The attorney easily cleared several million dollars this year.
Today, January 2, 2004, he comes in and gives his elderly, over-worked legal assistant her Christmas gifts. With his office door untypically open, and loudly enough for all to hear, he tells some friend on the phone in his office that “I finally got around to giving my assistant her Christmas gifts today. I bought them last week.”
The gifts?
An empty basket with a tin snowman attached to the top…the basket most likely once held chocolates and other goodies, but was now empty.
A glass Christmas tree vase that most likely once held fresh flowers when originally delivered.
An empty tin box with a Currier and Ives etching on it. Who knows what was once in the now empty tin.
Even if one were totally stupid and didn’t realize all of the above were simply remnants of other gifts he received over the holidays, who in the hell would be so stupid and crass to give cheap Christmas decorations as a gift on January 2? To be honest, they would have made crappy gifts on December 24th.
Luckily, his assistant knows that attorney is an asshole and just smiled and said thanks.
Well, I can’t resist pointing out that it’s totally irrelevant that this jerk is an attorney. If he were Santa himself, these still would be shitty, shitty gifts. There’s cheap bastards in every profession, y’know.
BTW, as a government employee, I got jack-shit for Christmas from my boss. Though frankly I’d rather have nothing than “gifts” that insult my intelligence, as these do.
I hope the assistant got something nice from others who respect and like her, even if the “something nice” was only their genuine good wishes.
I’ve finally heard a bad-gift story that beats my dad, a week after my 13th birthday, taking his cheap, crappy, Radio Shack MAN’S watch (I’m female) off his wrist and giving it to me.
It sucks to be his assistant but I want this guy to represent me in court. “No, you can’t have that much as a settlement, you’ll have to settle for this empty box”.
This reminded me of my cousin, who is a lawyer. he went to work for a cheap ambulance-chaser law firm, their main work was “slip and fall” accidents. The guy who owned this shitbum firm was a nasty old miser…who bought $1.99 bottles of something labelled “champagne” as Xmas presents for his associates! Such munificence! The old bastard was probably pulling in $2 million/year.
Well, no, actually it’s not, as the presence on these boards of Cliffy, Bricker, Jodi, minty green and the many others whose names don’t spring immediately to mind will attest.
What’s the time of year got to do with it? If I catch someone stealing, coming in to work drunk or high, or any other egregious offense, they’re getting canned, Christmas or no.
If the employee committed an egregious offense that endangers the welfare of the firm or its employees, then yes, termination is warranted. If the employee is just a garden-variety fuck-up, then one ought to wait.
And layoffs at Christmas to reduce overhead. . . grrrr.
Firing someone at Christmas is so awful that the conduct causing it had be better be pretty damned reprehensible.
from an administrational viewpoint, though, layoff/termination just before the end of the year makes sense, and is often the better option. Once some one earns income in the new year, they remain on your company’s payroll for the entire calendar year. It’s much ‘cleaner’ (if you’re going to drop them in the first place) to drop them before the new year so you don’t have to worry about their address for W-2’s the following year, deal w/ withholding taxes, unemployment insurance etc.
hence the ‘if you’re going to drop them in the first place’ clause
as an administrator, I’ve never taken such a task lightly, always knew that it was eliminating a livelihood, when it was possible to make it easier for the person (assuming no theft, criminal actions etc), I did; when it’s not possible, it’s not possible. the whole post was attempting to explain why an administrator may find it beneficial to let some one go during the holiday end of year season, vs. ‘not ruining the person’s holiday’.
