Paging John Coffee: We Need Karmic Cancer Redistribution Stat!

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay, this affects somebody I barely know- he’s not a good friend of mine, though he is the co-worker/former boss of my closest friend. It’s just makes me so fucking furious, though, when the bad guys win in cases like this, and the bitch who fired him probably will. I hope it’s just a temporary victory for the Evil Ones, but even if it is it still makes me want to bail out Squeaky Fromme for a night for one last game of Creepy-Crawly.

Some back story: For years I worked in group homes and other residential settings for the mentally retarded and the mentally ill (with more than a few Venn Diagram overlaps of the twain- for those who aren’t familiar, it’s very possible to be both, but I digress). I made the acquaintance of a guy I’ll call Rick (because that’s not his name). Rick’s a very nice guy, super hard working, the only annoying thing about him really being his Bostonian “poddon me while I pock my cah in hah-vahd yod” accent, but I’m willing to forgive him for that in light of the brain tumor (but I’m getting ahead of myself).
I didn’t work with him super closely or at any length, but had some pleasant conversations with him and learned to think of him as a “guy to go to who’ll help you even when he’s got the work of 8 other people on his desk” type person. You’ve all known them (if you’re lucky).

Well, Rick was never one of my speed-dial friends- I don’t think I ever socialized with him outside of work- but when my best-good friend and ex-, “Earl”, moved to Atlanta and got a job with a residential facility for the retarded I noticed the name of his boss and said “Oh, hey, I know him. That’s Good Rick. Tell him I said hi.”

“Hi Rick” said Earl to Rick. “Jon says hi Rick too.”

“Oh, hi Earl” said Rick. “I remember Jon.”

“Hi Jon” said Rick through Earl.

“I’m a lesbian” said Jodie Foster, finally.

“You’re not in this OP thread Jodie” said Jon.

“Still a lesbian though” said Jodie.

“Duh…” said Jon, Earl, Rick, the Mormon’s Tabernacle Choir, Wilford Brimley, and people who never heard of lesbians before but knew whatever they were Jodie Foster probably was one. And then we returned to our regular pitting already in progress.

So, I tell Earl “You’ll like Rick” and for the reasons above, and Earl very much did, very much does. In the years since I last knew him, Rick has (obviously) moved to Atlanta, finished his grad work, married, had a couple of little ones, and been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor that’s metastasized to his glands (or vice versa). It’s not responding to chemo. He’s about my age (40ish) and the future, though not hopeless, is neither certain nor cheerful.

Even so, Rick worked 60-70 hour weeks in his jobs until this week (I should mention that Rick’s not dead). By all accounts he was wonderful at his job. Always has worked his ass off, still does, even though he’s 40ish with two small kids and has the sword of Damocles oscillating above him. I think Rick is the kind of person who HAS to work 60-70 weeks if he’s going to deal with this type of thing. God bless all the Ricks of the world.

But I won’t say God bless us everyone, for that would include the Kevins of the world as well. (I’ll call him Kevin because that’s not his name, though I’d love to give his real name. And address. And phone number. And see Fromme, Squeaky- one last Creepy Crawly.)

You’ve all known Kevins as well. How to describe Kevin… well, to quote Ann Coulter, “last I heard fag is considered hate speech” so I won’t say that, even though presumably I’m immune (though I’m sure 28 hijacks would say differently). But he just makes you wonder aloud "Where’sJohn Coffee “Like the drank, only not spelt the same” when you need him to do a karma-based oncological transfer?

So how to describe Kevin, I repeat…

Well, lest cancer stray at all from your mind I’ll use that for an analogy for Kevin (who doesn’t, unfortunately, have cancer- one of those ). A great thing about SDMB is that I can say “So you guys know the story of Bloody Mary’s pregnancy…” and most of you actually really honest-to-Og no-fakin’ no-foolin’ will, but for those who don’t here it is in a nutshell:

Well, when I get back.

2

So for those who don’t know the story: Poor Mary Tudor was the unloved daughter of Henry VIII, forcibly separated from her beloved and sainted mother by her father, forced to know her mother lived in near poverty while her dad stole the sainted woman’s jewels and put them on his bitch of a new wife, forced to carry her bastard little brat of a half-sister around at her christening for fear of her life, forced to see Daddy march bratty little bastard around all dressed in gold and pink on the same day Mary’s mother dies, and when she gets the news of her mother’s autopsy they found her heart was shrivelled and black, probably because stepcunt put a hex on it (her three nippled witch bitch of a self). Oh, there was some smile when Dad took stepcunt’s head, but it didn’t stop Mary from knowing how her own mom had suffered. Oy, how she suffered.

