The One When I Cursed a Bitch Out

This is one I'm not particularly proud of. Yes, there have been times I got a little bitchy, but there was a boundary that I don't think I crossed. Despite my embarrassment of the way I handled the situation, I think it shows those who dehumanize HR professionals (those who think that we must act a certain way regardless of how we are treated or how much stress that we endure) that we have feelings and emotions too. For the most part, we do a good job masking our feelings and remaining professional, but everyone has a breaking point, even HR professionals. And as I stated in the "About this Blog" or the "About Porter" section (I'm too lazy to check), not every story in this blog is going to depict the best way of handling an issue and sometimes I fucked up... this is one of those situations.

Crystal was loopy. It seemed like she had been through a lot, and for the most part she was a likable person, but just didn’t have her shit together. At one point a customer accused her of trying to seduce him. Crystal was put on administrative leave only for the customer to explain that he made it up, after telling me she tried to touch his dick and performed a strip tease for him behind closed doors in the back office. She felt like she was treated like a criminal, and honestly, I couldn't blame her. But she was proven innocent, and the show went on.

Crystal was recovering from substance use, and every now and again we would suspect that she was has experiencing lapses in her recovery. It was cyclical, and for the most part, we accommodated 30-day leaves so that she could seek the help she needed, while having a job she loved to come back to.

During a particularly stressful two weeks, when two of my three co-workers where out on vacation (one being my manager), Crystal’s manager e-mailed me to let me know that Crystal was observed nodding out on multiple occasions, that she spent a lot of time in the restroom (sometimes with the lights out), had been making frequent mistakes, and was observed running down the back alley of the work site to meet someone they assumed to obtain drugs.

Crystal would often admit to lapses in her recovery, but this time was different. She would make excuses, was calling out often, was late even more often, and even came to work one day and left minutes later after telling her supervisor that she had an emergency medical appointment.

Of course, although the behavior was going on for weeks, the manager told her director when I was alone, and suddenly there was an abundance of pressure placed on me to resolve it while the department was so short staffed. Anyway, we decided to send her for a drug test. Because the department that Crystal worked in was habitually short staffed, her manager was unable to take her the administrative offices, roughly 30-45 minutes away. When I spoke to Crystal’s manager before sending her to the main office, she explained that Crystal seemed okay to drive on her own, and despite my better judgment, I allowed it. Crystal left her work site at 9:05 AM. By 11:30, I began to be concerned as she still was not at the office. I called both of the phone numbers listed in our HRIS but one was not in service and the other went straight to voicemail.

I waited and waited. Crystal wound up arriving at 12:20 PM - from 9:05 AM - from a distance that should have taken no longer than an hour with even the worst of traffic. I asked her what took her so long, and she responded that she did not feel comfortable driving in the city, and that she had concerns with parking, so she had to find a ride. When I asked her about public transportation, she said she was a "suburb girl" and didn't know how to use it. I told her she should have called me because three hours had passed. She raised her eyebrows and apologized.

I then explained that we were concerned for her wellbeing and there was reasonable suspicion that she may have been under the influence of substances while at work. I then sent her to the drug screening and told her that she needed to get there within an hour. Frustrated and offended, she left.

The facility was less than a half of a mile away, which is clearly walking distance. At 1:30 PM, I called the facility that was performing the drug screening. They confirmed that she did not yet arrive. Furious, I called Crystal because it would have either been a 2 minute drive or a 15 minute walk to get there. She answered the phone and told me she was in the parking lot with her car and that she lost the ticket to get out of the lot. I asked her why she was in the lot if she didn't get to the drug screening. She explained that she didn't feel comfortable leaving the car in the lot by itself. I hit the ceiling! I began to lose my patience.

I asked her how the car was alone if she got a ride. She explained that she couldn't find a ride so she wound up driving to the main office on her own. I asked her why she didn't say that an hour ago when we met when discussing why it took her three hours to get there. She told me that she didn't think it was an important detail. I quipped back that it was an important detail if she had an hour to get to the facility and it was an hour and 15 minutes after she left.

She responded that she was trying to get out of the lot and that she would be there as soon as she could and that she couldn't get there without her GPS. I lost it. I yelled, “CRYSTAL, GET TO THE FACILITY… NOW!” At this point, I was blacked out in anger. I told her that she was playing too many games and that she needed to get to the facility. We began to yell back and forth, and I remember ending the call with something like, “IF YOU DON'T GET THERE NOW I’M GOING TO FIRE THE FUCK OUT OF YOU!,” and hanging up on her

Still furious, I called the lawyer, who I had a really good relationship with and told her the whole story. I told her how livid I was, that I wanted to fire Crystal, and asked how risky it would be if I did so. She told me to calm down, and that we unfortunately could not, and to wait to obtain the results of the drug screening.

When I left my office to get some water, an employee stationed outside of my office looked up at me and said, “Damn, you really went in on whoever was on the phone,” and started to laugh. I hadn't realized how loud I had been, and how bad I lost my cool. I was mortified.

From 9:00 AM, Crystal did not get to the screening until almost 4:00 PM, with a full bottle of water and a half drank Sprite. The drug test came back negative, but we all assumed it was because of the time that lapsed between the notification and arrival, the fluids she drank, and a potential cleaner she ingested.

I admit that I acted extremely unprofessional in this situation. I think I was so triggered by Crystal because I took it personally, and felt like she thought that she could manipulate the situation (and she did). I was also burnt (all the way) out. They were probably two of the most stressful weeks in my career. I worked thirteen days straight and some days did not leave the office until after 8:00 PM. Referencing my recap report for my manager’s return, it was the week I terminated Ryan (I’m off the Clock), and two other employees. In addition, I was working on upgrading our HRIS, was assigned an investigation, and I was managing 7 other employee relations issues. Not that this is an excuse, but I was both young, and not as experienced with ER issues. **I think** I’ve grown enough to not ever be this unprofessional again. But who knows, maybe another Crystal will come along.

Weeks later, Crystal eventually went on a leave of absence for substance use, and was able to return to work once cleared by a physician. As any petty bitch of an HR professional would be, I was so annoyed that she was able to get one over on me, and frequently followed up with her manager to confirm she had her shit together. After her leave, her performance improved substantially, but it was too little too late, and she received an overall rating of “Does Not Meet Expectations” on her performance evaluation. Her manager outlined all of her concerns, including Crystal’s lack of initiative, specifically around addressing the needs of the customers we served, her lack of accountability, her attendance, and her inability to maintain effective relationships with customers.

A few months later, we were notified that her job site was closing due to loss of funding. We gave each employee a notice of their program’s impending closure, and encouraged them all to apply for other positions within the company.

During a shadowing session for a potential transfer, the department manager who interviewed and was going to potentially hire Crystal noted that she was unengaged, and that she would often be “missing.” Back at her current program, she called out at 9:07 AM one day when she was supposed to have started at 9:00 AM, and a few days later, she texted her manager at about 9:15 AM, to tell her that she signed up for a training that was irrelevant due to her work site closure. She also stated that she had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon, without any prior notice.

This was the final straw. With all of the continued performance issues, which were unpredictable and re-occurring, we were finally able to let her know that she was unable to be transferred. And with that, we were able to lay her off and finally rid ourself of Crystal.