It’s dangerous when someone has nearly absolute power. It’s even more so when that person realizes he has that power. Do you become a malevolent overlord, a beneficent inspiration, or a shadowy figure who stealthily dabbles his fingers in the pool so that the ripples are small, strategic, and precise? I recently discovered that I am the Dick Cheney of the call center. I’m not the figure head, but I have frightening amount of power. The recent incident with Stonehenge Mouth proved this. On Wednesday night I sent my open to my boss and on Thursday I was ordered to monitor everything Stonehenge Mouth did and write a report on anything his screwed upon. Today before I left the office I got a phone call from my boss telling me that as soon as they could hire someone else Stonehenge Mouth would be gone.
Now if this was the epic movie where the little furry footed guys are fighting the big scary eye over some sort of magic locket, or tiara, or say...ring…then this would be the part of the story where we all jumped up in triumph and sang obnoxious songs and smoked something that no one will admit it weed. Instead, I can’t help but feel guilty, somewhat dirty. From a business stand point getting rid of Stonehenge Mouth makes sense. He’s a detriment to morale, decreases productivity because of the fact that everyone else has to solve his issues, and he sullies our credibility by lying, misinforming, and not following through on his promises. On a personal and karmic level it’s just deserts. A foul, hateful man getting what’s coming to him. And yet, I can’t help but feeling bad because the whole reason he is getting fired is because I simply don’t like him. His wife and kids are going to be punished, ultimately, because of my selfish actions.
Now it’s not like him and his family are going to be destitute and living on the streets. His wife works for an aeronautical company and makes a decent living, he gets military disability, and will probably get unemployment after he leaves because they’ll make him step down instead of firing him. However, it doesn’t change the fact that it will affect all their lives. Yet again, my selfishness also rises to the surface on this part as well. The fear that the next person will be worse. Stonehenge Mouth was the replacement for a guy named Average Joe. His name was a joke. It really was Joe (the only real name I’m likely to disclose here), but he was anything but average. In fact, he was fucking crazy.
Average Joe was one in a long string of ITT Tech graduates. I don’t know how ITT operates in the rest of the country, but if the grads that have graced the Harmon Kardon chairs of the Cube then it’s basically a retail diploma store. Sadly, of all the grads we’ve seen he was the strongest, but also the craziest. Average Joe would be sitting at his desk, quietly, not having said anything to anyone in over an hour and suddenly he’d start shaking his head back and forth making loud noises. After a minute of this he’d stop as suddenly as he started and then he’d be quiet again for a long period of time. Average Joe would be on the phone helping someone, and doing a good job at it, and then he’d cuss someone out (either on the phone or his neighbor) for no reason. They tried moving him around from one shift and group to another and just when they were getting ready to fire him, he disappeared. He stopped going to school (he was going for another degree), he never went home, and turned up a few weeks later in Charlotte, NC emailing my former boss asking him to tell his parents. And this is who Stonehenge Replaced, who as crazy as he was, had nothing on Stonehenge Mouth.
These are the things that someone has to deal with when they have the power. Not the events themselves, but knowing you’re responsible for those events. If the next person is worse, I’ll have made everyone’s life even more miserable just because I wanted to cater to my whims. On the other hand, it’s just a job and these are just office politics. It’s not like I’m the dark puppeteer behind the war in
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