Big News on the Storm Front
An update from last week, if anyone is still reading (something I always must mention just so that i can show that I am aware that this might just be a personal diary).
The woman who quit (Rita) and who was going to be sending a 10 page exit email, got canned early! She was going to be leaving last Friday – but I think the Storm got wind of her upcoming snitch/complaint/truth/real talk email and told Rita to leave on Wednesday. The Storm is so crafty! She totally dis-empowered her by making her leave early. And because she had no time to send her email, it’s probably languishing in her Drafts section of Outlook. I wasn’t even there when it happened, but The Storm knew that I knew what Rita was up to. When I returned to work she asked me to go talk to her, well she actually kind of tricked me. I had just gotten a hair cut and the Storm spied me down the hall and bellowed:
“Did you get a haircut?”
I responded with “Yes”
She said, “Oh it looks really good, come over here and let me see it”.
I thought that it was kind of a weird request, and when I was nice enough to indulge this weird request I realized that I had actually been tricked. She didn’t care about my hair, she wanted to tell me about her canning of the troublemaker, and wanted to pump me for any info I had come across in the day prior to the forcing out of the letter writer.
“So I heard that Rita said something to you on Tuesday”
“Really, she did? I don’t remember”
“Well, someone overheard her saying ‘Too bad you won’t be in tomorrow, things are going to get exciting’”.
Now, I remembered her saying this but it was in regards to a couple of other gals who were saying they were going to quit on Wednesday (which didn’t happened), and I’m no work-snitch, it’s not worth it. I wondered who had snitched on Rita, I had a couple of pretty good guesses. My reponse was:
“I don’t remember her saying that, she seemed upset but I don’t think she said anything like that”
The Storm seemed a bit shocked; could it be possible that she had canned this woman based only on her snitch’s suspicion that Rita was planning something? The Storm had been backing herself into a corner since she started, and this Rita incident put her right against the wall. You see, this was how she dealt with every employee-based problem; if there was a chance that someone was going to blow the whistle on The Storm’s incompetence, The Storm was going to make sure that they left abruptly so that they could have no communication with a higher up. I’d already seen her do this kind of thing to other employees, it was the most calculated work she’d done – if only she could’ve applied herself to learning how to be a supervisor, or how to not be incompetent/petty/miserable/idiotic. The Storm had actually escorted Rita out of the building so that she wouldn’t be able to say anything to anyone without the Storm knowing about it.
“So, what do you think Rita was planning to do?” I asked, playing her game, “I mean, I know she was unhappy here, and rightfully so, but I couldn’t see her doing anything crazy, she wasn’t like that”
To which The Storm responded “Oh I don’t know, there was something going on with her, I’m not sure what it was, whether it was drugs or booze or something, but something was up with her, she had a lot of rage, I just hope she gets the help she needs, I really hope she gets that. I’m worried about her and I just hope that she can work through all of her problems.”
Fucking Incredible. Rita’s problem was The Storm and the fucked-uppedness of the workplace.
This Storm was amazing at this kind of thing. She was always feigning concern for other people, which was completely unbelievable. She had other excuses too, “I had to send her home, she was making too many mistakes, and her attitude was just poisoning the atmosphere around here.” This was where the Storm excels, trying to convince you that what she’s doing is always for the benefit of someone else, and that her choices aren’t always entirely self-serving and indulgent endeavours. Luckily, no one really believes her.
So, once the fuckery of Thursday was over, I had a nice weekend, went out of town, relaxed, had fun, saw old friends – WONDERFUL. Then on Monday I get a call from work, from a higher-up saying he needs a minute so that we can have a “chat”. This made me a bit nervous and I told him “I’m driving right now, let me call you in a minute”. So I call him thinking I’m being fired from my two day a week tech writing job – which wouldn’t be terrible except that I need the money. When I call back and we talk he tells me:
“We let The Storm go on Friday.”
Unbelievable. She was bad, she was among the worst people I can imagine being in that kind of a position, but I just thought that b/c of bureaucracy/politics that she was going to be around forever. And now she’s gone!
I’m going back to work tomorrow – I can’t wait to see how things have changed. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that I am going to spend a day at that place without the most incredibly awkward and inept boss around. I’ll keep you informed.
MORE PLEASE!
Did you ever consider that the Storm maybe caught wind of this blog? She didn’t come right out and say it because she considered it a valuable source of intel. Hopefully, your secret died with her.
I thought of that actually. But if you met this woman you would realize she’s probably never heard of a blog. Or maybe heard of it but doesn’t quite grasp what it is. It is something I worried about. Mostly on my days off – questioning myself as to whether I had indeed deleted my history. I was also worried because when snooping on her comp I found that she had a list of mistakes I’d made (some of which she made up), so I think at some point she was preparing to fire me. I would remember delete my history every night and I don’t think she ever knew about it, and never will. I wonder what she’s doing now. Lost of updates tonight – weird stuff is happening.