The Horrifying Firing of John
The following story has changed the names of the individuals involved in the story.
One of my first jobs involved a high turnover industry. The company struggled to keep any position for more than a few weeks. Even though I disliked the work, I lacked the skill to get a different job. My first lesson in work involved learning how to make the best of a bad situation.
While difficult, I am grateful for this. I also learned another valuable lesson about talent that I still think about today.
One summer, we hired an individual to share my workload. My work had become repetitive and I wanted more responsibility. John was able to share the repetitive work and he worked exceptionally well meeting objectives. For the first time in a year, I was able to do a broader range of work. My manager shared some of his responsibilities with me that allowed me to increase my skill. For the first time since starting the job, I felt excited about the growth.
John worked exceptionally well and demonstrated that he could survive the high turnover environment. As he and I talked, I learned that he had experienced these types of environments at other positions. His skill was not only learning quickly, but also handling high pressure.
But John’s employment would soon change.
One night I came into work and my manager told me that he had fired John. I felt stunned. "Why?"
"He harassed Jenna," my manager replied. "We don't tolerate harassment of any kind no matter how good John was. I know you like working with him because he was reliable. But his harassment is not something we tolerate."
"You saw him harass Jenna?"
My manager paused for a bit, "No. Jenna told me that he harassed her. I actually don't recall them talking to each other, but I'm guessing it's because he made inappropriate remarks to her."
Unfortunately, I had to return to doing the repetitive work I had grown bored of doing. Even though I felt frustration, I also felt bad for Jenna. Jenna along with two other employees had the low pressure responsibility of our job. Jenna and I had been working together for a year and the manager never asked her to do high pressure work.
Since Jenna and I were both young, we had enjoyed each other's company outside of work. Over time, we developed feelings for each other and continued to spend time together. Because of the job environment and us both being young, neither of us viewed our out-of-work situation as inappropriate. After working in corporate America I would never dream of doing anything like this now. I knew that my frustration about the work situation didn't outweigh that someone I liked was being harassed. I accepted the situation as unfortunate.
When Jenna came into work that night, I said to her, "I'm sorry to hear that John harassed you. I hope you're okay and he didn't hurt you."
She smiled and looked around us before saying, "I made it all up. John didn't actually harass me. I just didn't like him so I told our manager that he harassed me because I knew our manager would fire him."
I felt stunned. Jenna had lied. My feelings for Jenna immediately changed.
I realized that my professional growth was being stunted because she simply disliked John. I knew at the time that I lacked the skill to handle the situation. I also knew that if I confronted our manager that it would end poorly for me. I had no mentors to reach out to either and wouldn't have known how to ask for help.
I put in my two weeks. While I felt disgusted about the whole situation at the time, I am grateful for this story. I learned how to work a high turnover job with intense pressure - a skill that has paid big dividends throughout my life. I also learned how poor talent management costs. Finally, I’ve learned key skills in employee investigations that I don’t share publicly. Without this painful story, I would have missed some key moments in my life.
The company no longer exists.