Let the Heads (and Eyes) Roll
I almost got fired twice today. The first time I was asking for it.
The past couple of days I have grown increasingly concerned because we are changing Jeff Davis recovery plan in ways that will make FEMA look better, but will hurt the county. (I will try to explain some more context about what we were doing in another entry). Krista, a sub-boss, told me to do some more edits on the plan and it was the last straw. I explained to the team lead that would make this round of edits, but that would be it for me. I was not interested in continuing to work for FEMA if it meant I would have to continue to change the plan in a way that I thought was not good for the county. He tried to explain that I was hired as a contractor for FEMA and my job was to make FEMA look good. I explained that if my job meant I was not helping the county, it was time to end my employment. I would work on other things, but not editing the plan, and if he needed to fire me, that was ok. He said there would be no firings, and in any case he did not have the authority to fire me.* (I did not point out that the person with that authority was right down the hall). We talked around the issue for a while and decided to see what happened after that round of edits.
So I did the edits and sent them to Evan, a colleague, to get his opinion. He liked them so I asked him to forward them to Krista, the person who had asked me to make the edits in the first place. He did so, copying me. I went to get some water and while I was gone Krista came in and said Evan or I should post the projects on the web. Evan had not been involved (his only role had been as an extra pair of eyes) so he passed the information on to me, telling me, “Krista said you should put the projects up on the web.” (it is a web based plan, no paper copy).
I posted the projects. Krista came in and asked, “Did you post the projects?” I said yes and shortly after I headed home.
Little did I know that really Krista had made some edits to the project and included them in a reply to Evan’s email. Krista forgot to copy me on the email so I had no idea she wanted edits. When she discovered that I had posted the unedited version she interpreted it as a direct affront to her and had a major hissy fit (or so Evan reports to me).
Evan looked over her email and realized that she forgot to copy me and went to her office to explain the misunderstanding. He discovered her in the middle of writing an email to the boss explaining how rude I was behaving.
So, in the end I almost got my wish, but so far have been spared.
* It is an odd thing at FEMA that bosses don’t have the authority to fire the people they supervise, but it is true.
The past couple of days I have grown increasingly concerned because we are changing Jeff Davis recovery plan in ways that will make FEMA look better, but will hurt the county. (I will try to explain some more context about what we were doing in another entry). Krista, a sub-boss, told me to do some more edits on the plan and it was the last straw. I explained to the team lead that would make this round of edits, but that would be it for me. I was not interested in continuing to work for FEMA if it meant I would have to continue to change the plan in a way that I thought was not good for the county. He tried to explain that I was hired as a contractor for FEMA and my job was to make FEMA look good. I explained that if my job meant I was not helping the county, it was time to end my employment. I would work on other things, but not editing the plan, and if he needed to fire me, that was ok. He said there would be no firings, and in any case he did not have the authority to fire me.* (I did not point out that the person with that authority was right down the hall). We talked around the issue for a while and decided to see what happened after that round of edits.
So I did the edits and sent them to Evan, a colleague, to get his opinion. He liked them so I asked him to forward them to Krista, the person who had asked me to make the edits in the first place. He did so, copying me. I went to get some water and while I was gone Krista came in and said Evan or I should post the projects on the web. Evan had not been involved (his only role had been as an extra pair of eyes) so he passed the information on to me, telling me, “Krista said you should put the projects up on the web.” (it is a web based plan, no paper copy).
I posted the projects. Krista came in and asked, “Did you post the projects?” I said yes and shortly after I headed home.
Little did I know that really Krista had made some edits to the project and included them in a reply to Evan’s email. Krista forgot to copy me on the email so I had no idea she wanted edits. When she discovered that I had posted the unedited version she interpreted it as a direct affront to her and had a major hissy fit (or so Evan reports to me).
Evan looked over her email and realized that she forgot to copy me and went to her office to explain the misunderstanding. He discovered her in the middle of writing an email to the boss explaining how rude I was behaving.
So, in the end I almost got my wish, but so far have been spared.
* It is an odd thing at FEMA that bosses don’t have the authority to fire the people they supervise, but it is true.
posted by JNA | 6:57 PM
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