The other shoe falls

JR was canned today.

Which turned today into a mad scramble to figure out:

1) What should have already been done
2) What has actually been done; and
3) What is on the near horizon

I was ramping up the person who will take up JR's slack when they stopped me up short.

"Before we get started, um... what happened?"

I'd completely forgotten about this aspect. Believing for so long that JR was on the way out for so long, I'd assumed that this was common knowledge to everyone. Given that most of us operate in relative isolation - people were understandably a bit mystified.

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JR was likable - casual conversation, they'd be pretty entertaining up to a point. From the outside, people would see a person who is rushing on this or that project and think, "JR's got it together."

Except they didn't. At least, not in any way that was measurable.

They'd be able to talk around an issue, but any time you wanted hard answers - they just weren't there. JR was good at maintaining the facade. I don't know if they were intentionally deceptive - or if they really believed that they were busy and getting things done.

We all have moments when we're coasting at work: after you finish a big chunk of work, you're too sick/tired/inebriated to function at full throttle - it happens.

JR was like that every day. "I'm busy, I'm busy," but when you'd look over at them, they're shopping online, or on their cell, or surfing through a catalog - wasting time.

Worse, they just did the bare minimum on any project - then would puff it up like "wow, that was hard." With my boss out of town for over a week, I made it my business to make sure JR wasn't shipping the clients crap.

The more I looked, the worse it got. I tried to handle it internally - meet with JR - tell them the score - all I got was smiles and assurances, and the most polite form of pushback. They liked my "suggestions," but first they wanted to "get the boss's input as well."

i.e. Soon as you're not available, I'm going to feed the boss a line of crap. Then it'll be "I'd like to do what you say, but the boss said..."

Screw that.

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Where was I? Anyway, CorpWorld can make you nervous and any time someone's plug gets pulled - everyone starts to wonder if they're on the bubble. JR's successor was expressing the very real fear that something they'd do in future would get them in trouble as well.

So I spill my guts on the subject. This seems to make them feel better - but it has the opposite effect for me.

This would be three times I've been in this boat, and each time the pattern repeats: people sidle up to me and ask (on the down-low, you understand) 'what the hell happened?'

It underscores the paranoia of CorpWorld, since these are people who, I would have thought, are completely secure in their professional life. Some of them have Masters degrees, some have Doctorates - these are people who should not worry. I'm some guy off the street with some working experience and a big mouth - I get to tell them not to worry?

Messed up.