Chief Thieving Officer

Ahhh, the beginning of the summer. What beautiful time for ice cold frozen margaritas sitting outside of our favorite Mexican restaurants, weekend trips to the shore, breaking out the Sperry boat shoes, and using your company credit card for a $3,000.00 purchase to pay off your student loans…

What the fuck am I talking about? Well, we hired this jerk off, who we’ll call John. He almost didn't even get hired due to the fact that his drivers license was revoked for excessive speeding. I wanted to rescind the offer because his job required him to drive and just because his driving pattern didn’t seem to paint him in the best light to be an executive, but the CEO loved this guy and we took a chance on him (i.e., the CEO forced us to take a chance on him).

He took on a role that dealt with building relationships but he had the disingenuous sales-person affect, and honestly he was quite rude at times. Let’s just say to put it simply that he and I did NOT see eye to eye. Anytime he tried to do something that didn't make sense (which was often) and I tried to mentor or coach him, he would run to the CEO like a little bitch and throw a fit until he got his way instead of listening to me and reasoning. For example, he created a new role for a high level second in command (which proved to be someone he could just dump all of his work on and do absolutely nothing). He created a job description and set the entry level requirements really low. He wanted to pay the person 80K, and only asked for two years of management experience and two years of related experience, which really caused inequities in our compensation structure.

I tried to explain the issue to him, and he ran to mommy, who approved it because he was able to put his non-sensical spin on it. He then picked a recent college grad to move forward with, who he met at some sort of networking event, who only had a few internships and no supervisory background. He set the ridiculously stupid entry level requirements and then didn't even stick to them. I still think he only wanted to hire her because he wanted to fuck her. I was able to successfully win that battle.

I also tried to block a new hire who I thought was problematic. The candidate admitted to violating a company’s policies, and basically committed timesheet fraud. When I explained why we shouldn’t move forward with the candidate, he got really aggressive with me, and said that I constantly tried to “oppose or obstruct” anyone he was trying to hire. In my mind, I fantasized about saying, “If you stopped coming up with these fucking half-assed ideas, maybe I would do a better job supporting you, asshole,” but instead I responded with, “John, you know my role is to protect the company from any legal, repetitional or financial risk. In this case, I think this kid is a bad hire and will be more trouble than he's worth. But you're the manager - do whatever you want.” The argument went on for awhile, and I told him that I didn't appreciate the way he spoke to me, and that he was constantly disrespectful when all I’ve ever done was try to help him. I let him hire the candidate but I explained that just because we disagreed, he did not have the right to raise his voice with me and become aggressive.

Flash forward to six months after we hired the candidate I told him not to hire, and a few months after we wrote him up for excessive lateness, we had to terminate him for timesheet fraud and sleeping on the clock. I wanted so much to say I told you so, but I avoided having any conversation that wasn't necessary; the narcissistic prick was never wrong anyway so it wouldn't have meant anything to him anyway.

But back to him stealing. On top of being a narcissistic asshole, he was also a slimy little crook.

For context purposes, John’s admin created his personal expense reports and company credit card expenses. He would approve them, and they would go to Finance. However, when his admin quit (I’m sure related to the fact her boss was a pompous dickhead), he created his own expense report and submitted it to Finance on his own. When the accountant realized that the expense report wasn't approved, she forwarded it to the CEO for approval. The CEO was shocked to discover the expenses were for almost $4,000. When confronted, John explained that Finance told him to spend down an overage of money in his budget because he and his staff had not been able to spend money set aside for conferences due to the pandemic.

John further alleged that Finance told him they would reallocate money set aside to be spent on “conferences” to “miscellaneous operations,” so that he could use the money to further build relationships with stakeholders, which would ensure the department did not to lose funding for unspent money in the next budget year. During the meeting with John and the CEO, John was advised that moving forward, his expense reports needed to be more detailed (and would specifically include those he met with). She also explained that John was spending too much time on one relationship and she was disappointed in the return on investment after reviewing his expenses.

A few weeks later, Finance realized that the personal expense report that John requested (and they processed) equaled the same amount as the account balance on his company credit card for which she was expecting reconciliation. Thinking it was a simple mistake and that he incorrectly used the wrong form (a personal expense form vs. a company credit card reconciliation form) the accountant explained what happened and that since John got reimbursed for expenses that he already charged to the company card, the reimbursement needed to be returned immediately. John ignored the accountant’s request and walked away.

The accountant, now frantic, told the CFO what happened. An investigation confirmed the accountant’s suspicion and therefore, the CFO met with John to let him know that the funds needed to be returned immediately via a personal check or an authorized payroll deduction. During their conversation, John stated that he was one of two parties, along with the CEO, who approved job postings on behalf of the agency. He attributed the extra money to a sign on and retention bonus of $4,000 less taxes for his upcoming three-year anniversary.

The CFO was baffled, especially because these two subjects were seemingly unrelated, but explained that his assertion was not the case and the funds needed to be reimbursed. John responded that he spent the money by paying off his student loans and requested a $250/pay reimbursement structure which would amount to a six-month loan.

Let’s pause for a second. Who told this man he was able to approve retention bonuses? He wasn't in the HR Department. Why did he think he would be able to grant the retention bonus to himself, which he tried to do when Finance asked for the money back? Why would you spend the money if you knew that Finance already approached you to tell you there was an error and you needed to return the money? Also, even if you really did think your bullshit retention bonus was legitimate, which we all know he didn't think, why wouldn't you at least confirm with the CEO, HR, Finance, etc.? Was this idiot trying to get fired? I just don't understand.

Regardless, the incident caused obvious concern to the CEO, who was already concerned about the nature of the expenses in the first place. In addition, she realized that she had not approved an expense for John in months. Therefore, she asked for the totals of his previous expenses from the CEO. After an investigation, the CFO responded that the expenses were on par with his expenses in previous months. This was even more concerning, as John explained that the increased expenses were a result of his underspending and that the Finance Department specifically told him to increase his spending.

John was really just showing himself to be a big fat liar! The Finance team denied that anyone told John to increase his spending. Finance clarified that they told John that they would simply use the money that was set aside in the “conferences” budget line in John’s budget to cover “miscellaneous spending.” Finance explained that this was explained to John as a budget neutral transaction, not for him to increase spending.

Then there was the obvious issue that he spent money that he knew wasn't his. Even though he was told otherwise, if there was any confusion regarding the intent of the additional funds, John should have confirmed with either the CEO or Finance before spending the money. A review of John’s pay stub clearly indicates that the check was allocated as an expense check.

In addition, the sign-on and retention bonus policy clearly states that it was for new hires and nowhere was John’s title involved in the approving of them.

We clearly terminated him for the multiple infractions with our Code of Conduct, but most specifically his egregious lapse in ethical and honest conduct as it related to the management of company assets. Sitting across the table from him and having the CEO terminate him was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. Surprising to me, he was shocked that we terminated him.

But my perhaps even slightly more gratifying is that we were able to recoup all the money. He received a check at minimum wage for his final pay, and the next paycheck we were able to recoup the rest of the money. And because he was terminated, he didn't receive any of his vacation accruals, which was the cherry on top of my cake.

As you can tell, there's no love lost between John and I, but I wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors… but not really.

Until next time…