Sunday, April 8

Another quickly dashed-off post, to avoid getting bogged down in attempts to say everything "just right."

Big news: The Scorpion Queen has been fired. For those who might be new to this blog, The Scorpion Queen (aka TSQ, aka Cruella) was my supervisor for just over three years. She often made my life miserable, to the point that when I was transferred to an out-of-state location, turning my 10-minute commute into 45 minutes, I was happy about it. She is a brilliant accountant with exemplary work habits and zero people skills.

About a year and a half ago I saw her name on the corporate organization chart, beneath the name of a new manager -- female. I remember thinking "Hmm. This oughta be interesting." TSQ frequently talked about how she was "terrified" of her father and "terrified" of any and all older, stern, militaristic male managers she worked for at this company and previous ones. And she had a very difficult time dealing with assertive female subordinates, such as myself, who were willing to put up with only so much of her crap. I was not the only one of those. Marilyn, a woman about 10 years older than me (who recently retired), transferred to another department to get out from under TSQ's thumb. I took it as an encouraging sign that I was transferred to another location, rather than being fired, at a time when people were being laid off left and right.

Unfortunately, even 40 miles away, I still had to deal with her when it came to collecting overdue payments from customers. Many of these customers had been in business longer than she'd been creeping about upon the face of the earth, and made up a substantial portion of our revenue. And yet, she had no problem putting many of these customers on credit hold for minor delinquencies, thereby jeopardizing our current and future business relationships with them. We are hardly the only game in town, and her decisions made the sales department's jobs that much more difficult.

I don't know the specific issue that caused the conflict between TSQ and her new boss, but there was one. She was shown the door on a Friday, and the announcement made the following Tuesday. It caused a serious dispute among the staff, which could not agree as to whether the appropriate theme music for this event was "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead" or "O Happy Day."