Then you all know what comes next: four more stepmoms, a baby brother, you’re in favor, you’re out of favor, Dad loves and wants to see you, Dad’s thinking about having you imprisoned or executed or married to a German, Dad’s dying. DAD REGRETS THE WAY HE TREATED MOM AND IS GOING TO LEAVE YOU THE CROWN! GOD BE PRAISED!
Oh nope, sorry, we hath most rightly snopesed it and found tis rumor… the crown goes to thy baby brother.
Another six years of waiting, six years of longing, six years of celibacy, six of years of praying, six years of being plotted against, all in cold damp rooms, six years of knowing you’re hated, all on top of what you endured with your mom and dad, and then one day…
Well, we’ll do it in the form of a new discovered lost fragments transcribed from her inner and outer dialogue and found in the toilets of Windsor Castle and written in the first person:
The Logia Apocryphon of Bloody Mary’s False Pregnancy (and of tymes before and afterward)
from fragments transcribed from her inner and outer dialogue and found in the toilets of Windsor Castle and written in the first person
by her latter day courtier and channeler Sampiro

THE CROWN IS MINE!!! GOD BE PRAISED! WHAT A GLORIOUS DAY THIS SH

Jane who? Jane Cousin Frankie’s daughter that looks like that Helena Bonham Carter Jane? Are you fucking kidding me! SHIT! Why can’t things ever be drama free just for a single fucking day… Jesu Maria et Josephum!
Alright, it’s nine days later, but at least I’m crowned.

Meetings, bloody meetings. Hi how ya doing, smile and wave. That smiling jackal’s the same one who took mom’s rings off her fingers the fucking bastard. I’ll smile at him, it’s enough that he’s fucking terrified, but I’ll be tolerant, I promised. The Lord is surely with me.
That fucking bitch is a cousin of Jane Bonham Graycarter’s husband the prick Smile and Wave No I don’t want to see my ‘baby sister’ Elizabeth tell her to go straight to Hell and say hi to dad and stepcunt while she’s there no, I said to Wales, go straight to Wales… or just go straight to… dinner. I’ll see her later.
How the fuck many times does Archbishop Thomas think that “Wacky Cranmer Entrance” is supposed to be funny? I promised to be tolerant, chin up, oh fucking great all these accursed backstabbing heretics and stepcunt’s little pup and now my period starts…
My period starts— how old am I? 38… I’m still fertile! Of course! I’ll be married! I’ll marry a Catholic! What’s Uncle Charlie’s boy’s name, the one who sent me a New World sombrero for Christmas last year… Philip of Spain, perfect. Bingo. I’ve heard he’s pious and devout and scholarly and hung like a hippo… at least that’s what was on his Christmas card…artful how he rhymed it with Felipe.

Wedding day- wonderful. Bloated. Still nice. Not what I dreamed it would be but what is?
Looking forward to the wedding night. Felipe lippy bo bippy banana fanna fo fippy… hippo! I just can’t do it. My groom is truly gifted.

Last night. The wedding night… well that was… … yeah. Though can only get better. Perhaps he was nervous, or just hadn’t ever seen what a real woman looks like when she’s ‘in the mood’ and ‘au naturel’, wearing nothing but a crucifix and a locket with a piece of the Placenta of St. Ann in it. Well… tonight will be different. I’ll play some sexy virginals and light some candles and let him be the sovereign. For a little while anyway. Too many back problems to abdicate more than a few minutes.

Felipe is, I’m thinking… not all that jiggy wythe me…

No, I fear tis not still.

Okay… calleth me Mother Superior, cause I’m gettin’ nun in my bed. And now he’s gone back to Spain. Hasta la vista baby. I prefer the hysteria treatments anyway.
I’M PREGGERS! HOLY JESUS! FINALLY!
OH THIS IS A BLESSED DAY! LET’S SEE… I WANT TO THANK GOD, JESUS, SAINT BERNADETTE has she been canonized yet?, ST. ANN, ST. TERESA, MY AGENTS JIMMY SAPERSTEIN AND SAUL BLOOMBURG, MY EXCHEQUORS, FATHER AVISA FOR PERFORMING THE WEDDING, THE CRAZY HAG WHO GAVE ME THE BOAR’S TOOTH FOR FERTILITY, MY HAIRDRESSER MADGE, AND… STOP PLAYING THAT FUCKING VIRGINALS OR I’M OFFING YOUR HEAD, THE SPEECH WILL TAKE HOWEVER FUCKING LONG IT TAKES! And… ah well… let’s get the crowned heads of Europe together for a shower. Hope they give me a barge-seat for the babe. I’m thinking Mary Catherine if it’s a girl, for me and the virgin and for mom, blessed be their holy souls and mine, and Jack Dakota if it’s a boy…

Losing my figure here. Well, at least the baby’s growing.

