'News of Shannon's self-firing raced through the building': Assistant director investigates 'untouchable' employee's performance

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    Hair - 'No one can fire my boss, so she does it herself'
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    Font - No One Can Fire My Boss So She Does It Herself L OC This isn't my story, but I was able to witness it in all its glory because I used to work for one of the people involved.
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    Font - Years ago, I used to work at a state government agency where my boss was a political appointee. Her mom was a bigwig in our governor's party who wrangled a political appointment for her daughter, which meant she had some clout behind her. Let's call her Shannon.
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    Font - Shannon was not good at her job. At all. She was frequently out of the office for "meetings" (e.g., two- hour lunches, coffee with friends, a bit of shopping).
  • 05
    Font - She was also a bully and a tyrant. She bullied her staff and would hold the threat of firing over everyone's heads to get them to do what she wanted. She wasn't a micromanager because she was never around enough to actually micromanage anything.
  • 06
    Font - And she was widely disliked throughout the entire building. This was a large agency, so to have a building where almost everyone disliked you took a lot of work.
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    Font - The problem is that, as a political appointee, she was untouchable. The people who had the power to fire her couldn't because of her family. Even the number three person in the agency couldn't do it, and he was a political appointee as well.
  • 08
    Font - But after a year of mystery meetings and time out of the office, her excuses were catching up to her. The agency director removed her from her job and put her in charge of "special projects." Anyone who's worked in a corporate job knows that people get put in charge of special projects because they were largely incapable of doing their previous job. They didn't get fired, but they no longer had any power. This was Shannon's case.
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    Font - For a while, she seemed to get the message. She shaped up, didn't have any more mystery meetings, didn't disappear from the building for two hours, and treated people somewhat nicely. Of course, it didn't last and Shannon returned to her old ways.
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    Font - Around that time, we got a new assistant director - we'll call her Tricia - who was also a political appointee. She was the number two person in the whole agency, and she was great to work for. She was very serious about her job.
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    Font - She had access to Shannon's electronic calendar and saw what Shannon had been up to. She then cross-checked the security logs to see when Shannon was in and out of the building.
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    Font - After her brief investigation, Tricia emailed Shannon with a list of dates and said, "Can you tell me more about these different meetings you were having? And why they took so long?" (I'm paraphrasing.)
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    Font - Well, Shannon wasn't having any of that! How dare Tricia call her character into question?! This was an outrage! It was so outrageous, in fact, that Shannon wrote a resignation letter and slammed it down on Tricia's desk! That'll show her!
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    Font - After a few hours, Shannon had time to think about what she had done. She remembered that she had a 1-year-old at home. She also remembered that her husband was an unskilled truck driver who made $8 an hour. (Edit: He was a local delivery driver for a construction firm, NOT a CDL driver.) And she remembered that she was the primary breadwinner for her family.
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    Font - She went back, hat in hand, and apologized for her attitude, she said she was willing to try harder, and she asked Tricia if she could please possibly have her letter back, pretty please? Tricia said, "Oh, I'm sorry, you're too late. I already processed the letter and sent it off to HR. I'm afraid I can't undo that."
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    Font - Do you remember in the movie, The Incredibles, when Mr. Incredible fought the giant ball with legs? The ball was so indestructible and powerful, the only thing that could beat it was itself?
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    Font - This was that moment. The previously untouchable political appointee had just been fired by the only political appointee who had that power: herself. And rather than protect her or do her a solid, Tricia would not undo her self- termination. She just let Shannon be her own undoing.
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    Font - When news of Shannon's self-firing raced through the building, you could hear the cries of "What? Are you serious?" followed by howls of laughter as each new person heard the story. Shannon was out and everyone who had to deal with her was much happier than they had ever been in that job.
  • 19
    Rectangle - ne kazzin8 +1 This is like a fairy tale come true and told to children at bedtime.
  • 20
    Font - samuecy I worked with a supervisor who would turn in her resignation as a way to get a pay raise. It worked for years until, we got a new director. A director who was not her buddy. The very first time she pulled this stunt he accepted and processed her resignation. When she came back to say she changed her mind and was staying, his response was, "Oh no, you tendered your resignation and have accepte it. Your position has been posted."
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    Font - yParticle The malicious compliance doesn't get much more perfect than that. Well written, too.
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    Font - Guntowski Sounds like Shannon, if only for a moment, was a good boss at the very end, saving some legwork for Tricia
  • 23
    Product - Aggravating_Net6733. I love it when trash takes itself out.

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