Re: An ugly job incident (long)

[Mike Starr <mike -dot- starr -at- PLATINUM -dot- COM>]

Anonymous,

I've had two situations where I left a tech writing job suddenly; in one I was
laid off after almost eight years and in the other I was fired after almost
three years. In both cases, I spent the rest of the day archiving data, copying
personal data to floppy disks and deleting it and spurious or obsolete files
from my computer's hard disk and cleaning out my office with the full knowledge
and consent of management. In a third situation where we were given fairly
short notice that our firm's involvement in a large contract was being phased
out, we spent a lot of time working hand in hand to leave things in good order
for whoever might resume the effort in the future and about six months later, I
got a very gracious email from one of the folks I worked with there about how
well organized and thorough the archived data was. How a company treats
departing employees is a measure of how a company feels about it's employees in
general. I think they treated you shabbily and not as they should treat a true
professional employee. If they had reason to suspect you they should have
confronted you before you had any opportunity to do anything at all.

I guess this presents us all with a clear lesson to keep our affairs in order
at the office at all times so that we're not caught in a situation like you
were. I do try to shovel off my desk and flush the spurious files from my hard
disk on a regular basis and I always try to make sure that any personal files I
may use at the office are fully backed up to copies on my home computer as soon
as possible. At the same time, I try not to involve my own personal data and
company equipment too much. In general I keep copies of my address book files
on the computer at the office and not too much more.

Mike

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