From what I can tell from my reading of his posts, he was only jokingly suggesting that Joan might not exist, and I wasn’t aware she was a Doper. This was in context of cautioning against making a psychological diagnosis over the Internet, especially via second-hand posts of observations of behavior. This was quite warranted - for instance, just having narcissistic tendencies does not automatically mean that one has a legitimate psychological disorder. Merely arguing that one does not deserve to be fired when one is, in fact, a poor employee, does not mean that you are pathologically detached from reality and completely delusional. He and others made the valid point that sometimes, people are just assholes and you can’t tell from some anecdotes whether someone has a real psychological disorder or not.
Somehow I doubt that woman even knows what “high spirits” are. Secondly, there is a huge difference between you and Joan. Based on what I know of you from your posts, you strike me as a very intelligent and responsible person.
So while your layoffs came unexpectedly, Joan’s was in no way unexpected, unless the woman is completely brain-dead. She has had warning after warning after warning of her behaviour.
And a person has to be smokin’ crack to NOT know that insubordination pretty much puts them on the fast track to a pink slip.
He wasn’t saying people might not exist. He was just pointing out the limitations of a psychological evaluation conducted through the internet.
Good gracious. Her outburst(s) sounded like badly written and played dialogue from a really bad daytime soap (yes…I know there are no good ones :)).
I’ll miss the great stories though.
This is sort of a hijack post but fits in with the thread.
We fired someone today because he always shows up really late to work and calls in sick ALOT.
We were going to fire him yesterday… but he called in sick.
First off, why is it someone else’s responsibility to take care of someone who refused to take care of themselves?
Secondly, sometimes people have to hit rock bottom before they can see the errors of their ways and learn to behave like a human being. With luck Joan will be one of those who does learn the lesson.
What? So, in your mind, there is no such thing as a person who is just naturally an idiot/pain in the ass and LIKES it that way?
Not all people who are unpleasant jerks and bad workers are some sort of needy mental case who needs special placement or treatment. Some are just simply jerks and as such are more in need of having to face up to the consequnces of their actions and with hope, a change in their attitude, than they are of coddling and special treatment which would do nothing to help them see the errors of their ways.
CanvasShoes: See the thread linked to above. You’ll see that Evil Captor thinks it’s perfectly fine to advise job hunters to lie on their resumes. Of course, the possiblity of the job seeker getting fired afterwards for misrepresentation is of no concern to Evil Captor. After all, it’s always the employer’s fault, apparently, for firing someone.
Evil Captor, why is it that you cannot drop this point? I said it several times in a previous thread, and I’ll say it again:
Employers do not owe their employees a job.
If a homeless crackhead breaks into your house as a squatter and takes my things as his own, it might cause him great problems and harm to have him arrested. After all, you are depriving of food, shelter, and clothes. He needs those things, even though his own actions have created the situation that he’s in. Would you be OK with that? Don’t you feel that, lacking a good social support network, that it’s your responsibility?
It probably would be far less harm for me to lose a kidney than deprive one to someone who needs one. Should I be forced to give one up, just because it is the greater good for that person?
I shouldn’t have to give up my own things without my consent just because someone else needs them. Just because I hired you does not make me responsible – legally, ethically, or otherwise – for you any more than a grocery store should be obliged to give away food, or that a hotel should be ethically bound to give its rooms out to those who don’t have a place to go.
It’s not even morally positive to ignore bad behavior and not fire someone; it hurts other employees and hurts the company. In the long run, the company will shut down because it can’t produce anything.
This is how society works. I don’t understand where your sense of entitlement comes from, but it is nonsensical.
Aw, shucks! :o
If only an employer would see that!
Damn you, Jayjay! I now have this whole scenario running through my mind in a Gilbert and Sullivan earworm.
Aiiieeeee! 
If I had a job for you and you were in my area, I’d hire you.
You know, you’d think I would sympathize with Evil Captor’s position. I mean, I have a mental illness and I was fired once because of that mental illness under rather nasty circumstances. My employer assured me my job was still waiting for me while I was in the hospital with doctors and counselors available only to fire me once I was out of the hospital and on my own. I don’t. Here’s why.
