have the authority to suspend published OESC policies.

One of the matters to be decided in these situations is whether or not the employee was in jeopardy of losing his/her job. As someone without any aptitude or experience in finance or mathematics, someone who was not gaining the minimum skills necessary to retain his job, I was very much in jeopardy of being fired, and in a particularly ugly way. The people who were in the best position to testify to that? The same people I had called to be witnesses; Capital One managers (Shaw, Ollar, Zweifel) familiar with what constituted an employee who was not a good fit. Removing those people from the procedure prevented crucial evidence from being submitted.

Excluding my evidence had an equally chilling effect. I was not just facing the combined corporate power of AppleOne and TALX, I was facing open collaboration by the State of Oklahoma (OESC).

The remainder of the hearing included the hearing officer trying to discourage me from discussing events and documents, and arguing when I pointed out document rc1519, which attributes several statements to me without explaining when or where the conversation took place.

OESC’s capture/hijack

An official policy that offers workers an opportunity to present relevant documentation and witnesses has long presented a problem to Oklahoma employers. If said worker does their homework on how to properly present information, then the employer faces the risk of having to fulfill their legal and moral obligation pay into that person's unemployment insurance.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma politicians have been signaling the business community that they should never face responsibility for committing unethical or illegal behavior. If you were a greedy businessman and received that promise, wouldn't you want a loophole in OESC procedures?

What business wants, the State of Oklahoma delivers.

It works like this: presenting documentation or witnesses might give the appellant (person filing an appeal) some influence over the outcome of the hearing. Now, the material offered by the worker can be thought of as a narrative that arranges provable (or known) facts in order. The appellant may give more or less emphasis to different parts of the narrative. The appellant may offer conclusions about the narrative.

The obvious problem, especially in a situation where the employer declines to show up, is that there is no one present to block the citizen's appellant presentation from being taken seriously. Enter the hearing officer...

As you read the transcript or listen to the audio, note that they hearing officer has clearly read the documentation I presented. Two reasons for that: 1) They are required to be prepared for the hearing, and 2) If they don't read the documentation, they won't know which items need to be excluded in order to please the business. There is a possibility that the business sees the documentation before the hearing and can make their own decision about which items should be excluded (in violation of published OESC procedures).

Something missing

Aug. 18, 2016  I received a letter dated Aug. 16, 2016, stating there would be no change in the denial of my unemployment insurance. I already knew the OESC denies at least 75% of appeals, according to their own publications.

Oklahoma is a business friendly state, including friendly to businesses that are hostile to ordinary working Oklahomans (more at CNBC report or PDF file).

That letter and related documents share one inescapable feature: What is missing. The hearing officer has carefully omitted any reference to the fraudulent job offer that caused all of this to happen.

Board of what?

In theory, there was an option. Buried in State of Oklahoma paperwork was reference to a board of review, a state office that specializes in handling overflow. But, the reference implied that the people on the board might correct actions of fellow state employees working as hearing officers. I was skeptical of the idea that the board might be guided by an ethical standard. I have been told the hearing officer herself was under the guidance of a moral compass; the canons of The Model Code of Judicial Conduct for State Unemployment Insurance Appeals Officers, established by the National Association of Unemployment Insurance Appellate Boards (new tab/window).

14.5 million

In the United States, temporary and contract employment totaled 14.5 million [workers] in 2016, down from 15.6 million in 2015, the highest employment figure recorded since the year 2000.
—The staffing industry in the U.S. - Statistics & Facts | Statista (Jul 12, 2019)

The hearing officer was also under the guidance of her own managers, who published core procedures to make sure every Oklahoman gets an impartial hearing, specifically a hearing where they can present documentation and have witnesses present. And, the average person might also think that if these procedures were abandoned, the State of Oklahoma would give a reason.

I wonder if someone will someday say: "You should have gone to the board of review. Their published description says they do the right thing!"

To which, my answer is: "Isn't that the same thing I was told about the hearing officer? That the published description said I was guaranteed a fair hearing with the right to submit documentation and call witnesses? Why would I go back to the State of Oklahoma for a second round of abuse?"

In other words, give me one visible reason why I should take the honesty of the board of review more seriously than the honesty of the OESC hearing officer?

So, as I sat in my cheap apartment, holding all these official documents and reading the bad news, I mentally took a step back. It was obvious that AppleOne and TALX had outfoxed me.

My “failing” was that I read the OESC official description of how a hearing works and believed it. They said I had a right to present documents and call witnesses, and I believed it.

By agreed, you mean ...

Here is part of the wording the OESC hearing officer generated:
The claimant signed up with Apple One, a temporary agency, in hopes [ PDF | Image ] of being assigned to a job consistent with his training and prior job history, which is in the information technology field. Once signing up however, the claimant agreed to take an assignment with Capital One, a client of Apple One as a Collections II employee.

I bolded a section containing a crucial word: agreed

uslegal.com: Agreement is the meeting of minds or a mutual understanding between two or more persons about their reciprocal rights and duties regarding past or future performances,

At the time I entered the AppleOne offices, my only way to pay for rent, food, fuel for the car, etc. was the weekly $248 unemployment insurance checks from the Oklahoma state government. Anyone who has had to rely on UI to stay afloat knows about certain rules: Never fake an entry in your job search log, Never take a job and refuse to do what you are asked, Never show up for a job interview wearing unprofessional clothing, etc.

