Blowin' Money Fast

They say money is the root of all evil. I can't deny that money causes people to be evil. People to steal from people less fortunate due simply because they had the opportunity. This sad and sickening story is all that and more.

I worked at a place that that handled money. Social security money. The clients were unwell, vulnerable, and destitute if not homeless. We had one job - to help them manage their money. We failed. During an internal process, one of our employees discovered a discrepancy in a client’s general ledger.

After further investigation, it was discovered than an employee, we’ll call her Shannon, was embezzling money from a client by assuming a fictitious name and writing checks out to that name. This led to an even wider search, where we discovered that Shannon embezzled over seventeen fucking thousand dollars from these people who were disabled and/or homeless. We were able to confirm that Shannon was embezzling checks because the dumb bitch was stupid enough to deposit the checks in the same checking account she used for direct deposit. Of course, we discovered all of this while Shannon was out on maternity leave.

We widened the search even further, and discovered a second employee, who we’ll call Roy, was also funneling money into his account.

Shannon and Roy’s manager, who we’ll call Jennifer, confronted Roy about the discrepancies, assuming there was a reasonable explanation, to which he could not respond. He went to lunch one day, never to return. We were also able to trace the money back to his personal accounts. Days went on and there was no sign of Roy. Sadly, Roy, who was a long term employee, decided to take his life and was found in his apartment days later hanged. Roy's co-workers all felt a sense of guilt. They worked along side him for many years, but turned their backs on him when they discovered that he stole from such vulnerable people. IT wasn't their fault, but they all regretted not checking in on him.

Due to the manager’s lack of oversight, and the CFO’s failure to establish financial safeguards, it was decided that the CFO, Jennifer, and Shannon were all to be terminated.

The day of the termination came. We tried to time them on a day when most of the staff would be out. As all HR professionals know, nothing goes as planned, and unfortunately, most of the staff was there. I remember sitting in my office as the CEO & HR Director went on the termination spree, and suddenly, my phone rang. They needed assistance with keeping an eye on those who were terminated as they packed their belongings and left.

As an aside, that whole process always reminded me of America’s Next Top Model. I always fantasized about saying ::in my Tyra Banks voice::, “I have one termination letter in my hands. The employee who’s name I call out must immediately return to their office, pack up their belongings and go home.”

Anyway, I went downstairs to painstakingly watch them pack up their shit. I opened the doors to the suite, and heard screaming, cursing, crying and mass hysteria. As I made my way closer, I could see Jennifer in the middle of a group hug with her staff sobbing and condoling her. The staff are mad; they had just gone through a traumatic event of losing a coworker to suicide, and now we were terminating their beloved manager (no comment). I calmly and politely asked them all to go back to their worksites and escorted Jennifer to her office to pack up her belongings. One by one staff began to come back into her office to help her pack up her menagerie of pictures, souvenirs, shot glasses from around the world, etc. Jennifer's entire office was pink - it looked like Barbie’s dream house exploded in there. She wrapped everything up slowly, and would stop every so often to sob. I would ask the staff to leave and they would, but then two more would pop into their place. Packing up the office took about two hours, 8 boxes, and a whole bunch of her personal bags, totes, containers, etc. She filled up three carts worth of belongings, and she and Facilities had to come back for a second trip. She left behind a keyboard full of food crumbs, dust and dirt all over the desk, stacks of filing and confidential information, a filthy rug, four trashcans full of trash, and the seven broken hearts of her staff.

The whole time she packed, she would stop every now and again to scream, “How can you do this to me!?” “I can't believe this is happening!” It was haunting and upsetting, but in my opinion was intentional to rile up the staff even more. It took everything in my power not to say, "You did this to yourself. Shut up, pack your shit and leave," but I didn't want to add insult to injury.

Then the staff discovered that the CFO was also fired. Now not only was the Jennifer’s staff furious, but now the Controller began to yell that the CEO was a fucking bitch and that he hated her. Over and over. A grown man in his mid-fifties, the Controller began to sob. Other staff began to join in. The Controller began to hyperventilate. It just kept getting worse and it was me against about 15 employees who were having emotional outbursts. I kept trying to manage the incident, but it was pretty unmanageable.

I couldn't help but think, Why didn't the CEO postpone this until a day no one was in the office?,” but I also knew that each day that went on was the risk of more and more embezzlement and mismanagement. After about three hours in total it was all over. I still remember how emotionally drained I was from that day.

Despite how poorly the staff behaved, I knew we needed to do something to support them. It was traumatic, even if those incompetent fuckers deserved to go. I had the EAP come in to help the staff process their feelings around the suicide and the terminations. I stayed for the first half of the session to show my support, and then I left for the second half so they could process without me. I also continued to express my appreciation for the team and told them I was available if anyone needed me. I wanted the team know that I knew there was a huge change that just took place and that they had my support.

There were so many important lessons I learned in this situation: empathy, how to better manage employee relations, etc. but the biggest thing I learned was why I fucking hate people.