What’s Flippo mean by ‘who’s the dad?’ You of course, thou farte! Hello! We did sleep together just a year before I got pregnant! (Hippo my ass. Hippos must be smaller than they look in the pictures.)

Sore nipples. Sore everything.

Sore everything.

This hurts like hell.

It’s been 7 months. Is it wrong to hope it comes early?

It’s been 8 months. I asked the old hag for something to induce labor. She gave me dried bones and pearl cream and duct tape, said it usually does the trick.

FUCK! Didn’t work.

Nine months. The old hag says any day now.

Nine months, two weeks. Old hag says sometimes it happens. Oh well. Close your eyes and think of England. Which is to say, me.

TEN MONTHS! I asked the old hag to give me something to induce labor- NOW! She looked and fretted and mumbled then said “beggin’ your pardon mum, tain’t my place, but I fear tis not a babby 'tall” like she’s auditioning for some Frog Eye Alabama Community Players production of fucking PYGMALION.
So I had her killed. She was a Protestant anyway.
Now there’s an idea…

That’s it— the Protestants. God won’t let the baby be born til the Protestants are all gone! Ooooooh Tommy Boy, you picked the wrong day to do that Wacky Cranmer Entrance…
Tenth month. Third week. Spent it killing Protestants. Bought a candy bar, had my legs waxed. Burned some more heretics, read a poem, went to bed early.

Eleventh month. First week. Killed Protestants. Had the Papal Legate over for dinner, we played Parchesi. Went to bed early.

Eleventh month, third week. Killed some Protestants, tried tiramisu (pretty good really) and sushi (hated it- had the chef killed- at least something got cooked <G>- looked Protestant). Did my calisthenics, burned some Lutherans, got a facial, burned a Zwinglian (not sure what that is but sounds Protestant to me), wrote a letter to Uncle Charlie, went to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night, couldn’t get back to sleep, killed a Protestant family in Leeds, went back to bed.

Eleventh month, fourth week. Killed some Protestants, had an omelette (bacon and avocado and garlic- sounds better than it tasted). Had a weird dream last night about a singing dog chasing me naked through some place called Chicago where I was late for something called a final exam… asked Father Michael about it. He said it’s a subconscious need to burn more Protestants. Indulged it. Slept soundly.

Twelfth month. Alright, work with me here Lord, Virgin and Omnium Sancti… you gotta give me at least some idea of who you want me to burn. I’ll do it, just kind of nudge me. I really need to have this thing.

Twelfth month. First week. Walked from the palace to the wharves to the summer palace to the winter palace to the Buckstars for cacao, doing crosswords whole way, never had trouble seeing because burning Protestants lit the whole way.

Heard a Protestant bitch being burned today gave birth right there at the stake. The men present tossed the baby back into the flames. Baptism by barbecue we called it when we heard the news. We laughed. We all agreed it’s what Jesus would have done.
Twelfth month second week.

Just gotta hang in there. My life’s been a big steaming pile of shit up til now and I’ll admit sometimes my faith weakened, but I always knew it was all for a purpose. It’s for this purpose. It was all to prepare me for this glorious birth. This child. This savior. This England. This child is the culmination of everything I’ve ever wanted. With this child my faith takes flesh and blood and form. With this child I know my religion and my life and all existence itself has meaning. I just have to keep my chin up, burn some Protestants, and keep my faith. The baby is all that matters. I am a vessel and I’m jiggy with that.

Twelfth month, third week.

I’m hated. I’m despised. I’m loathed. I’m soaked up to my neck in blood. Many of them are innocent. One was a newborn. My husband hates me. My people hate me. My priest hates me. My dog hates me. I hate me. I’m wondering if God hates me. When the baby comes he’ll probably hate me.

Twelfth month, whatever week

Just gotta hang in there. The baby makes it all worth while… culmination and faith and flesh… Dakota if it’s a boy Mary Catherine for a girl… just gotta hang in there… I’m hated everyone hates me they call me bloody Mary but it’s all worthwhile Dakota will usher in the Millennium of Peace and

Thirteenth month.

