She's Gone

It is with much glee sadness that I have to report that the Worthless Co-Worker no longer will be around to grace us with her presence at work, and the blog for that matter. Last Thursday was her last day of (actual) work, though that wasn't determined to be the case until Saturday.

Confused, huh?

This past week has been an entertaining comedy of errors at work. All the more entertaining because I was on the sideline watching this train wreck as it unfolded. Actually the past 12 months have been the most bizarre I've seen here in the 8+ years I've worked here. It comprised of the hiring of the Worthless Co-Worker, the realization within the first week of said hiring how woefully unprepared this 30-year-old woman was equipped to navigate life, much less a job. The mishandling of her by the boss throughout her tenure here, which culminated in her resigning, switching of dates several times of said resignation end date, the throwing of people under the bus, bad decisions, and ultimately the firing of Worthless Co-Worker on Saturday.

(You know there's something to be said for doing your job well though. While that bus I mentioned in the previous paragraph ran over three different people it missed me completely. Honestly I'm taking satisfaction in that fact with a small measure of smugness. It's a "I told you so" smugness on my part that I didn't even have to verbalize, but the boss is very well aware of regardless.)

The demise of the Worthless Co-Worker managed to cast  the boss in a bad light, his boss under the same bad light, to a smaller degree, and of course a pit of utter blackness for the Worthless Co-Worker. I literally shined. I was a beacon of sanity, safely tucked away on the sideline.

While I feel a bit bad about the boss being in hot water, all due to his being too nice of a guy, he knew better. He should have dealt with her antics long ago instead of coddling her and believing he could "straighten her out." You can't can't straighten out stupid and crazy. (For those in the dark there are plenty of posts about the Worthless Co-Worker here to catch up on.) It was an impossible task.

Anyway, back to Saturday.

All three of us were scheduled to work, with the boss opening, Worthless Co-Worker scheduled in at 11:00 am, and myself scheduled in at 1:00 pm. I didn't get to see the Worthless Co-Worker though. All the drama was wrapped up by 12:15 pm, or so.

Apparently 11:00 am rolls around, and no Worthless Co-Worker. No real surprise there, she's perpetually late. At 11: 20 am the boss calls her and asks where she's at. She informs him she's sitting in her car, in the parking lot, in the midst of a panic attack and/or mental breakdown. (Cue Twilight Zone theme here.) While she's definitely a mental case we're used to this drama act of hers. He tells her to get her ass to work.

Thirty minutes goes by, and you guessed it, no Worthless Co-Worker. He calls her again to hear she's on her way back. When he asks back from where, she replied that her glasses are broke, and she had to go somewhere to get them fixed. (These are the same glasses that have been broke for two weeks now. Along with that, the mall has three eye glass stores which could do a bang up job on eye glass repairs I'd imagine.)

He's pissed now. (Finally.)

She saunters in five minutes later, sans repaired eye glasses of course, and the boss starts in on her. Apparently she informs him to feel free to "write her up", she doesn't care. I think a light bulb finally (gasp!!) goes off and the boss antes up the pot and does one better by firing her on the spot. (That boy is finally learning something.) So she's gone.

I have to admit this isn't the time of year I prefer to be short handed at work though. Our company is woefully slow in the hiring process and if we don't have someone in place by mid November it'll be January before the boss will hire anyone. December is just way too busy for hiring and training quite frankly. I think I may have shed a tear now that I've seen my schedule on Black Friday go from 4:30 am to 1:30 pm to now stretch until 5:00 pm. Color me comatose already.

Blogging may have to take a bit of the backseat as well. Fewer days off and longer work days will be the order of the day for a couple of months. Not sure if I'll be posting less frequently but perhaps much shorter posts. That may actually relieve some of you folks though who wade through the mini-novels of spewage I subject you to normally. I guess bigger paychecks will be nice, but that isn't something I obsess over in all honestly. We'll see how this all pans out I guess.

Oh.... before I forget. Happy Halloween for those who think this day is a big deal, and stuff. May your tricks and treats be of the awesome variety.