39. The First Thing She Did
This is the first and only person I fired in my 5 years as a manager.
One of my student employees had two on-campus jobs. She was fired from her other one before coming in for her shift for me (IT Help Desk), and the first thing she did was change her old boss’ password, delete the emails that said she was fired, and send a couple of emails out basically saying “just kidding she’s not fired.”
All of this stuff is tracked, so I found out immediately. I brought her in for a meeting, told her what I knew, and asked “Am I right in my version of this story?” She nodded and started crying, I felt terrible, but I said “You’ve left me no choice but to fire you. I also have to report this to the university board of ethics.”
She cried in my office for a while, and I asked her if I could call a friend to take her somewhere, or if there was anything she wanted to talk about. She finally looked up at me and asked, “Does this mean I won’t get to decorate the help desk for Christmas?”
I didn’t really feel bad after that.