By the time I sat down with M.K., I had already signed a stack of papers making me an AppleOne employee, believing that doing so was leading to an Owasso tech job.

Saying No I won't work for you would have terminated my Unemployment Insurance. This was certainly not a "meeting of minds or a mutual understanding" as described by legal authorities. [ PDF - OESC on job refusers ]

AppleOne telling me that I was there to receive a tech job in Owasso ensured that I would sign up as an employee. The pre-existing risk of losing every penny of my income (unemployment insurance) ensured that I could not walk out the door once AppleOne told me they had lied.

Agreed is a convenient fiction for the hearing officer. It sidesteps the temp agency's malice in telling people they are being offered a job in their profession. It masks the creepiness of Kathy O'Leary at TALX working out a custom solution with the OESC's Appellate Division.* Over time, the hearing officer's dishonesty about what I faced in the temp agency's offices has probably let AppleOne evade a charge of criminal fraud.

*There is a possibility** that the OESC cheats most everyone, and that Kathy O'Leary did not help instigate this event. However, such an aggressive Appellate Division practice might attract unwelcome attention.

**How could I suspect that? On Nov. 14, 2019, the head of the OESC Appellate Division sent me email saying—among other things—We don't maintain statistics on objections sustained or overruled for witnesses and testimony. That seems startling, considering that the other public-facing parts of the OESC keep detailed records.

Not collecting information at all presents an opportunity to do a lot of damage without leaving a trail.

Well, someone must be collecting information, because The Oklahoma Bar Journal publlished this:
In a voluntary quit claim, it was the employee who made the decision to resign and separate from the employer, therefore, it is the claimant who has the burden of proof to show there existed 'good cause.' Last year [2010], there were close to 17,000 claims of this nature with claimants being successful only 16 percent of the time. For instance, a claimant who resigns because of a supervisor's continual verbal abuse that doesn't improve after the claimant reported concerns to the supervisor and up the ladder would likely be allowed benefits for voluntary resignation for good cause.
—The Basics of Unemployment by Jessica Sherrill;
The Oklahoma Bar Journal;
Volume 82 No. 26 October 8, 2011

That means in 2010 about 2,720 working Oklahomans were able to stay financially afloat while seeking work. Whereas 14,280 went back into the job search without the stability of unemployment insurance. Only 16% got a fair chance, and the other 84% were forced to suffer. But, without more details, we taxpayers have no idea why so many claimants are tossed out by the OESC. Or, how many were denied their rights to have their documentation accepted and to call witnesses?

Furthermore: Defamation. The OESC hearing officer went on the official record saying that I willingly showed up for that job:

But you did understand before you accepted the job at AppleOne that it was the type of job that it was, you understood that it was collection. And then after he gave you that information, you accepted it knowing what it was.

Accepted is where Jackson is trying to insert AppleOne's request for a business-friendly solution. The papers AppleOne arranged for me to sign—before finding out there was no tech job—made me an employee, and Jackson knows that. She also knows that it did not matter what I understood after signing the employment documents, because, in Oklahoma, refusing to follow an employers' directions is the way to lose one's entire financial safety net—unemployment insurance.

Back to the hearing; me responding to Jackson:
The emails I got from Taryn were talking about, 'We'd like to offer you a tech job in Owasso.' And then when I finally sat down with Mr. Keeney, his comment was, 'Well, we don't actually have any tech jobs.'
Again; emphasizing the bright red line of bait-and-switch, followed by sign these papers first followed by finding out too late what just happened.

That's when Keeney told me AppleOne was sending me to Capital One in Owasso to be a bill collector.

Jackson knew that an employee refusing to follow direction from AppleOne would get them cut off from the small trickle of U.I. income to pay rent. In this instance, her false statement was the same thing as calling someone a coward or a fool.

Of course, she might have been motivated by forgetfulness. After a long time span making $51,000 per year as a state employee, plus a legal practice on the side, it's easy to forget what it feels like to struggle for a living wage.

It's important to understand the mindset of any person ensnared in an OESC hearing. People representing powerful corporate interests, and more people representing a powerful government agency, are on one side. The job seeker who (unwittingly) signed-up-for-one-job but required-to-do-another-job is on the other side. This mix of many powerful people and one ordinary person is not trivial. For the hapless worker, it is loaded with strong emotion; mostly fear. The employee is in fear of a catastrophic loss of income. In a society where everything—including health care, housing and transportation—has a steep price tag, the loss of income towers over ordinary people.

The hearing officer knew of this when she wrote the statement above, because as a state employee, she is intimately familiar with their procedures. In a Feb. 16, 2018, email, the OESC told me that at least a third of people who refuse a work assignment are subsequently stripped of their financial safety net. [ PDF OESC statement ]

This is why AppleOne did not show up for the hearing; their business-friendly decision was already in the bag.

Shoulda spoke

Who spoke what?