Mom came to me in a dream last night and said “Wake up and smell the Michael Clarke Duncan Magical Negro character. It’s not a fucking baby.”

She’s right.

Deathbed

I’m dying. I’m soaked in blood. None of it’s my own.
Bless me father for I have sinned. I want my mommy.

Like the drink but not spelt the same…

Tell my sister she can have my crown when she takes it off my cold dead head. Noon’s good for me.

Hung like a hippo my ass…

Jack Dakota if it’s a b

Here endeth.

Okay, in the above scenario: picture the day when Mary realized she wasn’t pregnant, that it was a tumor, that she was hated, that a lot of shit had just happened and the people were going to get away with it, that she was almost as bad as her father had been just in an upside down and backwards sort of way- and yes I know it happened over years and not all the same day and that the pregnancy story is [true but] exaggerated… just imagine that all these realizations happen in one moment, and that moment is on her deathbed. Okay, got that image?
Mary is at that moment as bitter, vile, despicable, wretched, twisted, self-pitying, self-exonerating, and utterly pathetic a queen as Kevin.

3

Okay, I wrote the above and even I don’t know what it’s about. Except when something really pisses me I get weird and indulge every tangent, but not so you’d notice.

To make up for lost time I promise no more major digressions. The story in a nutshell:

Rick went to work at a non-profit in Atlanta. He has brain cancer but still works 60 hours a week and more. He has two little kids. He’s worked there for about a year.

His boss Kevin is a despicable monster of an evil little bitchy bitter self absorbed self exonerating queen, the kind, just a bitter wretched evil person who blames everything on the fact he’s gay or, if the person who hates him happens to be gay, on the fact he’s too intelligent for his job. Looks a bit like Andy Dick (I’ve met him a couple of times) and the employees I know all have the same story: he’s a Dahmer without guts. Whether it was a white gay male or not, you’ve known a Kevin, probably.

About 12 positions report to Kevin’s. In the past year, 8 have resigned and been replaced. Rick was one of the replacements. You would think that this kind of turnover rate would raise red flags, but apparently not. You’ve probably known situations like this: upper management will admit “Yes, we know, he’s impossible to work for”, “Yes, we know he’s… got issues, but we’re working on it”, but in the end nothing is done. Jackshit. Nada. Sejanus is loosed.

As with most Sejanuses/Caligulas/Thomas Cromwell’s (returning to Tudor analogies but only for this), you know that they’re usually going to get their comeuppance. One day their head will very likely be on the pike and being pelted by rocks and garbage, tis true (though not always), but tis also a hollow victory, because by then they’ve ruined careers and lives.

So, Rick’s cancer is known to everybody. He’s completely up front about it- has to be since he’s gone bald. Kevin cut him absolutely no slack. Okay, fine, I accept that sort of- it’s a busy place and Rick likes work.

One day Rick was vomiting. He had to catch up on paperwork- mountains of it- but it was stuff he could do at home (he had the files and his laptop), so he spent all day at home catching up on his files. Kevin admitted it was great work- he never expected him to finish that fast- by the way you have to take a sick day for yesterday even though you spent it working.

This may not seem unreasonable except that Rick works in an office, not with the clients. It isn’t really necessary for him to come into that office to do his work as his files are on his laptop which was at home, and Kevin conceded that yes, the work (much of which was piled on him by Kevin last minute) had been done. Rick has no sick time or vacation time or any other leave because of his cancer, and also because of his cancer his finances are shot, so whenever he has to take sick leave it means unpaid leave and he’s already behind in his bills. But Kevin was a dick: Rick had to take sick time. So he did.

Another time Rick’s daughter was sick and he had to stay home with her. He completely realized that “this isn’t the [non profit charitable] company’s problem”, but he came in on the weekend, with Kevin’s supervisor’s approval, to make up the time so as not to cost him money. Nope, Kevin said, he couldn’t do that= would set a precedent. He had to take sick time. When told that Kevin’s supervisor, who we’ll call Mina, had approved it, Kevin called a conference with Mina and Rick in which Mina apologized to Rick that no, sorry, she really overstepped her position: Kevin is Rick’s superior and she shouldn’t have said that without clearing it with him (again: she’s Kevin’s superior!), so he’ll have to take sick leave.

Now, all of the residential managers under Kevin hate him with a passion. They all say that he flatly makes shit up. (Could share some great stories there but I won’t in interest of time.) Let’s just say that he’s not only universally despises, but he’s completely unethical, and yet his boss does nothing to him (Tiberius to his Sejanus I suppose).

