She Was The Only One Who Defended Her Coworker — Then The Coworker Quit, And She Became The Problem
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When you work at a company and decide you’re going to quit, it’s customary to give 2 weeks’ notice. At some companies, you continue to work for those two weeks and leave on the last day. At other companies, as soon as you give your notice, they lock you out of your computer and walk you out the door, most likely still paying you for the next two weeks but not wanting you in the business anymore.
In this story, one woman’s coworker gives her 2 weeks’ notice, but she wants to gloat about her new job to her coworkers. The problem is that the boss is the type to walk her out the door that same day instead of letting her work for two weeks. She tries to talk to the boss about the situation and to convince her to let the coworker keep working.
Keep reading to see how the story plays out.
“You’re not my real supervisor and you never will be!”
This is a story about Basic.
Basic came to work in the accounting department at a law firm after her mother died.
My boss was a family friend of hers and wanted to help Basic out.
She was very young and right away, a lot of people in the department who didn’t like how she got the job took to making fun of her and making sure she never advanced.
OP tried to help Basic.
I was still starting out in this firm and department (but no stranger to law firm life) and wanted to help her out as much as I could.
I taught her some basic software skills and tricks. She was very eager to learn though not very bright.
Years pass and she has not gotten a raise of any sort since joining on and the department seems to delight in this.
I jump on an offer to join another department as a supervisor and I get to choose who gets to come with me. I choose Basic – the department is to be designed around a workflow I had created and she had been trained extensively on it.
Basic seems confused about the supervisor situation.
Upon our first day of setting up in our new office, it is explained that administratively, I am not her direct supervisor (time off, sick days, payroll, etc). I am, however, supervisory to the workflow of the department which includes her participation in it.
She takes this to mean that I am not her supervisor, period, and she gleefully tells me this as someone comes by to congratulate us.
I bring up that, yes, that is true for the administrative side and it falls on deaf ears.
I confirm with our boss of the situation as I understood it, she agrees. I don’t make a big deal of it because we have time to work on it if it ever comes to that.
But now, Basic has news.
We press on. Almost a year working together and it’s okay. Not great but the work is getting done.
I continue to defend Basic to the old department who is still eager for her to fail.
One day, Basic has exciting news. She has landed a new job at a different firm.
I am sad that she didn’t come to me for a reference but am very excited for her.
Basic says for me not to tell anyone as she wants to share the news herself.
Basic made a mistake.
There is one problem: she just told her supervisor that she’s leaving.
I know that our boss will dismiss her immediately (though she dismisses people with two weeks pay). We have a backlog of work I can’t do alone. And Basic deserves her victory lap.
I can either ignore protocol and let a lot of speculation happen about her sudden departure or do the job I was hired to do and make sure Basic has that victory lap.
I leave our office a few minutes later to tell my boss what is going on.
But she didn’t get to speak to her boss alone.
Unfortunately, another supervisor and my boss’s assistant is there.
I ask them if I can have a few minutes alone and after confirming it isn’t personal, they say they will keep it confidential and I close the door and explain the situation.
My boss of course wants her gone immediately.
Get her to agree to let her stay a week (with one weeks pay) and again ask the two others who wouldn’t leave to keep this confidential.
Uh-oh!
By the time I get back to my office, someone has texted Basic, congratulating her on her new job.
The texter had just received a text from someone who was in that room. This is less than a minute after I leave.
Basic slams our office door. She begins to scream at me – this was her news to tell.
I try to tell her that I was doing my job and once again said, “You’re not a real supervisor!”
Now, OP has another decision to make.
Basic continues to yell at me until she decides she needs some air. Basic points a fan on me, puts it on full blast (to shame me?) and screams, “This is not over!” and leaves – slamming the door again.
I move the fan, go to my computer HR has sent me an email copying my boss to go over what I had said.
I updated them with what was going on and they ask me if I still want Basic there for another week – it’s my call as supervisor.
Basic comes back, slams the door again, sees that I turned off the fan and puts it back on me and begins to leave a voicemail to HR to see if she can sit somewhere else for the remainder of her time there.
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The drama continues.
I email back that I would like her to be terminated today.
Basic is then called to my boss’s office. When she returns, she is very apologetic.
I learn later that my boss has said that she hasn’t decided whether or not to let her go today based on her actions and it will be based on my recommendation as her supervisor.
I say that I am going to lunch.
It didn’t end well.
By the time I get back, she’s gone.
It’s bittersweet as the department where we came from? Where so many had made fun of her, harassed her, and made sure she never got a raise?
Now they began to say how they always thought she was so kind and I was so mean to her and was an absolute witch.
It sounds like she always had Basic’s back. She always tried to help her when nobody else would. Even that last day, she was trying to help. It’s one of the people in the boss’s office who blabbed. That’s who Basic should be mad at, not OP.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
Yes, I hope there were consequences!
It’s sad that this is true.
They’re changing history.
Oh, law firms.
It’s too bad it ended that way. If she still has Basic’s personal phone number, I’d be tempted to text her and explain what actually happened. It’s sad how it ended.
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