And You're Fired. . . officially. . .

So. . . I did it. I fired her. The worst part: I should have fired her back in September, but I tried to be nice. I thought I was helping her out. . . and I was terribly, miserably wrong.

The end of October I gave her an ultimatum: Shape up or you're gone next Friday. The problem: she kept telling me she was shaping up, but really in fact, was doing absolutely NOTHING. NOTHING. She stayed late at work and did. . . NOTHING. WHY?!? So the week ended, and she still hadn't shaped up. I told her I would give her until the next Friday and I had to keep my word. Then on Monday she comes in (late by the way) and is crying hysterically and tells me that she is committing her husband to the psyche ward so she was needing to go to the court house. And the reason was because her husband was telling his daughter that he was going to rape and kill babies. (Sadly, I had heard this story from her before.) She had also found out that he had been smoking embalming fluid. (Smoking Embalming fluid?!? Seriously?!? Why would you do that??And now it might explain why she was losing her mind. . . she probably was doing that too.) Then tells me she talked it over with her Mom and her mom and her agreed that I would give her 2 weeks to get her life back in line and then I can let her go. And I said, "I told you, you have until this Friday. It hasn't changed. (Technically it did. I had to leave to go out of town on Friday early and I didn't really feel like doing it before I left.)

Anyways. . . so she tells me that she has to go to the courthouse and meet her sister-in-law so they can have two signatures to court order him to the psyche ward. She was meeting her at 10. So noon comes and goes, and no call. Natalie goes for a smoke around 4 and sees her sitting on the stoop outside our office. I call her, but no answer. She never even bothered calling all day or coming up to work. Did I also mention how easy it would have been to stop by our office? We're two blocks from the courthouse. So when she comes in the next morning, I asked her why she never called nor stopped in. Then she says that her sister-in-law never met her and that she was at the courthouse all day seeing how they could commit them without her. And then I bring up the fact that she NEVER called nor came up to tell me later in the day when Natalie saw her. She says she didn't have her key card to get up even though she used her key card to get up that morning. I probably should have fired her right then and there because seriously, if you're on thin ice, why would you be that stupid as to not check in?? All the rest of the week she keeps saying she's working late and getting everything done. But isn't in reality. And all week she keeps saying that her husband's father is driving up from Texas to come and get him and take him there. Everyday, it's the same story. So on Thursday on my way from work, I called her and said, that I was going to be nice and give her until next Friday. But it was only because I had to leave early on Friday.

But she didn't last that long. My boss came on Monday and at dinner I told him how I was going to fire her on Friday and he said, "why not do it tomorrow when I'm here?" In fact, he even said he would do it. So we fired her in 10 minutes. Which was the amount of time we had after our meeting and when I had to take him to the airport to catch his flight. My boss made it seem as if we were doing it for her own good and it wasn't really a "firing" as much as it was her needing to sort things out. This however was not the best idea he had.* Well after I dropped him off at the airport and came back from lunch, she was almost all the way packed up (and wreaked of mary jane according to the people in the office). She was technically supposed to stay the whole day to finish up her cases the best she could. And in case you were wondering, this was not accomplished.

*Update: Since the time that she was fired, I have been called quite frequently. First, she called to ask me for a number that she could have looked up in the phone book. The second time was to ask me if I had the letter that I wrote to one of her doctors this summer that she supposedly already gave the doctors two copies of. Then she called to tell me that she checked herself into the psyche ward and that she put me on the visitor's list. Then a couple of days later I got a call to say that she was out of the emergency room. "Emergency room??" I think in my mind. Oh yeah--she was in the emergency room because her sister-in-law beat her up. Then later that night I get a call with her crying that said she had lost the baby and it was because her sister-in-law and some of her friends beat her up and it caused her to lose the baby. I somehow keep missing her phone calls and really the one time I called her back she didn't answer.

And with her work. . . well let's just say she wasn't doing it. And I think was pretty much just making stuff up, so I've had to go back to all of her files even from the last 6 months and finish the ones she said were done. So. . . life's been pretty hectic for me at work. . . to say the least. I don't think I've done my actual job since November 6th.