You’re Not Getting Away With It, You Know
Hey, boys and girls, it’s that time again, for another episode of Mama AnnMaria’s Guide on How not to Get Your Sorry Ass Fired.
Lately, I’ve run into a few people who think they are getting away with something because they are SO smart. (Hint: You’re not. I wrote about this months ago. You should have been paying attention.) Let’s call the three of them Bozo 1, Bozo 2 and Bozo 3 (not their real names). There will be a quiz at the end, so pay attention.
Bozo 1 started at as a good employee, so good, in fact, that she received perks like her own office and telecommuting three days a week. Since no one ever questioned the hours she put on her time card, she concluded that no one would know the difference whether she worked 40 hours a week or 38, which was probably true. Gradually, though, she dropped to 30 hours, then 25. She’s still charging for 40, of course. Bozo 1 thinks she’s getting away with it. In fact, her boss let her slide at first because she had been a good employee and the boss figured maybe B1 was just having some personal or health issues. Fed up as the situation has deteriorated, her employer, is starting to put together documentation to fire Bozo 1.
Here is the CRAZY objection someone made the other day:
That’s not fair! The boss should give her some kind of warning that the company is on to her!
To which I could only reply:
Are you fucking kidding me? She is LYING to her employer, basically stealing money in that she is getting paid for work she did not do, and you think that the employer owes HER? Her boss doesn’t owe her squat. She is getting fired and she’s too arrogant to see it coming.
On to Bozo 2: He is very good at his job and made the company a pile of money. He also got the corner office, name your own hours, work from Bali if you want to. The problem is B2 became too impressed with his own success. When his staff told him that the new project was not bringing in as many sales with him in Bali, that he needed to get out there and talk to the customers, he told them to quit bothering him, he knew what he was doing, and go get him coffee because his great brain needs caffeine. One particular sales person insisted to him that the personal approach was NECESSARY, that sales were going DOWN. B2 didn’t want to hear it and fired the sales guy saying, ‘I don’t need negativity in my life.’ Bozo 2 still has lots of money coming into the company as a result of work he did a year or two ago. As soon as that money dries up, he’s gone and no one will miss him because he’s been a pompous, inconsiderate jerk to everyone.
The same self-righteous young person objected to this, too.
He has made a LOT of money for the company.
This is true, and they rewarded him for that money he made with a lot of money and nice benefits. Now he isn’t making money and he is treating everyone like they are dirt beneath his feet. He’s going to get his sorry ass fired.
Bozo 3 is EVERYWHERE, even on The Simpsons, which The Invisible Developer will be delighted to hear me paraphrase,
“You don’t go on strike if you hate your job. You just go in every day and do it half-ass. That’s the American Way.”
I’ve dealt with a lot of people lately who have that attitude. They believe they cannot get fired because their organization is too big to fail and they have seniority. You see this from employees in big banks to universities to government. If you have to wait in line for two hours, they lost your paperwork, they failed to comply with some government regulation, they shrug it off because their organization is untouchable – and so are they, by association.
One advantage of being old is that you get a long-term view. I’ve seen plenty of organizations that hadn’t had layoffs in their entire history close entire departments or plants or institute widespread layoffs. No one is untouchable. Eventually it catches up to you, and who do you think is going to speak up when your budget gets cut? Not John Q. Public you couldn’t be bothered to care about.
So, what did we learn today, children? No matter who you are, where you work or how good you think you are, do your job and don’t be a jerk, because no one gets away with it forever.
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CRAZY ! Our ecommerce site went out of business last night with zero days notice. So …
You can download our Mac and Windows games from Amazon here :
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We should have our online store back online tomorrow.