I was working for a contractor in New York City. We had major problems with one of our night crews and always made sure one of the engineers was out watching them at night. Things were calm for a few months and we ended up getting some tickets for a Yankees game for a job party.

The plan was still to send one of us out to the job after the game. It was a light duty night and the crew foreman seemed to have a handle on things, we figured he could handle things for a few hours.

Wrong. The foreman fires the only two black guys working on the job because one of them had a cell phone in his truck. Not talking on the cell phone. Not playing games on it. It was just in his cab. Never mind that the other guy didn't even have a phone. From what I am told he just pointed at both of them and get off the job.

I knew both the guys who were fired, they were new to the crew, weren't bad guys, and seemed genuinely shocked that they had been canned. Since I was the business manager I had to cut them their last checks. I also gave them our companies EEO hotline. It was the right thing to do.

So these guys file a grievance and the HR lawyers get involved. Pro tip if you ever find yourself working a union job in NYC. Do Not Fire the Black Guy. Let the union handle it, they have better luck. But anyway, long story short, it looked like we were actually going to get away with it and not have to pay these guys a settlement, when the foreman goes and calls them both n-words in front of witnesses.

Foreman gets fired (serves him right, racist prick), and these two guys get six weeks of back pay (which they deserved) and I did paperwork for months.