More from the hearing officer:
Soon after beginning work with Capital One, the claimant realized that he was having difficulty understanding and applying the training materials. Although he asked questions during the training, he did not communicate with anyone in management at [temp agency/Capital One] at that time that he was having trouble with the work. After leaving the initial training, the claimant was transferred to a hands-on training process, where he continued to struggle. However, he did not inform anyone in management that he was having trouble.

By the time the hearing officer wrote this, she knew that the training situation at Capital One included a continuous stream of information between trainer and students. Why would a trainee go to the trainer who scores the quizzes and point out a low score the trainer has already seen? None of this was a secret. The hearing officer's assertion about the hands-on training is even weaker. She had already seen my description of the whiteboard where each trainee's ranking was published for the entire team to see. I was transferred to the hands-on training process by managers because they knew I was having trouble. Not only did managers know how I was doing, so did anyone who walked by our pod and the whiteboard where names and status were posted.

The officer complains that I "did not communicate" with AppleOne management. Why would I cozy up with the same law-breaking people who went to great lengths to (allegedly) con me? They were making good money (~$2,846) from my presence at their client's location.

The hearing officer was hinting. Her overarching statement was "you should have spoken up." (She's also trying really hard to ignore the criminally fraudulent job offer.)

OK, let's roll with that:
What was the first utterance that got this episode started?
Answer: My resume on Dice.com, a tech-sector job board. Every employer who goes to Dice.com knows the resumes there are technology-sector people. When that employer reads the resume, they see it's a tech-sector professional. When AppleOne read my resume, they could see that I was a tech. When they called me about an Owasso tech job they knew I was a tech, because I had clearly spoken of that in my resume. When AppleOne asked me to quickly sign a stack of documents that made me their employee, and gave them control of my unemployment insurance, they knew that I was a tech, because I had clearly spoken of that.

Jump forward to my resignation letter, when I brought up the topic of AppleOne "hiring" me by dangling a "tech job" in front of me. That letter was an emphatic second utterance, and they responded in a vicious manner; verbally mocking me and stripping away my entire financial safety net.

Even more offensive to anyone who wants state employees to be ethical, the hearing officer declines to mention that, at the temp agency's client site, I was in the bizarre situation of knowing that a fraudulent job offer was the only thing that resulted in me being in that environment. This cast a surreal light over every event there.

The actual first step to my being terminated was ...

Here is hearing officer Stephanie D. Jackson's capstone:
The claimant believed that the additional training was the first step to being terminated[1], and, having seen others be terminated[2], did not want to go through that process.

1 - I never said that (read the documentation). The actual first step to my being terminated was when T.M. looked at my web developer resume on Dice.com—which specializes in technology workers—and decided to trick me ( PDF | Image ) into becoming an AppleOne employee so that AppleOne could impress its client, which wanted more bill collectors.
2 - Also never said that (read the documentation). I said co-workers at AppleOne and Capital One had warned me that people deemed not a good fit were escorted out of the building by security guards as if they were criminals.

The stolen unemployment insurance would have been at least three months of rent in my small apartment. Money that paid for fuel so I could drive to job interviews or to the library to conduct my job search. Barely enough to help pay for groceries and costs of living. Four and one-half months later, I had to leave my apartment and crash with friends and family. I had lived independently for more than 30 years; now I was literally homeless.

Patricia Bryant, part II

‘People to be trusted’

11:04 a.m./Dec. 12, 2016 I wrote a second email to Bryant at AppleOne headquarters in California, reminding her of what happened in Tulsa on her watch and then asking: Please let me know, through action or inaction, if you are comfortable with this situation going into the new year. Your public statements indicate AppleOne/ACT-1 are organizations with ethics and honor—people to be trusted.

Visitors to this page, ask yourself this: If you owned a business and a customer had a bad experience at one of your stores, would you try to make that right? Would you read their email and at least try to find out what happened?

There was no response.

Official records

... the documents I requested and to which M.K. had denied me access ...

August 29, 2017  More than a year later, after making an official request, I got the full hearing documentation from OESC—more than 100 pages. While looking through those items I was surprised to read a written assertion from AppleOne, to the effect that they had decided to cut me off because I had allegedly violated their policy regarding how to turn in a notice of resignation. T.M. was listed as the author of this assertion. I wondered if said policy was among the documents I requested and to which M.K. had denied me access?

I also wondered how they could make such an assertion in light of the fact that their original job offer—used to lure me into their offices and to sign up—was a deliberate falsehood. It was criminal fraud. M.K. himself stated there were no tech jobs. How could AppleOne base our relationship on their own criminal actions, and then presume to talk about day-to-day procedures as being more important?

FINAL

Last, an item that did not appear in the official declarations from the hearing officer.

At first, I thought it might be a transcript.