After two more resignations and lots of minor and not so minor shit, Rick asked for a confidential talk with Mina… strictest confidence, Kevin not to be there. She agreed to it. He voiced all of his concerns about Kevin, asked to be relieved from Kevin’s authority, pointed out all of the people who fucking named Kevin in their resignation as why they were leaving, and she agreed “Yeah, something’s got to be done. We know. We’re watching him. We have a file on him, already. I promise he won’t know we talked. I’ll keep you posted.”

Rick said (to Earl, and others) that about two days after his confidential meeting with Mina, Kevin became absolutely psychotically unbearable, even for Kevin. It was clearly revenge.

Monday of this week they had a training session. When you work with non-profits they’re always having these things about something or another, whether it’s sexual harassment or some new software or whatever. Some are more important than others obviously, but none are “This is the one and only time this training will ever be available in all the history of time” stuff. True, they’re mandatory, but obviously if you don’t attend for whatever reason, there can be something done (for after all, when you leave they’ll have to train your replacement in it- right? Of course right!)

Still, mandatory training is a big thing, and you should get in trouble for knowingly skipping it if you don’t have a good excuse. I understand this.

Rick has a brain tumor. Rick woke up blind. He could see vague shapes and a milky white light, but that’s it. He could not see, he fell down getting out of his bedroom, he had to have his wife come home and drive him to the ER. Needless to say, it was related to his tumor. He was in the hospital for a day. Today he showed up at work.

Kevin asked to see him in Mina’s office. They fired him. Kevin said that missing the training on Monday was “the last straw” because “we’ve talked to you about this sort of thing before” (the sick days and other such shit). When he told them what had happened- which he’d already told him- these two people, both of them with advanced degrees, both of them affiliated with a multimillion dollar “do gooder” non profit organization, both told him “You should have called.”

Alexis Zorba: “You hear that boss? He was blind from brain cancer— he could’ve been dying for all he knew---- but, he should have called. Because there was a ‘training session’.”
I am glad to say that Rick, who is known for being one of the easiest going workaholics you’ll ever want to meet, went absolutely apeshit. He burned every bridge he could find and dropped bombs on the foundations, calling her every kind of sawed off stupid cunt he could think of and telling Kevin that “if there’s any such thing as karma you’ll die in a shit stained bed of dehydration from AIDS because nobody will give a goddamn about coming to check on you because you’re a miserable prancing evil stereotype who needs to go straight to hell”. (And, gay as I am, I take not the slightest bit of offense at anything other than the fact Rick probably said it in that damned Hah-vid Yod accent.)

CONCLUSION COMING

4

So Rick, in my experience and in that of everybody who has ever known him one of the best and hardest working colleagues you could ever hope for, the father of two small children, the quality of whose work not one person anywhere ever criticized, whose finances are suffering from his illness and his bosses (at the, again, non-profit do gooder agency) was fired less than two weeks before Christmas for not calling in to say he wouldn’t attend a session due to the fact he was blind from brain cancer. And I have this from the absolutely most reliable of sources.

I want to fucking reach through Kevin’s throat and take one of Kevin’s kidneys out with a pair of heated-til-they’re-glowing-red nutpickers and then get mean. What I really want is for a John Coffee redistribution, because the wrong person is seriously ill. And Mina, the cunt who let the bitter evil queen do this- goddamn them. I’d love to send Kevin to Michael Vick’s dogfighting buddies (“use him- nobody will press charges”) and her to a Blackwater bachelor party and then when they’re back laugh at them while burning their houses and assembling a strappado/rack/orificial pear combo piece that would make Savonarola shit himself and hide in a gay porn store to get away from the sight of it.

We are all begging Rick to go to a lawyer. Twixt disabilities acts and other such things there has got to be a loophole to any contract. At very least he can expose this non-profit as the type of place where a bitch gay asshole-atheist (one of the types who will not keep his opinions to himself but insists on bullying anybody who mentions religion around him- as in, I’m a gay atheist and he’s the type of gay and the type of atheist I hate) and a stupid cunt with advanced degrees will fire a man for having brain cancer (because essentially that’s the actual reason they fired him) two weeks before Christmas, knowing how much it would devastate his family. I would love to see Kevin and Mina both on television with that “poor woman who got forced by her boss to appear on camera” fall-guy in the Michael Moore films, chuckling nervously and trying to act composed when she knows that everything she’s saying is bullshit and she knows that anybody watching knows that she knows it’s bullshit, but she still has to keep towing the line because otherwise the world will end" look. I would love to see her and Kevin tarred and feathered, ridden around Stone Mountain on a rail, and then mistaken for piñatas by illegal immigrants children who are already pissed off and then mistaken for “a wicked place to dump” by dogs and homeless people.

