May 27, 2018 – I was at the casino last night. I was sitting at a machine and I hear “So. You got fired after you fired me. I’d say karma’s a bitch.” It was rather loud. I’m sure people heard it. There was no mistaking the voice. It belonged to my former employee, Lori. I turned my head and, yes, it was her. She was standing there, clutching her purse in front of her. She looked the same – a little thinner and she had changed her hair a little. It could have been the lighting. I don’t know. I never expected to see her. She lived in another town. It was a great line. I’m not sure how long it took her to come up with it – but there was no denying it was a great line. I burst out laughing.
It had been two years since we had restructured the department. She didn’t have the qualifications we needed. She was difficult to work with. She didn’t care about her work or the quality of work she produced. When my boss approached me about shaking things up, I jumped at the chance to make an improvement on how the office ran. I had two admins working for me. I worked with HR to evaluate their roles. They were doing a lot of things that weren’t part of their core roles. We came up with a few scenarios for my boss to approve. One of the scenarios was focusing the two admin roles back onto their core responsibilities. This resulted in me only needing one admin. My boss liked the idea. He didn’t like either of the admins and I know he wanted a fresh start for the department. HR looked at the role and determined that neither of them were able to do the job. My boss was worried about money. So he decided that one would be packaged out and Lori would be found another job. I worked with HR to come up with a new job in another department.
I was the one who had to tell her. It was a brief statement – scripted by HR. Then I left. HR would walk her through the options. She went home to think about it. She turned down the job. It wasn’t what she wanted. My boss tried to reach out to her to convince her to take the other job. I didn’t try. I knew I was the last person she would want to talk to. Five months later, my boss re-structured the department and I was no longer needed. There was a part of me that felt like I had done his dirty work – cleaned his house for him – and then was let go after we hired new people and I had documented everything on how the office ran. But he gets to make the rules.
Fast forward to two years later and Lori is standing in front of me. I can’t believe my eyes. I stood up and said it was great to see her and asked her if she wanted a hug. I’m not sure what I was thinking – maybe a chance to set things straight. Then I noticed the look on her face – she wasn’t smiling. She said, “I don’t want anything from you.”
So I’m wondering why she walked over. Was she looking for an apology or an explanation? Clearly not the case as she didn’t want anything from me. Did she want to make a scene? That’s kind of hard to do in a casino. Nobody pays attention to anything in a casino except their machine. So what kind of scene do you think you’re going to make? It took me a second to realize that if she wanted to talk and get some clarity and closure then she probably wouldn’t have been speaking so loudly and said what she said. So I sat down and went back to playing my game. I wasn’t going to feed whatever was going on inside her head. She stood there – not saying a word. I started counting in my head. I waited 15 seconds, hoping she would say whatever it was she came to say. Nothing. So I waved my hand, shooed her away and said, “Move on.” She stood there for a few more seconds and then left. I overheard her saying “That’s the bitch that fired me.” Oh well. Keep living your own version of history.
She was offered a great job. All she had to do was take it, keep her head down, and not stir up any more shit. She would have proved my boss and me wrong. But she knew what we all knew – she didn’t want to work and put in an effort. And I knew what she didn’t know – nobody wanted her to work for them.
There was a part of me that felt sorry for her. Two years is a long time to carry shit around. I would have hoped that, with some time, she would have seen that she played a part in this too. After all, we create our own weather. After two years, you’d think she’d realize that if my boss really wanted to keep her around he would have moved heaven and earth to convince her to stay and take the other job. And he would have called her and said “Come back” after he had let me go. You’d think that would tell her something.
There was a part of me that wished I had said all of that to her. But I don’t think she would have listened. She still blames me. Maybe one day. Who knows?
As for karma? 3 spins after she walked away I won $444. Not bad for a $20 bet.
Diary of a DOW 