Boss of the year

My job isn't perfect, but I'm reminded how good it is when I hear wacky stories from this place I used to work. I got a note from a former coworker letting me know that three people of a 12-person company had put in their two weeks' notice to protest the firing of another employee. Turns out, said fired employee was looking for another job. She had written up her resume and had left it in her desk drawer. The thing is it was written to seem as though she'd been at her current job longer than she really had. The CEO found her resume, presumed she must have lied about her other employment history. Though she was good at what she did doing a job that is hard that one wants to do, especially for the measly pay, the paranoid CEO convinced his second in command to let her go.

The most remarkable part of this story is how the CEO got her resume in the first place. He got it by going through her desk drawers. Seriously. What kind of paranoia makes you go through someone's desk drawer? That's even worse than Michael Scott. I've heard of companies that monitor e-mail and Web usage. I can ever understand monitoring long-distance phone calls. But what white collar office CEO has the time and energy to rifle through the desks of $12 an hour employees looking for incriminating information? Get a life, man! The guy is totally nuts.

That job is what I imagine an abusive relationship is like. We all knew it was bad, we all knew deep down it wasn't going to change, but for some strange reason, we all felt trapped. Having lived through my experiences there, when people at my current job complain about this or that, I'm glad I have the perspective to know the difference between annoying general work crap and a truly hostile work environment. Course, if I was still working there when Andy came along, you can bet I would have left by now. Leaving him is only okay because I'm going to a job I generally like, with people I usually get along with, doing work that is interesting. Otherwise, it just wouldn't be worth it.