This three-page item is named Oklahoma Employment Security Commission - Discharge/Temporary Agency - rc1519. During the telephone hearing, the hearing officer said this document represented a conversation between a representative of the commission (OESC) and me. Text in all caps is that way on the OESC form, and apparently is to represent someone at the OESC. Text in italic was on the form and under the all-caps heading, and apparently is supposed to represent what I said in response. Anything in parenthesis was not on the form and is my comment. Images are scanned directly from the OESC packet, or from phone records from my service provider (starting with the sixth question):

WHAT DATE DID YOU CONTACT THE TEMPORARY AGENCY FOR RE-ASSIGNMENT?
060816
(No. I sent an email on June 9, 2016, asking for a job assignment within my skill set as originally agreed.)
WHO DID YOU SPEAK WITH?
B.M. [real name removed]
(Not sure why B.M.'s name would have come up. I did not call her in this time frame, but she called me on the morning of June 9 to demand the name of a Capital One manager who once briefly spoke to me at a meeting about Capital One's relationship with temp agencies. B.M. was a liaison between AppleOne and the client. Temps dropped off their time sheets at her cubicle, and she occasionally circulated emails about changes in rules or procedures. She did not appear to be involved in what T.M. and AppleOne's management were doing.)

JOB TITLE OF THIS INDIVIDUAL?
Recruiter

WHAT WERE YOU TOLD?
She did an exit interview
(No one at AppleOne or any other company at this time ever did an exit interview with me, or anything similar. This exit interview topic never came up during my interactions with AppleOne.)
IS THE DATE OF CONTACT IN KEEPING WITH THE HIRING AGREEMENT?
Yes
(Not sure what date of contact means, unless it is internal jargon at AppleOne and OESC. Plus, no part of this question ever came up during any of my communication with AppleOne or anyone else I had contact with during this time frame. This 'Yes' is actually a radio button like you might see on a web page:)

I have a suspicion that the presence of an "exit interview" interaction and the presence of a button dedicated to the yes/no answer means that there is a point of law involved. It must be something required; important enought that they had to come running back to desperately fix it. I'm using the word "desperately" because forging form rc1519 was a felony.

WHAT IS THE POLICY ACCORDING TO YOUR HIRING AGREEMENT WHEN AN ASSIGNMENT ENDS?
Contact in a timely manner
(Also did not come up at any time in my contact with AppleOne. In fact, the phrase looks like jargon that a recruiter might use in internal documents or reports. )
IS THE TEMPORARY AGENCY ATTEMPTING TO REFER YOU ON ASSIGNMENTS?
I think so
(No; they mocked me when I asked for a normal business relationship. And that was the last I heard from them. This supposed OESC question is inserted in the area for my replies, then restated normally below.)

I contacted AppleOne again on 061616 about keeping on at AppleOne, I spoke to someone named Karen who said there wasn't anything available right now.
( I never met a Karen at AppleOne or the client site. If the person who typed this means T.M., the last time I heard her voice was when I showed up at AppleOne's offices on March 17, 2016, having been told in writing that I was there for an Owasso tech job.)

rc1519 says that I said contacted AppleOne again on 061616, so what do my phone records say about: Thursday, June 16, 2016?

Phone records show four calls on June 16, 2016.

1. 8:03 a.m.; 7 minutes; to the OESC in Oklahoma City (not AppleOne).
2. 10:11 a.m. 10 minutes; incoming from a family member (not AppleOne).
3. 3:35 p.m.; 2 minutes; to customer service at credit union (not AppleOne).
4. 4:33 p.m.; 4 minutes; tech support for antivirus software (not AppleOne).

The phrase "someone named Karen" presents an additional problem. June 21, 2016, is months after AppleOne's T.M. contacted me in March, spelling out her first name (which rhymes with Karen), sending me emails that showed her name spelling, and then went on to behave in a way that burned her name into my memory. Via rc1519, the OESC is pitching the idea that I did not know the name of the person who roped me into the (alleged) AppleOne scam—Owasso tech job.

DID YOU FOLLOW THE POLICY?
Yes (radio button)
IS THE TEMPORARY AGENCY ATTEMPTING TO REFER YOU ON ASSIGNMENT?
Yes (radio button)
(No. I asked them for a normal relationship and they mocked me on their own letterhead.)

Who benefits?

The date June 21, 2016 (a Tuesday) places this document about 1 1/2 weeks after AppleOne's email meltdown in response to my request for a normal relationship. During this time, I was fishing around for anyone who might answer my questions. June 21 is about two weeks before I called from the OESC Skyline location and finally got someone on the phone to answer several of those questions.

Now, look at the document that purports to represent the June 21, 2016, call. Who benefits from that? Bear in mind, this document was ignored by the OESC hearing officer; it did not have any bearing on whether or not I prevailed in the appeal hearing.

In other words, I am not trying to discount the document because it may have led to a negative hearing outcome. But, I am calling attention to the document because the simple fact of an altered document being preserved in the state's official record illustrates A) The degree to which AppleOne/TALX were motivated to intimidate Oklahoma working people, and B) A disinterest in the rule of law among OESC leadership.

I ask again: When you read that document, who would benefit from the altered conversation? Here are the questions as plain text...

1. WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE TEMPORARY AGENCY? Apple One 9188770506 2. WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE EMPLOYER ON YOUR LAST ASSIGNMENT? Capital One 3. WHAT IS THE LAST DAY YOU WORKED? 060716 4. WHY ARE YOU NO LONGER WORKING AT YOUR LAST ASSIGNMENT? I resigned from Capital One 5. DID YOU CONTACT THE TEMPORARY AGENCY FOR REASSIGNMENT? Yes (radio button) 6. WHAT DATE DID YOU CONTACT THE TEMPORARY AGENCY FOR RE-ASSIGNMENT? 060816 7. WHO DID YOU SPEAK WITH? B.M. [real name removed] 8. JOB TITLE OF THIS INDIVIDUAL? Recruiter 9. WHAT WERE YOU TOLD? She did an exit interview 10. IS THE DATE OF CONTACT IN KEEPING WITH THE HIRING AGREEMENT? Yes (radio button) 11. WHAT IS THE POLICY ACCORDING TO YOUR HIRING AGREEMENT WHEN AN ASSIGNMENT ENDS? Contact in a timely manner IS THE TEMPORARY AGENCY ATTEMPTING TO REFER YOU ON ASSIGNMENTS? I think so I contacted AppleOne again on 061616 about keeping on at AppleOne, I spoke to someone named Karen who said there wasn't anything available right now. 12. DID YOU FOLLOW THE POLICY? Yes (radio button) 13. IS THE TEMPORARY AGENCY ATTEMPTING TO REFER YOU ON ASSIGNMENT? Yes (radio button)

If I had to guess, I would say this text is designed to give the appearance of an orderly and correct procedure. The only persons at the Tulsa AppleOne office who might have been worried about appearing to be professional were T.M. (the recruiter) and the branch manager. They might have wanted upper-level managers at AppleOne to read this. If so, that would mean the illegal alteration is mostly damage control on the part of local corporate staff.

Suggestive mistakes

It also contains errors, in addition to the concocted statements listed above. Examples:

1. WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE TEMPORARY AGENCY?
Apple One 9188770506

AppleOne spells their name without the space. And what's with the phone number? If I were actually being interviewed, I would not have tossed that in.

3. WHAT IS THE LAST DAY YOU WORKED? 060716

Wrong date. The last day I worked was 060816 (June 8, 2016).

11. WHAT IS THE POLICY ACCORDING TO YOUR HIRING AGREEMENT WHEN AN ASSIGNMENT ENDS? Contact in a timely manner IS THE TEMPORARY AGENCY ATTEMPTING TO REFER YOU ON ASSIGNMENTS? I think so I contacted AppleOne again on 061616 about keeping on at AppleOne, I spoke to someone named Karen who said there wasn't anything available right now.

This one is intriguing. Notice how someone jammed extra text into the space reserved for a single answer, #11? It's more obvious in the direct scan:

There's only one scenario I can think of that explains a document that serves AppleOne but contains a number of obvious errors: Someone representing AppleOne contacted an OESC employee and pleaded with them to make these alterations. Done in haste, the errors are predictable.

Placing an altered/forged document in the official record is often a felony, even if the person doing the placing is a state employee. Here is a downloadable copy of the document: DOWNLOAD PDF rc1519.

There are several possible ways the June 21, 2016, call record was altered:

1. The OESC employee decided of his/her own accord to re-write the record.
2. An OESC manager directed the record to be altered.
3. Someone from TALX asked that the record be altered?
4. An AppleOne representative asked that the altered version be installed?
5. Someone from TALX was given physical access and altered the record? (Highly unlikely)
6. Someone from AppleOne was given physical access and altered the record? (Also unlikely)

The only people who know the truth—and are easily accessible to law enforcement—are within the OESC.

This was clearly coordinated between AppleOne, TALX and the OESC. It took systematic effort to be effective. AppleOne's regional and local management had to approve procedures and expense reports to allow this to happen. Think about that, and the likelihood that many job seekers have been targeted in the same way. These organizations would have had no reason to behave this way toward only one person.

Also note that the OESC hearing officer is a practicing attorney who knows exactly what qualifies as fraud. No experienced attorney could look at how I was tricked into signing up with AppleOne and not recognize illicit enterprise. Just after resigning, I pointed out to AppleOne that they had set up a power relationship with me in which they held all the power. The outcome of these events is evidence of that power.

If this was a real transcript?

If they had contacted me for an exit interview, I would have at least gotten the answers right. I would not have claimed to have spoken to B.M. when it was instead an email interaction with T.M. I would not have claimed that AppleOne was trying to find a job for me, when in fact T.M. openly mocked me on company letterhead during our email exchange. And, I would not have claimed to have spoken to "someone named Karen" when I never met anyone at AppleOne by that name.

Why is this important?

The phony call transcript is important because it's evidence of additional criminal intent. The first sign of criminal intent was AppleOne's call and emails offering an Owasso Tech Job. With the introduction of rc1519 into the official record, a second person has demonstrated criminal intent, except this person is a state employee; someone at the OESC. Document rc1519 widens the scope of illegal activity affiliated with the (alleged) employment scam.

I am fairly certain the OESC computer network requires authorization to log in. Most networks do. That means their managers could open up rc1519 and narrow the list to each user who has accessed the document, including the document creator. So far, they have either refused to do so, or have done so and concealed the results.

