The Week's Best E-mail -- And A Cautionary Tale

Well, I am now Boss Lady's EX-employee. Yay! I'm not sure whether I quit or got fired, but ... Yay!! You'll recall the project she put me on Monday. So, it went fine and there was even a note from her in my in-box yesterday morning saying "Great job on the xxx case!" Also yesterday morning, however, she had the file spread out in the conference room with papers strewn everywhere and asked me to help her sort through it and figure out what was what. It soon became readily apparent that she was not only not prepared, but didn't even know squat about the case.

So she went to court at 11:00, and it wasn't fifteen minutes before she was on the phone to Skank Girl from the courthouse yelling that she wasn't prepared enough, this, that, and the other wasn't right, and I got the impression she was blaming me. SG said she was pissed off, ranting, livid, and blaming me for her own ineptitude. I just grinned at SG and said I'd probably better pack up my things because either BL was going to fire me when she got back or she was going to scream at me and I was going to quit.

After BL got back, she kept making SG come into her office and help her with stuff, but SG didn't bother to ask me to cover the phones. I had a wireless keyboard and mouse and the phone for some reason interfered with it and made it stop, so I had the phone on the floor on the other side of my desk, out of sight of the keyboard. That meant that every time SG didn't answer and it kept ringing, I had to get up from the "priority" work that I was trying to do and walk around the desk to answer it.

Around 1:00, BL came stomping up the stairs faster than I've seen her walk in a year, with a murderous look on her face. She said something like, "How dare you talk so rudely to that social worker!" I said, "What social worker?" She said, "The one you just talked to!" I said I hadn't talked to a social worker, and she said, "When you answered the PHONE!" I told her I wasn't rude, just harried, and I had answered because it looked like no one else was going to, they asked for SG, and I told them to hold on. That's all there was to it, but the social worker apparently complained that I was too "short" with her. So, BL says to me, "This morning was a disaster, and THIS is the last straw. If you want to work here, you're going to have to do a lot better than this!" So, I said, "I'm doing the best I can with what I have to work with, what happened in court this morning was in no way my fault, and if I'm not answering the phone correctly, it's not my job to answer phones, so I guess I'm out of here, then." She didn't say a word, just stomped back down the stairs. So I packed up my stuff and left.

She'll bad-mouth me now, because that's what she's done to everybody who's ever left there, but I don't care. I feel more stress-free now than I have in the two years I worked there. I am liberated! And there is now NOBODY there who can do the work, because I did it all, so I'm just laughing about that. I have no doubt she'll be on the phone today (or have SG do it) when the work starts piling up and nobody can do it, trying to get me to come back, but the only way I'll have anything to do with her again is to work from home. On MY terms.

So, you tell me -- did I quit or get fired? I might need to know that for the Unemployment people.

And now -- on to the week's best e-mail, courtesy of Roxan.

If you've ever worked for a boss who reacts before getting the facts and thinking things through, you will love this!

Arcelor-Mittal Steel, feeling it was time for a shakeup, hired a new CEO.

The new boss was determined to rid the company of all slackers. On a tour of the facilities, the CEO noticed a guy leaning against wall.

The room was full of workers and the new CEO wanted to let them know that he meant business. So he asked the guy, "How much money do you make a week?"

A little surprised, the young man looked at him and said, "I make $400 a week. Why?"

The CEO said, "Wait right here." He walked back to his office, came back in two minutes, and handed the guy $1,600 in cash and said, "Here's four weeks' pay. Now GET OUT and don't come back."

Feeling pretty good about himself, the CEO looked around the room and
asked, "Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-ball did here?"

From across the room a voice said, "Pizza delivery guy from Domino's."