As instructed...
I worked for an IT company of national renown, and I was pretty good at my job. In fact, the highly influential outgoing operations manager (basically the guy who ran the company) had become a good friend of mine, and I was seen as his natural succesor.

So I got my promotion, and was very soon invited to attend my first Senior Management meeting in the boardroom. It was all going well; I was holding my own amongst the MD, FD, Technical Director, Group Chairman, and various Executive Directors.

Then I felt a familiar rumble in my pocket. My initial thoughts of 'Oh shit, I forgot to turn my phone off!' quickly turned to 'Oh shit, I changed my ring tone at the weekend!!!' The boardroom echoed to the sounds of a small child shouting 'SHUT THE FUCK UP!' repeatedly at the assembled suits.

Naturally, my hands turned to jelly at this point and somehow expanded massively, and as such refused to fit in my pocket to grab the offending device. After plenty of fumbling I eventually extracted it and in a vague attempt to look cool and unflustered, quickly pressed the buttons without looking what I was doing.

'Many apologies, it's off now' I said confidently.

The managing director fixed me with a glare that made me assume I was just one more fuck-up from ending my career whilst politely but insincerely saying to the board : 'Let's not dwell on it. As I was saying - the next quarter...'

'SHUT THE FUCK UP!'

Apparently I can't turn a phone off without looking.

Within two weeks somebody had been brought in to 'help me', then 'share my workload', then 'help me concentrate on my core strengths' (i.e. my prevous role in the company) before I was finally invited to 'Relocate to the Northern Office'.

'But we don't have a Northern Office?'

'Yes, we want you to set it up for us.'

'OK, what's the package?'

'It's commission only.'

'Oh. OK then'

I've never been fired in such a roundabout way.

No apologies for line spacing.
(mongothemagnificent knows where you live, Wed 5 Aug 2009, 0:06, 1 reply)

Line spacing..
Adds to the drama in this tale I think... Not that it's dull anyways..
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Wed 5 Aug 2009, 9:54, closed)