Many, many victims

There are two possibilities as to why the temp agency and the OESC went to so much trouble to drop a hammer on one person.
#1: If this type of thing has happened to hundreds of other working Oklahomans, then AppleOne and the state government do have a motive to intimidate someone who is vocal.
#2: Those who benefit from the system would like you to think that the low rates of wage growth are inevitable and apolitical. They're not: they're driven by corporate and policy attacks on labor power.—Inequality.org
Stunting normal wage growth is not the only way to attack working Americans who assert their labor power.

Closing or concealing?

From 2018 to 2019, I began distributing an evidence packet to law enforcement in California (where AppleOne is headquartered) and Oklahoma. This may have come to the attention of the rich people who own AppleOne. In early October of 2019, I got word that the Tulsa AppleOne office that allegedly ran the Owasso tech job scam may have been shut down. Remember, this is a profitable operation, reportedly making as much as $400,000 yearly with about six employees. If it has in fact been closed, why not notify the working Oklahomans caught up in the tech job scam? The Tulsa office has also been removed from the locations list on the official AppleOne website.

Photo from AppleOne Tulsa location:

It gets weirder. Bill Bryan, who lists himself online as AppleOne branch manager during the Owasso tech job operation, now also lists himself as a manager for Force Personnel Services, whose logo is recently on the front door of the Tulsa location formerly inhabited by AppleOne.
NOTE: I have no direct feedback from Mr. Bryan. My information about him being the manager on duty during "Owasso tech job" comes from his online career summary. This article is open to corrections from the people or organizations that are named.

Direct managers irrelevant?

In November of 2019, Deborah Goodwin, director of the OESC Appellate Division, sent me an email about the hearing officer's behavior:

Witnesses and evidence should be relevant and otherwise would not denied by the Hearing Officer. ( ...seems to ignore the appeal hearing transcript... )

But, in the same email, Goodwin hinted that there was a solution at hand: Claimants who are aggrieved by ruling of a Hearing Officer on presentation of evidence may appeal the final decision to the Board of Review.

The all-seeing, all-knowing board

From a state document:
The members of the Board will listen to the recording of the hearing and consider any exhibits that the Appeal Tribunal Hearing Officer admitted into the record. The Board of Review is the last step of the appeal process within the OESC.

Note that the board will not consider anything the OESC has published regarding basic worker rights but the hearing officer blocked. In other words, when a hearing officer violates OESC procedures as part of an action to deny a worker the right to present documentation and the right to present witnesses, the Board of Review will not intervene.

I wondered if Goodwin's hint about the Board taking corrective action was honest? It seemed to me that much time had passed...

I wonder if Ms. Thompson, or Jim W. Lee, or Jay Morey, or Julie Burbank, or any other comfortable government employee with the board, has ever seen officials be unconcerned about a business running an illegal scam on working Oklahomans?

Could there a higher authority above the Board of Review? Here is an optimistic assertion from the OESC website:

The Oklahoma Employment Security Act provides for a fair and impartial hearing to all parties affected by Commission Determinations as required by the Social Security Act. All stages of the Appeal Tribunal appeal process are governed by the canons of The Model Code of Judicial Conduct for State Unemployment Insurance Appeals Officers, established by the National Association of Unemployment Insurance Appellate Boards. OAC 240:10-13-9.

Is it possible that the hearing officer never heard of The Model Code of Judicial Conduct for State Unemployment Insurance Appeals Officers? Was ignorance of the law what caused her to block my documentation and witnesses without giving a reason?

There are many ways in which AppleOne upper management signified being OK with events in 2016 in Tulsa. But the most important indicator on the list is keeping the money. They not only kept the ~$4,276 stolen from me, they also kept the thousands of dollars taken from about 19 other Dice.com people offered a tech job at the same time as me. Rich people at AppleOne kept that money—they got paid.

Why no response?

I at first sent the link to this page to law enforcement and regulatory organizations. In 2019, this became public. Not a peep from AppleOne or TALX. Why not? Answering that means thinking from the perspective of a corporation:

• If either company pays any attention to this matter, even to criticize or threaten, that might lend credibility to the evidence I have presented.
• Object lesson for temp workers. This article could discourage anyone in the employ of AppleOne who is thinking about reporting abuse or asserting their rights.
• Inconsistent with secrecy. I have noticed how much of AppleOne's strategy seems driven by an obsession with secrecy. Responding to this article would violate such a policy.
• Public silence creates time to remove evidence. As previously mentioned, the AppleOne location where this allegedly occurred was recently shut down, although many staff there at the time of the Owasso tech job publicly state that they remain employed by AppleOne. A shutdown is a great opportunity to erase hard drives and destroy incriminating records.
• Got the money! The scam was a success; an estimated $80,000 in profits. Acknowledging what happened might lead to having to return the stolen money.

OESC endorsement

In multiple ways, the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission has endorsed the alleged Owasso Tech Job scam:

• By forwarding the myth that the fraudulent job offer from AppleOne does not exist ( PDF | Image ),
• By rewarding at least one hearing officer for violating OESC procedures,
• By declining to take corrective action regarding the willful violation of published OESC procedures/policies by the hearing officer,
• By remaining silent about the altered rc1519 conversation (falsifying an official document is a criminal act in Oklahoma; usually a felony),
• And by hindering my efforts to contact the state employee who helped me realize I had been scammed by AppleOne and TALX.

