Liberty! And Justice for All?

Yesterday I got fired.

I was expecting it, but I was still a little bit surprised, seeing how I was let go for absolutely no reason.

Here's the story.

My fiance was doing IT work for a PT office. Last summer the manager of the office, who was on good terms with my fiance, told him that she needed a new front desk operator for a couple of weeks. He suggested me, fresh out of college and looking for work. She called me in for an interview and I did random office tasks for the office for about three weeks. Nobody knew of my relationship with the IT guy other than the manager and we wanted to keep it that way.

At the beginning of last September, I got a call from them telling me they still need some help. They hired someone, but there was a lot more work that needed to be taken care of. So I started coming in twice a week for a total of 10 hours a week. I was considered a temp and did different hours for a few months. 

In June of this year I was given a contract to sign. I was now a part-time employee. Apparently the boss-lady, we'll call her Anna, wanted to give me one for a while, but didn't think I'd sign it since it was not my dream job, or whatever. Well, yeah, I didn't go to college for 4 years to answer phones later, but a job is a job and I was happy to have one. I also liked the people I was working with and became very friendly with the manager, whom we'll call Mila.

About a month later things began heating up around the office. Anna was clearly trying to get rid of the Mila. But she didn't want to fire her, because that would mean that she would have to pay for unemployment. She was doing a lot of passive-aggressive things, thinking Mila would quit. Well Mila isn't an idiot; she built the whole practice and the big bucks that Anna was now making, that was all thanks to Mila.

There is another person who must be mentioned. Let's call her Sarah. Sarah is the main PT in this office. Yeah, she's good at what she does, but her personality leaves much to be desired. She's extremely manipulative and fake, yet a lot of people fail to see it. One of these people is Anna. She practically kisses the ground Sarah walks on. It's quite a disgusting sight, really. Sarah also really hates Mila, and the feeling is mutual.

Well Sarah was doing some things behind Anna's back, which we, people at the front desk, new about. Sarah was being paid a lot of money for doing marketing--whatever the hell that meant--2-3 hours a day. But instead of doing that, she would bring in her private patients, do PT with them, and get paid from them under the table. So she was moonlighting on company time. When Mila brought it to Anna's attention, she didn't do a thing about it. She just said she'll look into it or something. A week later she gave Sarah a huge bonus. Whatever, her money.

Sarah probably did have a convo with Anna about the shady stuff she was doing, because she was pissed off. She started meeting with Anna outside of the office a lot and Anna became very secretive about everything. She became very irate and easily angered. She was trying to hold the front desk personnel responsible for PTs' mistakes and responsibilities. She was doing and saying things that were clearly coming form Sarah. Our work environment was becoming more and more toxic.

In a conversation with a billing person, Anna mentioned that she would need her to start learning how to bill Medicare patients--which had always been Mila's responsibility--because some changes were coming in two months. We quickly deciphered it to mean that Mila was getting the boot come November. Since I was getting sick of this job, I told Mila that I'm leaving as soon as she is let go.

Now ever since Anna succumbed to Sarah's influence, she has been running around with different papers, giving us things to signs, etc. Some of these things she should have thought of when she just opened up, but that's beside the point. She came up with some agreement for the IT guys to sign. When they looked it over and determined that it had nothing to do with them, they told her they're not signing it. She confessed that she didn't even read the thing, but to reconsider their decision. So they looked into it more, and it turned out that by signing it they have to provide her with a specific service, which is quite expensive. If she doesn't want that service, then by signing the paper the IT guys are required to report Anna to some authorities, who will slap her with a huge fine for not complying with the said agreement--the paper she never cared to read but asked people to sign.

As I mentioned before, my fiance and never showed any affection towards each other while in the office (not like he was there often) and pretended that we barely knew each other. Well this Wednesday the IT guys came in to speak to Anna about this expensive service they have to provide, or else they have to report her. She took it as a direct attack, some sort of conspiracy by us (Mila, IT guys and myself) to screw with her business. She then spoke to my fiance in private, and told him that she knows that we have a relationship (I really have no idea how), and that there will be some changes in the office this week and to not take it personally.

When my fiance told me about this, I already knew what was going to happen. She was telling him she was going to fire me. I wrote a letter of resignation and was going to bring it in the next day, but he talked me out of it, thinking she was referring to Mila, who's been a friend for a while, because he felt like Anna really wanted her out. Well it's true, she does want her out. However he was wrong on the other part because the next day, just 20 minutes into my work day, she asked to speak to me privately and all she said was, "I really appreciate everything you've done, and you've helped so much, but it just isn't working out." When asked for a letter of termination with a reason, she said there was no reason; "it's just the little things." Before she made sure that I left, she asked for a key, which I didn't have on me but said I'd give it to Mila. And that was it. 

An hour later Mila told me that Anna was changing the locks, which was just about the most ridiculous thing. A few hours after that my fiance told me that he got an e-mail from Anna saying how much she respects his work. Not sure what the point of that was either. Was she trying to sweet-talk him into not avenging my termination?

On one hand I'm happy to be out that place. I was being treated like a moron my asshole patients and the toxic environment was getting to me. But on the other hand I am really furious for being fired for no reason. She could have at least said that it was because of that one mistake I made last week with e-mails, when she thought she could get sued for that and was freaking out the whole weekend, while in reality it was just a little mistake people make. But she didn't even mention it. What she really wanted to say, I presume, is that the reason is me being supportive of Mila when she was being right, which went against what Anna wanted to hear. We once had a meeting with front desk staff where my co-worked was trying to explain something to Anna, and she repeated herself 4 times, but Anna still didn't get it. So Mila said "write it down," and Anna got pissed off and in a very irritated tone said that it's inappropriate. What was inappropriate about it? In a separate meeting with Mila, Anna said that she does not appreciate that she and I share glances and make faces. What a load of bull that was. She fired me because she didn't want Mila to have any allies and that is the true reason, which she obviously won't put on paper.  


Now I am waiting for Karma to bite that bitch in the ass. I might even know how it's going to happen. I predict that Sarah will open up her own practice and steal Anna's patients. She's already kind of doing it. Or Anna will just flounder when Mila is let go because she's the reason Anna went from making $x a month to making that same sum in two days. In either case--and this is going to sound really mean--I am going to dance on Anna's business' grave real soon. I'm sure of it.