The Fired Squad
In the early 1990s, I worked at a computer drafting firm designing tombstones for people and pets. Try to imagine a life where the highlight of your day is designing a tombstone for a cat named “Mama’s Lil’ Pile O’ Shit.” Or designing a marker for a couple who want to be buried with all 12 of their cats, with names and dates of each. Yep, it was My Very Worst Job. The boss routinely accused the staff of stealing business secrets and working against her. She insisted that no one person know how to do a complete job so we could not “sell” her techniques. It took two people to send off a package because if one of us did it by ourselves we could get in trouble for knowing too much. Then she fired me. And this was the best part – it came out that she had planned it almost six months in advance but kept me around to train my replacement. I then learned that the lady who trained me had also been fired this way. About two years later, the guy I trained was fired after he trained his replacement. That was about 10 replacements ago. We’re thinking of starting a 12-step program to recover.
One of the people who had my position before me did in fact steal the business model and set up a rival company. As a result, every single time I have to learn something new, the higher-ups have a meeting to decide whether I’m worthy of such classified information as the photocopier code.
As crappy as that is, it’s pretty ingenious. Ultimately, she’s shooting herself in the foot by making things more difficult than necessary by not letting everyone know how to do everything, but having everyone train their replacements secretly is pretty creative. But crappy. What was the reasoning for the firing? Because you knew too much?
She says I ruined a monument.
What the rumors said was that she had bought a large amount of new equipment illegally and knew that if I found out I would have turned her in. That is why she came to my house to fire me so I would not have a chance to come into the office again.
Wow. That’s ridiculous. The fact that she went to your house is beyond tacky.
could she be arrested for trespassing on your property? You had to come back to the office for your things I think, report her to the BBB? something like that. This just smells like trouble. I’m surprised HR hasn’t gotten rid of someone like this, its really petty.