Having a mental illness does not excuse being an incompetent bitch, nor does it excuse stealing or attempting to destroy a marriage. I went through a patch this summer when I became a bit bitchy because I was on crutches and in more or less constant pain. My employer called me on my behaviour. Unlike Joan, I acknowledged my behaviour and corrected it. Frankly, having to deal with obnoxious and/or incompetent coworkers has the potential to exacerbate my problems with depression because I get fed up with how unfair it is that they get to get away with this nonsense while I not only have to put up with it but take on extra work because they’re unable or unwilling to do it.
Even having a diagnosed mental illness does not mean one doesn’t have to take responsibility for one’s actions, as anyone I know who has a mental illness can tell you. That, by the way, includes a couple of people whose illnesses are bad enough they cannot work full time. Some of them would like to have a job like Joan’s and I cannot see any of them trying to steal a boombox, break up a marriage, or otherwise acting like Joan.
Normally I’d suggest we just let Evil Captor whitter on and ignore him and in future I probably will, but I did want to do my part to dispel the notion that mentally ill people are not responsible for their actions.
By the way, Johnny LA, please add me to the list of people who’d be happy to hire you or work with you. I’d take you over a dozen or a hundred Joan’s. If there’s an injustice in the labor market, it’s that good, solid, competent people like you are looking for work while incompetent people like Joan are able to retain jobs by being shuffled around.
CJ
Take that much farther and you’ll sound like Lib. 
Maureen, any fallout? I would imagine the workplace is a lot more peppy, but have their been any phone calls or e-mails from Joan?
Well, no, cause she’s like a girl and I like boys. 
Just two things about Evil Captor:
First of all, as others have said, it is immature to bring up the bondage thing. It has nothing to do with this thread, and it’s just pointless snarking.
Secondly, Evil Captor is wrong, wrong, wrong. Sometimes you have to get rid of dead weight.
I just wanted to add that it does amaze me how far people will go.
We used to have an employee working at my old job. She was awful…took extra long lunches, breaks, was rude to other employees, but super sweet-nice to the customers. I was assigned to train her in the beginning but a couple of times I asked her “Do you want to try this?” referring to a new job, and she flat-out said no.
The department we were in was very close-knit, and in the year that she was there she did everything she could to tear us apart. She once told us that she woke up every morning and decided who to pick on and annoy for that day.
A little later, she got pregnant. She stopped taking her birth control and lied about it to her boyfriend. Now as shocking as this is to me I wouldn’t mention it were it not for the fact that she announced it to everyone at work, and seemed proud of it. “It’s the only way to catch a guy.”
Her performance worsened. She began having “doctor’s appointments” which coincidentally always happened to be on Friday afternoons, meaning she essentially got a half day. She called in lots of times because she was too sick to come in. She refused to work on snow days because of the baby in her belly.
HR was afraid to fire a pregnant woman, even with just cause.
Finally they caught her, on camera, stealing. They fired her, gave her a more than ample severance type-thingy, and sent her on her way.
Would you believe this girl had the balls to sue? The case barely got to court but the judge viewed the recording of her stealing, and that was the end of that.
Most of this I heard long after the fact. During it was just this big mystery.
I still think swampy’s story is the best. And Maureen, you did fine.
Perhaps his perspective will change when he graduates from high school and gets a job of his own.
You don’t need to justify firing Joan to me. It’s clear from your posts that she was quite a problem for you and your cow-orkers. I just that
A) Firing wasn’t so drastic in its effects on people’s lives and/or
B) There was some sort of remedy short of firing for people who pose the sort of problem Joan did (i.e., disruptive to other employees, won’t quit such behavior even when given sanctions that clearly would indicate to any reasonable person that she’s headed out the door if she doesn’t change) though I don’t know what that option might be.
Well, I’m glad you’re feeling OK about it. Firing is a terrible thing, and it’s sometimes hard on the firer as well as the firee, though that most often occurs in those dubious cases where the firing isn’t as called-for as Joan’s evidently was. (It’s always hard on the firee, of course.)
For crissakes, WHY?! Why should a company waste resources trying to help a toxic employee who clearly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the company?