‘I suppose f**k-knuckle sold none’

Just one of the insults my boss hurled at me, says employee

The former financial manager of a soda-ash conglomerate has hauled the company and his former boss to court for his abusive swearing and insults.

Botswana Ash’s lawyers offered Durban chartered accountant Richard Pascoe R5000, arguing that the swearing — including calling him “f**k-knuckle” — was accepted language within the industry. But Pascoe has refused to back down.

Now, more than seven years after instituting legal action against the firm — an Anglo American associate company — and its former managing director Paul Henry, Pascoe will finally have his day in court when his three-day trial begins in the Botswana High Court in Labotse this week.

Pascoe wants more than R500000 in damages for mental anguish suffered as a result of the insults, claiming he was humiliated, degraded and his reputation injured by Henry’s vulgar insults, often made at executive committee meetings and in the presence of colleagues.

He is also claiming more than R3-million for unlawful dismissal, saying the grounds for his 1999 axing — which include leaving work without permission and conduct unbecoming of a senior manager, in which not taking care of his “nuisance” dog was cited as one of the reasons — were baseless.

But both Botswana Ash and Henry denied Pascoe’s allegations, saying in court papers that the onus was on him to prove his claims.

The company’s current MD, Derek Cochrane, believes they have a “very strong case” as “strong leadership was required to rebuild the company after its liquidation in 1995 and a severe flood that flattened the company a year later”.

Pascoe, who joined Botswana Ash in 1998, claimed in papers before the court that the company was “vicariously liable” for Henry’s conduct, who acted within the scope of his employment.

He claimed that during his brief stint at the company, Henry “on numerous occasions” hurled insults at him in front of his colleagues, telling him to “f**k off” and that he was “f*****g useless”.

He alleges that incidents of provocative and vulgar language include:

ý Henry saying at an executive committee meeting, “wish you were normally so f*****g observant”;

ý Henry “frequently referred to the participants as f*****g c**ts” at a budget meeting organised by Pascoe and attended by colleagues;

ý Henry announcing, at an executive committee meeting, “I suppose f**k-knuckle on the right (Pascoe), has not sold any,” referring to raffle tickets for a show he had organised. Henry then added that Pascoe “deserves to lose his pens, he’s so f*****g useless”; and

ý Henry accusing Pascoe of being “too soft” and that he should learn to “f**k people up”.

According to Pascoe’s court papers, Henry once barged into Pascoe’s office, throwing documents in front of him and asking “what the f**k is this s**t”, intimating that his work “is manure and of a low quality”.

He also referred to Pascoe and his two colleagues as a “bunch of cowboys”, which suggested “they are better suited to tend cattle than to work in an office”, the papers stated.

It is further claimed that Pascoe suffered “humiliation, bewilderment, damage to his dignity and self-esteem, and has suffered extreme mental anguish”.

In the minutes of Pascoe’s disciplinary hearing, which form part of the court papers, he said the main reason he failed to communicate with Henry was the latter’s “ use of language”.

Henry said “there was an accepted degree of use of industrial language in the mining and production industries”.

He said “much of it is due to frustration caused by failure of some individuals to react to instructions or just failure to do their jobs”.

Henry likened the situation to “ blowing a horn to a donkey, which is not bothered to move”.