It’s *so* much worse than I thought

OK, first things first, the District HR lady can’t get in touch with the guy she’s trying to bring back. He won’t answer the phone or return her calls. so she (and everyone else involved) is getting a little frustrated.

Now, on to the meaty part. It seems that the situation that has been stirred up at the store has now been turned over to our Internal Affairs/Office of Professional Responsibility/whatever else you want to call it. It is now out of the district manager’s and the district HR rep’s hands. Not even a regional VP can over ride any decision these guys make: any appeal has to go to the head corporate HR weenie, who is not known for his benevolence when it comes to these situations. In other words, if they "find your lack of faith disturbing" then you’re gone. Done. History. No longer with the company. Crap.

I wouldn’t worry so much except Other Senior Manager has said that Facility Manager trash talked all of us (her included) to the District Manager and the HR rep. I don’t know if he was trying to divert attention, if he really means what he’s said, or if Other Senior Manager is just screwing with us. As far as I know she’s only told two of us that. When she told me, I asked what he could possibly have said about me, and she thought for a second and said he actually didn’t have anything bad to say about me, but he trashed almost everyone else on the management team. Of course, she may have said that to BuckBuck #4 (Twiggy) as well, who is the only one of us that’s mentioned it.

She *thinks* the recommendation by IA was to terminate the three top managers in the store, but that the District Manager is fighting to try to save her, since no one has really had anything bad to say about her with the exception of one of the managers, and we’re pretty sure it’s Twiggy since they have a history together at another store. I told her what I said in my interview, flat out. I told the HR rep that her first two weeks at the store were a little rough, but she had just been promoted and moved to a new store so that’s to be expected. I also mentioned that we (the other managers at my level) were unaccustomed to operating with as much oversight as we now had since we had been short a third upper manager for so long (it took six weeks to replace Queeg, then right after the current Facility Manager came in a Senior Manager got promoted to Facility Manager and it took several months to replace him) and we needed to be reigned back in a bit.

Of course I again have to wonder what the District team has go to be thinking right now: I didn’t know there was an investigation going on and I’m the only one Facility Manager *didn’t* trash in his interview about the situation at the store. So am I a lovable incompetent like Barney Fife that people just keep around for sheer amusement, am I so wrapped up in my own little world that I don’t notice what’s going on around me, or am I a paragon of managerly virtue and integrity that just does what needs doing for the simple reason it needs doing and to hell with everything and everyone else?

It sounds absurd, but every since I heard it in, there is one quote from Angel that has just stuck in my head, and I take it to heart as best I can:

Live as though the world were as it should be, in order to show it what it can be.

An absurdly high standard, and I know I frequently fall short, but I have to wonder if that’s the attitude that’s kept me out of the fray ever since I’ve been at the store? Who knows.