Process

I posted yesterday, I really did. The post with the image from the picnic WAS posted yesterday and why it posted with the day before is mystery. Oh well forward.

My boss confided in me that she was going to terminate one of the employees on Friday. I was sworn silence and just as well, but I don’t do things in silence well. I was on edge all day Black Friday as the employee to be gone texted me all day since Chapman was gone—the employee had no clue. I know my demeanor was different, I was not as funny and cute in my return texts—one or two word responses—as I usually am. I was experiencing survivors guilt. I dove into work I should have done during the bosses absence, like the guilty man trying to was his hands free of damning evidence. I dashed to lunch as soon as I could. I thought about staying out an extra long time but wondered back after sixty short minutes and the employee took off for her lunch as soon as I returned. I returned to my work. About an hour later I heard a visitor enter the office and start talking to the boss going straight to the bosses and the door shut and the murmurs, the dreaded murmurs from the Director’s office. I worked and prayed the phone calls would come and keep me busy saving the world for people with disabilities and press the clock toward quitting time.

The door opened and I heard more muffled discussion from up front, the “keys” surrendered, “P” card left on the desk and I.T. privileges revoked. The visitor was from “State” sent to make sure things went down legally. There was no screaming, pleading or dealing making just the methodical, procedural process of asking someone to leave, asking a vocational family member to “step off” into the ocean of unemployment. The conversations I heard were even cordial, surprisingly so. I was shocked as my copy of Japanese Death Poems magically showed back up in my desk.

The employee was gone when I went to the kitchen to turn off the coffee maker and drain the coffee. I glanced into her office when I passed: empty, tidy, and quiet. Ready for the new person who ever she might me. Bad news travels fast and I was not surprised to see an email notification flash onto my screen It was Chapman wanting to know “If all hell had broken loose.” I played dumb( easy roll for me). I hedged and avoided but eventually told her I had a little fore knowledge and I could feel Chapman recoil from the phone like she had just found my name on the State Registry. And just finished the call by saying she would see me Monday.

Frank left about 3:30 leaving me and director to rehash the events of the day—it was difficult. We defused it had to be done—like a hard night on the Hotline you have to defuse and decompress. She sent me home at 4:00 saying she would watch the phones. I was not worried there’s hardly any calls late Friday afternoon.