Walking Papers

So I'm back at the grind here in seminary. I know, it's been a long time since I last posted here, but you know what? I don't fucking care. And you know what else? I'm not going to bother with any lame ass, quasi-excuses, especially since no one reads this damn stuff and this is all just an exercise in mental masturbation. Of course, that pretty much sums up a large part of my current lifestyle and living arrangement. But I digress...

So, I'm back at it, the whole studying, working, not drinking near enough booze routine that has become my life of late. Which is good, because let's face it, I signed up for this bullshit, right? Anyway, I sitting here in my cell this past Saturday reading about a bunch of school kids in Kansas who wanted to do away with a little thing called "separate but equal...", or was it some bullshit on the 5 principle functions of punishment? It must've been the latter because I remember thinking that whatever I was reading when I was interupted was something I could really get behind, you know, philosophically. And given my general dislike of humans under the age of consent, I could give two shits about a bunch of Flatlander rugrats crying about their supposed civil rights.... So anyway, I get this call from the head honcho at the Ranch, wanting to know if I've got a few minutes for him on this fine weekend morning.

"You bet!" I reply enthusiastically. He does sign the pay voucher, after all. But, not too enthusiastically, like in a stupid "I'm happy to be alive!" twit sort of way. So grabbing a note pad and ink stick, I set aside the tome currently before me and get ready for what's coming. I've found that when the honcho calls you on the weekend, it means he's got something that's gonna require a note or two. At least.

This time, it took several pages.

"So you'll recall the situation we had discussed when you were last in town, about New Guy, and how he and I and the Major Domo were going to follow up on that...," the Boss says in typical social management doublespeak, which we all use like a suit of vague specificness to maintain decorum.

"Sure I do."

"Well, over the past week, some more things have come to my attention, things beyond what you and I discussed last month, and we've basically laid it out to New Guy that he needs to make a decsion over the weekend...," Essentially, get your shit together, or you're out of here.

Finally! I think to myself. This guy needed to go a long time ago. Like most shitbags, he was proving to be a real cancer in the Ranch's social system, not to mention that he wasn't generating any significant revenue since he'd come aboard over a year ago. I was of the opinion that we got sold a bill of goods when we selected him, and I was ready see him gone before I had even departed for Penn's Forest over a year ago. What's worse, I was a bit embarrased about his substandard performance since I had played a significant part in the decision to hire him.

Adopting a more neutral and formal tone, I reply to the Honch non-commitally, "Okay..."

And then the Honcho goes into a quick summary of yet another instance where New Guy has really dropped the ball in another exapmple of terrible customer service regarding one of our clients. Over the past several months, there have been several such instances of poor conduct and inadequate service, which have progressively gotten worse. And over this time, I've seen the Boss get more and more frustrated with having to handle this personnel problem.

Now I have learned a thing or two about working with Boss. One, he is very effective in dealing with personnel issues, but is very deliberate in making any extreme, sudden changes in this area of business manamgement. Whether it's hiring or firing, he wants to make sure that he hires the right kind of people to surround himself with, and will go to great lengths to develop and retain those who are selected. Two, with that deliberateness comes a preference for facts, rather than subjective opinion when it comes to making most any decision, large or small. Three, given enough time, usually not long, and the best data available, he consistenly makes sound, equitable decisions. So I knew it was only a matter of time for this ass-hat.

Based on these insights into the Honcho's style, I like to wait and see how things develop a little bit before I put my two cents worth in. Now I was well aware of the recent increase in the severity of New Guy's shortcomings. Hell, I was catching complaint calls about on his cases from vendors while I was on Mission thousands of miles away in Botany Bay this summer!! And the things I saw in his files while I was doing a short stint at the Ranch House earlier this year made me shudder!! On more than one occassion I thought to myself, "Wow, I'm glad I'm not on the Ranch brand!" So upon hearing the Boss' moderately agitated state which prompted him to call me on a Saturday morning, I realized that we were finally at a critical point.

That's when I decided to casually drop the bomb, (or rather an IED) and pass along a little information regarding our boy that I had recently uncovered. You see, after he was hired, I quickly became more than a little suspicious of him. There was something about him that put me off in a weird sort of way which told me never to trust him. Besides an instinvtual aversion, his facile way in dealing with people raise serious questions about his sincerity. Lookng back it seems so clear, but then hindsight has the benefit of 20/20. So it was no real surpise when I found what I did.

The truth of it is, I went snooping. I went digging into his electronic employee folder to compare his Yearly Performance Plan with mine. I wanted to see just what the Ranch's expectations of him were, in light of his less than stellar performance. Now this employee folder, and we all have one, is kept and maintained by the individual, not the Ranch itself, and is used to store whatever that person wants to store. Files, pictures, whatever. The presumption is 1) the file is public, and 2) it's to be used for work related stuff. Sure, it might be considered prying, but he has, like each and every one of us, no expectation of privacy regarding these electronic files. And what I found was that he wasn't making any greater percentage off his cases than I was, which satisfied that nagging curiosity and competitive streak. More importantly, I discovered that he'd saved some docs written under his own outfit's brand. Which wouldn't have been that big a deal to me, except that I kept digging.

Now I knew New Guy'd been moonlighting. And I'd suspected that it might be getting in the way of his performance at the Ranch, but that was fine. I figured that with time, he'd take enough rope to hang himself with. Besides, he had a wife and two kids, so he's putting some extra time in elsewhere. Whatever. But the thing is, I discovered he'd not only taken over a prospective client's case after we'd declined her, but he'd used his relationship through the Ranch to get hired by her and was using property proprietary to the Ranch in prosecuting the case. And it wasn't an isolated incident.

So when the Boss got done laying it all out about how he and New Guy were going to meet on Tuesday, and how he'd see what the ass-bag had to say about staying and working, or moving on, I took the advantage.

"Well, Boss, I think I'd better let you in on some things I've come across..." I told him what I'd found, and beamed copies of the docs over to him to review, and let the magic happen. Now the Boss is not the kind of dude to blow his cool, or beome easily rattled. On the contrary. But after hearing my summary and listening to the Honcho's initial reacation, it was clear to me that things had escalated several notched. After giving full disclosure to the Boss about my investigation, I bid the Honcho adieu and waited to hear more for him early in the week.

The next morning, even earlier, I get another call. It's the Boss. He informs me that he's spoken with Major Domo, and based on a review of the documents I'd uncovered, a further search of New Guy's files, and in light of his downward spiraling performance, there was no need to allow him a final option.

Instead, Boss and Major Domo met New Guy at 9:00 the next morning and handed him his walking papers. In the manual, there are 11 violations for which a person may be summarily dismissed. New Guy was in violation of 6.

Happy trails, you shit bag!!