And all of this because I trusted AppleOne when they called on March 16, 2016, and offered me an Owasso tech job.

FINAL - FINAL

Years before, I had one previous experience with a temp agency in Kansas City. They were called ADIA. They arranged three temp jobs in alignment with my skills, each went smoothly, and one of those—at Sprint—turned into full-time. No drama. Do you see this, AppleOne? It's not so difficult to run your business in an ethical manner.

Files, Resources

Identification: Persons in this article are identified here via three methods:

1. Official government documents from the OESC.
2. My testimony and documentation to which none of the other parties has thus far objected.
3. Items published on the internet, presumably by the persons themselves or their agents.
4. The author of this article has vetted this article by an attorney to comply with applicable laws.

Stolen

‘Stolen’ means acquired, or possessed, as a result of some wrongful or dishonest act or taking, whereby a person willfully obtains or retains possession of property which belongs to another, without or beyond any permission given, and with the intent to deprive the owner of the benefit of ownership."[United States v. Hollinshead, 495 F.2d 1154, 1156 (9th Cir. Cal. 1974)]—https://definitions.uslegal.com/

Malice

... the intent, without justification excuse or reason, to commit a wrongful act that will result in harm to another. Malice means the wrongful intention and includes all types of intent that law deems to be wrongful. Legally speaking any act done with a wrong intention is done maliciously.—https://definitions.uslegal.com/

Non-disclosure language in emails

Some of the original emails may contain confidentiality or non-disclosure language. The law is clear that such language cannot be used to conceal illegal activity.

Scope

Information pertaining to the scope (number of known victims) of this issue is not included in this public narrative and is only in the version submitted to law enforcement.

Original research

I have tried to rely on official or reliable sources. Obviously, there are places in this narrative where I expressed a response to the content of those sources.

Crank?

If someone advised you not read this page because That guy is just a crank, but you arrived anyway, here are four rebutals (definition from Wikipedia):

1. Cranks overestimate their own knowledge and ability, and underestimate that of acknowledged experts.
   My knowledge herein consists of personal recollection and documents provided by AppleOne, TALX, OESC, and the State of Oklahoma. In this situation, I'm not sure who might be an ‘expert.’
2. Cranks insist that their alleged discoveries are urgently important.
   Hmmm. Wage theft is important. White-collar crime happens often. The fact that some state agencies help this along is important to taxpayers. I'm not sure who might consider it ‘urgent.’
3. Cranks rarely, if ever, acknowledge any error, no matter how trivial.
   My errors are in public view:
   
   • I believed AppleOne's job offer was authentic, and
   • I believed the OESC hearing officer was a neutral party.
4. Cranks love to talk about their own beliefs, often in inappropriate social situations, but they tend to be bad listeners, being uninterested in anyone else's experience or opinions.
   I have not related these details to anyone outside the legal or law-enforcement professions. I briefly told a couple of friends that I got scammed. One of my family members read the first draft. I place occasional comments on social media. I have invited state employees to comment on this page, and also have a standing invitation to anyone else who has been scammed in a similar manner, or has been scammed by any of these same parties.

5. (inserted) — "Old man yells at cloud"
   Well, you might have me on that one. I am past age 40, after all. Publishing an article about a temp agency's "tech job" scam, and criminally malicious actions by a government agency has yielded nothing in terms of an apology or restitution of my money. This might be the equivalent of yelling at a cloud.

Stand up for what is right!

Fight back by organizing!

Temp Worker Justice (new tab/window)
"Corporate employers use temp agency hiring to depress wages, strip away benefits and workers’ rights, evade compliance with employment laws and regulations, and divide the workforce. This strategy of replacing direct-hire jobs with temp agency jobs has degraded working conditions and eroded workers' power across industries. Decades of lobbying by the temporary staffing industry, on the state and federal level, created advantages for temp hiring over direct hiring, and succeeded in passing the costs onto individuals, communities, and taxpayers."—from their website

Unemployed Workers United (new tab/window)
"We’re a coalition of organizers creating solutions that allow everyone to thrive. The American working-class has always been stronger and more unified than we are led to believe. Our time to come together is now."—from their website

National Legal Advocacy Network (new tab/window)
"The National Legal Advocacy Network (NLAN) is a legal non-profit organization that believes in shifting the balance of power towards greater equity in our economy and society through organizing, empowering systematically marginalized people and challenging entrenched racial discrimination, sexual harassment and exploitative workplace practices and predatory business schemes. NLAN is dedicated to leveraging legal resources to enhance the capacity and sustainability of the low-wage worker movement through community focused lawyering, worker center support and strategic litigation."—from their website

National Employment Law Project (new tab/window)
"Founded in 1969, the nonprofit National Employment Law Project (NELP) is a leading advocacy organization with the mission to build a just and inclusive economy where all workers have expansive rights and thrive in good jobs. Together with local, state, and national partners, NELP advances its mission through transformative legal and policy solutions, research, capacity-building, and communications."—from their website

Downloads, Links

Initial job offer Owasso tech job email:
PDF | Image

Full internet headers; for technicians who want to do an analysis:
Original email and mocking response from AppleOne (PDF)

Altered rc1519 document in the official record:
Download hi-res PDF (11MB)
Types of forgery and Oklahoma law (James M. Wirth)

OESC official statement(s) on appeal hearings and decisions: Appeals information and guide PDF (new tab/window) and also inside the following item ... OESC official statement on UI claim stats; also describes OESC policy regarding witnesses: (new tab/window). If this page does not load, here is the PDF version. The original was removed from the internet.