But what pisses me off is that the more likely scenario: Rick won’t see a lawyer (he’s so sick and he’s so weak), the place will keep on making commercials with these evil smiling fuckers with their arms around retarded people, and they’ll both keep their positions until the place is a complete catastrophe, whereupon they’ll be allowed to resign, and they’ll both get jobs in another place.

Though Rick did at least say one thing that made them turn pale: he didn’t mean it the way it sounded, he said, and it didn’t occur to him how it sounded until later, but as he was leaving he said something to the effect of “You know, there’s a good chance that I don’t have much time left anyway. I wouldn’t mind if bring you two evil bitches down wasn’t the last thing I did.”
He meant “bringing them down” in the “get you fired/exposed” way, but… if they choose to think he meant something more violent, that might be fun to play with as well.

Anyway, not point, just a very very heavily pissed off rant.

Evil people suck.

But they don’t get beheaded nearly enough.

5

PS- In case anybody reading this wasn’t aware, a reference to the day’s news that Jodie Foster has come out.

6

I’ve always been a big Jodie fan. But shouldn’t this thread be in Cafe Society?

7

Question the first: Did Rick document any of this shit? If he didn’t, he may well be up shit creek.

Question the second: Is there any way to convince Rick that while he might not care one way or the other for a lawsuit and settlement, given his health, that may well be vitally important for his family.

Finally, since Rick seems to be such a good guy and caring about others, has anyone made the point to him that he could take a stand about these two pogrockets, and stop them from running roughshod over other people in the future? After all, one doesn’t need to be mentally ill, nor mentally retarded to be a victim of workplace abuse and harassment. And such can exacerbate mental defects into full-fledged illnesses.

And, yeah, I know I’m advocating something I wouldn’t do, myself. I’ve suspected for a while I could win an ADA suit vs. McD’s and anywhere else I’d applied in the past several years, but somehow the payoff just never seems worth the hassle.

8

Ah, another fractured history lesson by Sampiro. Just what I needed this morning.

Nothing but the best of wishes for your friend. I really hope his last days can be made better, and that his family makes it through all of this.

9

It’s Coffey - like the drink, only spelled different.

10

Maybe John Coffey can also do something to transfer early-onset Alzheimer’s from Terry Pratchett to someone more deserving.

11

Is it okay that this is one of the few times I skimmed through a Sampiro opus to actually get to the point? :smiley:

12

He may not want to use his remaining time fighting a lawsuit, but surely he can collect unemployment, since he was fired?

13

Damn.

Yeah, lawsuit time - because I get the feeling that him getting fired probably screws up any company life-insurance or 401K he might have had, too.

Just Damn.

(But I had JF pegged 20 years ago…)

14

I sent Ivylad the link about Jodie Foster…he said he kind of knew, but it doesn’t change the fact he had a huge crush on her from *Bugsy Malone * when he was 12…

15

I actually checked to see if this was a zombie thread. Jodie Foster came out years ago; I’m sure of it. OK, maybe everybody and his dog knew about it, but she never actually officially said anything about it in public. Is there a difference?

Anyway, I can’t believe someone could possibly be that evil. Even Dick Cheney wouldn’t have pulled that crap. God, that’s horrible! I can’t for the life of me understand how or why anybody could do that, at all. It makes no sense.

16

Beautiful work, Sampiro. Terrible story, though. How old are Rick’s kids? Will they have a Christmas?

17

Man, that sucks.

You know, if Rick doesn’t wish to spend his remaining time and energy fighting a lawsuit (although, much as I hate to be morbid, it might be that his family could really, really benefit from any settlement if he is that close to the end), I can appreciate that.

That doesn’t mean that someone—Jodie Foster perhaps—wouldn’t want to tip off a reporter somewhere. At least here in Boston, there is often interest about non-profit agencies who might be operating unethically.

18

I suggest Michael Crowley at Reader’s Digest (outrageous@rd.com).

19

If Kevin were morbidly obese, black and female–he would be my old boss. I got out, pronto. Too bad about Rick. I’d like to say fight the good fight etc, but Rick is most likely tired.

Is GA an at will work state? Can he file under unjust firing or some such?
The Kevins of the world do flourish like the green bay tree. Still not quite clear how Mary Tudor came into it all, though… :slight_smile:

20

It’s a Sampiro thread. Roll with it.