Hope everyone had a great weekend. Here at the compound things were pretty quiet. The winds presented a problem in completing the 50-foot speaker towers going up next to us, but there’s plenty of time to get everything done. I told the wife that we should go into Woodward to attend the opening of the new art exhibit at the Plains Indians and Pioneers Museum. Only problem was, I had the wrong day. The exhibit doesn’t start until May 9th. Eh well, it’ll give us something to do this coming weekend.
The artist exhibiting is Kiana Prather, a high school senior from Mooreland. From what I’ve seen of her work to this point, she is way beyond her years in terms of talent. I’m certain it will be a great event and would encourage all of my loyal blog followers (all none of you) to attend the event. I sat out on the porch of the compound this morning drinking my coffee wondering why the hell the Woodward News doesn’t publish on Saturdays or Mondays. At one point, I was having a stare-down with a jackrabbit that had come to the edge of our now lush (and slightly overgrown) yard. I could tell Mr. Jack was weighing a delightful breakfast of my lawn against the 12 gauge propped against the wall next to me. Mr. Jack disappeared back into the sage brush (smart choice on his part). With that solved, I turned to the internet for news. I came across an article on the Huffington Post site that I thought might be of interest as a blog post. The article was about a guy (TV news director) in Tucson who found a (presumably better) job as a director in Nashville. He decided to be all cutesy about tendering his resignation and took advantage of new cake making technology (somehow those three words just don’t seem to want to go together) that allows the cake maker to use an image to decorate a cake. In other words, if you want to use a photo to decorate the cake, somehow a computer puts that image into the frosting on top – it’s friggin’ magic I’m telling you (how’s that for a technical explanation?). This guy thought he would be clever and reduce everyone’s “disappointment” over his departure by decorating a cake with an image of his resignation letter. What a jackass. I suppose that might work if everyone who worked with you genuinely loves you and throws their arms around your legs begging you not to go. Generally though…that’s not the case when you leave a job for any reason. Over the past 15 (too, too many) years I’ve been in various management positions with a variety of companies…non-profits (even some that were intended to be for-profit); government contractors; tech companies…I’ve had hire/fire responsibilities, which also meant I was the guy who received resignation letters. Of people that I had to terminate: I had one woman kind of leap at me like she was going to attack; another woman threatened me with bodily harm at some point in future (still keep an eye peeled for her); I had a man throw up on the conference room table we were seated at (to his credit, he cleaned it up); and, still another man who fainted when I gave him the news. Of the people who submitted resignation letters: There was a woman who began weeping inconsolably when I took possession of her resignation (look, if you don’t want to leave, you don’t have to); another who told me to kiss her ass (I soooo wanted to tell her to bare it); a man who told me I would someday work for him (still waiting for the call on that one); and, the man who told me he was resigning because he was being sexually harassed (first time anyone in the company knew it was going on) by the woman I mentioned above who looked ready to attack (now you know why she was terminated). The point here is that in no circumstance did I ever beg anyone to stay. If you resign a position, be it for a better position, more money, whatever…you do it and leave. It’s that simple. No need to make a grand exit. So he passes the resignation cake to his boss, who apparently kind of laughed it off and then took the cake into an afternoon meeting to make the announcement that Mr. Wonderful was leaving. According to the guy, it made disappointing news a “bit more palatable.” Admittedly, I wasn’t there. I don’t know the guy. Maybe he was the Universe’s gift to TV news in Tucson. This just seemed rather condescending bordering on sheer arrogance. Now it would really have been funny if his boss had refused the resignation and then smashed the cake in his face just before the TV news security crew escorted him out. Nothing says “I’m out of here” like a Three Stooges gag. Comments are closed.
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