OESC hearing transcript, prepared from audio by an online company. If you read this web page first, and read the transcript second, you will notice that I assumed during the hearing that the officer was doing the right thing. With the wisdom of hindsight, I now realize that was untrue. I should have fought like a wolverine during the hearing. But I defaulted to my upbringing as the son of a minister. A minister's son will not assume that a state employee is offering a professional courtesy to (alleged) criminals.

Instead of enforcing the rights of Oklahoma workers, the OESC offers this public relations gem: The Oklahoma Employment Security Act provides for a fair and impartial hearing to all parties affected by Commission Determinations as required by the Social Security Act. The decision-making process of the Appeal Tribunal and its Hearing Officers is completely independent of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission and its departments. All stages of the Appeal Tribunal appeal process is governed by the cannons of The Model Code of Judicial Conduct for State Unemployment Insurance Appeals Officers, established by the National Association of Unemployment Insurance Appellate boards. OAC 240:10-13-9.

Temp industry info:
The staffing industry in the U.S. - Statistics & Facts | Statista

Retaliation - details at EEOC
Retaliation against employees - EEOC

Ethical? - NAUIAP sets the standard
For anyone interested in the organization that supposedly extends ethical guidance to the OESC or its Appeal Tribunal, click here to contact them [National Association of Unemployment Insurance Appeals Professionals, formerly the National Association of Unemployment Insurance Appellate boards]. (new tab/window)

Also the "model code" these folks ignore... (PDF new tab/window)

Law enforcement in receipt of this information

• Tulsa County District Attorney
Michael Shouse, assistant DA
Tulsa County Courthouse
500 South Denver Avenue, Suite 900
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74103
918-596-4805
Link (new tab/window)

Nita who?

I mailed more than 40 pages of evidence to the Tulsa County District Attorney. I got an automated delivery notice online, stating the envelope had been collected by Nita at 2:50 p.m. on April 15, 2019. That was the last I heard from the district attorney's office until an assistant DA sent me email on Aug 14, 2019. He had found a reference to the case, but could not locate the original files anywhere. After exchanging correspondence with him, I decided that it appeared someone had simply tossed the evidence into the trash. Later, I researched which employee might be Nita. The only person with a similar name seemed to be Office Manager Anita Clark. (Not confirmed at this time)

• Oklahoma Attorney General
313 NE 21st Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73105
(405) 521-3921
Link (new tab/window)

Possible corporate exemption from Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter, authorized by an office worker named Susan Laib. Laib told me that she took the evidence of fraud and sent it to the OESC. I then contacted a top manager at OESC, who told me she was unable to find any record of Laib's alleged mailing. AG Hunter's name appears nowhere on the official correspondence about AppleOne's fraudulent activity toward about 20 working Oklahomans. Mrs. Laib's May 17, 2019, letter also granted law enforcement powers to the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission...
Download PDF
Per the Attorney General's suggestion, I directed an inquiry on June 15, 2020, to the OESC about their new investigation. There was no reply. Download PDF (includes AG "Laib" letter)

• Los Angeles County District Attorney
600 E Broadway #280
Glendale, CA 91206
(818) 500-3593
Link (new tab/window)

About paying an attorney... At my first tech job that involved coding 1999-2005, my top yearly salary was $49,000. That was close to market value. Unfortunately, I was past the age of 40 when I re-entered the job market. If you have ever walked around a technology firm or I.T. department, you may have noticed they don't want to hire people of color, women, or anyone older than 40. Tech shops are usually white, male and 20-something. Maybe 30-something. In the past 15 years, that practice has translated into a steady reduction of my salary. Think about it: If companies base their evaluation of candidates on age rather than qualifications, then more age means less pay. So, my general yearly salary is now less than a third of that first job. I am within about $3,000 of the federal poverty level.

Headquarters for AppleOne AKA "Howroyd-Wright Employment Agency, Inc"

Paid for by temp workers.

TALX

Two PDF files: U.S. government vs. TALX
Web page: U.S. government vs. TALX
...an SEC investigation resulting in a fine of $2,500,000 (simultaneous civil action) and
an investigation by the New York Times titled "Contesting unemployment claims big business" (PDF)

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

A recent New York Times article describes TALX as undermining the crucial safety net that unemployment benefits represent for the millions of unemployed workers because of the aggressive and questionable tactics it uses on behalf of employers to fight unemployment benefit claims. TALX reportedly handles more than 30 percent of the nation's requests for unemployment benefits. CREW seeks to learn the extent to which the Labor Department is aware of TALX's actions and has taken any action in response.
NY Times article

Unpunished Criminals: The Social Acceptability of White Collar Crimes in America

by Joseph P. Martinez; 2014 at Eastern Michigan University