Employee X909X900X9

My loyal readers will remember a post from a few weeks ago in which I mentioned that things at work were actually pretty decent. Well, that’s all gone to shit.

On Friday, I lost one of my few allies at the office. A true confidant, someone who’s office I could go to, close the door and vent knowing that what I said would be held in the strictest of confidence. Mrs. C., a veteran employee of the shit hole company I work for was let go. Her employment was terminated not because of performance issues or because she had done something wrong such as steal. She was let go because of the family feud that is transpiring amongst the upper echelons of management at the company. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a family run business and the majority of the senior management are members of the family. About two months ago, some of the sons joined together and ousted one of their brothers (who happened to be Mrs. C’s boss.) Now with that brother out of the way, there was no room for Mrs. C.

She had known it was coming, she started cleaning her office out weeks ago. I knew it was coming too, but I had hoped that the brothers would have spared her. Instead, they are getting rid of anyone who worked directly for their now ousted brother.

On Friday afternoon, I was in Mrs. C’s office and she mentioned to me that she was going to be away for the next two weeks on “vacation.” I asked her if she would be back and she replied that she wasn’t sure, HR was going to let her know while she was away. Hearing that stung. Hard. This was a woman who spent the last 30 years of her life not only taking care of business matters, but ensuring that personal matters pertaining to the family (such as booking doctor’s appointments for the head of the family, ensuring their personal bills were paid and countless other tasks.) And now she is just tossed aside like a dirty rag. All because of the greed and hunger for power sought out by the other brothers.

Now the company is headed by a complete and total buffoon. The man barely understands the fundamentals of what our business is, yet he feels he can lead the company into the future. What he is going to do is lead the organization into the ground.

All of these changes amongst the top level execs have little (or nothing at all) to do with me. My male boss is one of the brothers who own the company. All the last two months have done is lead to the erosion of whatever respect I had for him. I never could respect someone gained everything he has solely because of what his last name is and not through hard work. Watching how Mrs. C was treated, I have absolutely no respect for him as a man and especially not as a boss.

The VP of HR was in Mrs. C’s office for about an hour late Friday afternoon – with the door closed, of course. When Mrs. C did emerge, she did so with her hands full of bags and gripping her car keys. “Bye kiddo,” she said as she came over to me and gave me a hug. “Are you coming back?” I asked. She shook her head ‘no’ and I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. She quickly walked out of the office and I stood there, stunned.

After that, I just sat at my desk and thought about how unfair the corporate world is. There is no point in being loyal to a company and giving them years and years of your life. We are all dispensable and not worth keeping around for longer then our purpose has been fulfilled.

Last Thursday marked my three year anniversary with the company. I have been dreading being there for the last 2.5 years. Now that Mrs. C is gone, things will be very different for me. While I still have Betty to talk to and have lunch with, it isn’t quite the same. I am not looking forward to tomorrow, seeing Mrs. C’s office completely empty and watching everyone else act like it was just another business matter.

Signed,
Employee X909X900X9