As mentioned in an earlier post, working in the ALLTEL Legal Department was tough. Our General Counsel was one of the smartest and skilled lawyers I have ever met. He was also a demanding, impatient, unforgiving, force of nature.
As you might imagine, retention was a problem, especially with administrative assistants. About the middle of my time there we had two admin positions. One was filled with a young, capable woman. The other became something of a revolving door. In the fall, we filled that spot for the third time that year, this time with an experienced admin and the hope we had solved our problem.
Our hopes were quickly dashed. Our new hire was not prepared for the demands of our office, which led to tragic, if not comic, results.
The GC would call us often. Being impatient, he didn’t like to wait for us to pick up the phone, and was even more incensed if his call rolled over to our admin. Often irritated by this, he would curtly ask to be transferred to our voice mail, as he had no patience in dictating a message, and no confidence in our staff’s ability to correctly transcribe.
This flustered our new admin so much that on more than one occasion she would transfer his call to the wrong person – which often meant that one of us got an unexpected and withering voice mail.
After a few weeks it became apparent this wasn’t going to work, which was depressing for many reasons. First, we would once again be short staffed and looking for help. Second, our GC would, once again, note our inability to hire quality staff. Third, the holidays were coming. And last, the realization that one of us was going to have to fire this woman, who was not a bad person – just in a bad spot.
For reasons worthy of another post, I drew the short straw to let her go. This would be the first time I fired someone. Anyone that’s done it knows it’s never fun, and sometimes difficult. You learn that saying less is more, even though that may seem harsh at the time. In the movie Moneyball, Brad Pitt gets it right: “would you rather have one shot to the head or five to the heart and bleed to death?”[1]
The lawyers all agreed that I would let her go on a Friday afternoon, when things were quiet and this would draw less attention. However, when she asked for Friday off we decided to move our plans up a day.
On Thursday, we all arrived at work to find an e-mail from this admin letting us know it was the 90th day she had been working with us. She felt that it was such a milestone (actually, it was) that she baked a cake. It was sitting by her desk for everyone to stop by and enjoy.
The day wore on with even more dread. It got worse when I came back from lunch to see no one had even cut the cake. It got even worse a couple of hours later, when she began cutting the cake and bringing a piece to each of us in our office!
Dread was replaced with the realization that not only was I about to do something very cruel to this nice and unexpecting person, but I needed to do it sooner than expected. I did my best, but it didn’t go well. I tried to explain that she was a good person in the wrong spot. While that was true, I wasn’t counting on the tears. Brad Pitt was right.
We boxed up the things at her desk and prepared for her to leave. There was too much for one person to carry, so I offered to help and grabbed a couple of boxes, while she carried her cake dish and a bag. Unfortunately, everything took much longer than expected and it was now the end of work – office rush hour.
The elevator stopped at every floor, filling with people leaving for home. At every stop at least one person noticed her cake dish and commented: “Oh you made a cake for your group, how nice.” Or “Oh, you made a cake, you must work with a great group of people!”
That was the longest elevator ride of my life – all four floors.
I was frazzled when I returned to the office, and it must have shown. Our other admin teased me about my appearance. Venting my frustration for the day, all I could say was:
“Keep it up and I’ll ask you to bake me a cake!”
[1] Jonah Hill’s response is equally classic: “are those my only two options?”
Hokiejackson 
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