I probably should have let the email rest just one more day. It was still a productive day, but I did not come close to finishing the Nehemiah study for Sunday. I did get through the “meaty” part of the book though. I have enough to teach.
Today I got some melancholy news – one of the two guys who were instrumental in getting rid of me at my job, the VP of Engineering, was himself let go today. It’s hard to celebrate this because I really didn’t harbor much resentment towards him; though I did think that he was the wrong person for the job, and therefore probably shouldn’t have been in that position. If I had any beef with him, it was because he played the role of protector for my immediate boss – who is an abusive manager – making it all but impossible for me or anyone else to go up the chain of command to complain about him. The VP and my boss have always been good friends, which is why my boss got the mid-level manager position over me when our two groups merged – by all rights he shouldn’t have. This one decision also marked the beginning of the end for me at the company. My boss spent an awful lot of time trying to beat me into submission. I must admit that I spent a lot of time being passive-aggressive towards him in retaliation.
With the VP gone, my boss’s “rough” style of management should be exposed to all. Those who have remained may finally get the chance to complain about him to someone who cares. Truthfully, I can only hope that the Division VP is wise enough to recognize that my former boss should not be managing for the sake of the company.
It is sort of nice to know that the VP got fired because he and my former boss got rid of me without a proper succession plan. They thought they had hired a replacement for me (after a year and a half of looking!), but failed to duplicate my skill-set, which is admittedly rare in our industry. The chips got way behind schedule and the designers complained to the Division VP that the current layout crew was simply unable do the work properly (true). They claimed that no one was capable of doing the work except me (not true, but I appreciate the compliment). The Division VP did not want to hire me back as a consultant, but was forced to do so in order to get the schedules back on track. Having to hire me back as a contractor turned out to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for the VP of Engineering I’m afraid.
Hey, if I don’t come on board to save the schedule, maybe my boss’s head will roll as well.
Day 47 mood: Strangely sad that the VP is going, especially since it had been my hope – my prayer even – that this exact thing would happen. I’ve been praying for a very long time that God would judge the VP and my former boss for all the wrong they did to me and my crew over the last year and a half. We were not treated at all well, and I was let go for political reasons; not for anything I did or didn’t do.