When Bad People Happen to Good Companies

I think I can officially say it. I think I hate my boss, the COO. The final straw has been his million-dollar miscalculation in preparing next year's budget. His figures are being audited now, but if they turn out to be correct approximately ten percent of our employees stand to lose their jobs. There is an emergency meeting scheduled for January 3, and he had the NERVE to ask that it be rescheduled for the eighth so that his vacation would not be interrupted. Of course, he does not stand to be one of the people who will lose his job -- in fact, I might lose mine in his place. I'm not too worried about that. The CEO, for all the abuse he's heaped on me, just gave me a promotion and a raise. If I lose my job, he will help me find another.

What is just frosting my glass is the fact that my boss has all these unreasonable perks. He comes in at 9:30. Four days out of five, he's out of the office by 4:30. He produces absolutely nothing, and when a project is assigned to him, he passes it off to me. But, if I initiate something, he tells me to stop and let him do his job. Only to pass what I started off to someone else.

Today I took a look at the budget and suggested to the CFO that such executive perks as car allowances (no one drives for their job) and country club fees be cut from the budget before we fire someone. I got a note back saying such things were likely to stay in the budget, but she did agree to crunch some numbers to determine how much money we are actually talking about. Just from what I know, we're easily talking about well over $100,000.

If I was smart, I'd update my resume and start sending it out. But I'm going to see this one out to the bitter end. I will either walk away from this job financially comfortable, or I will lose it because other people are lazy, stupid, self-involved, selfish slobs.