Puzzled

On Monday afternoon my bosses  boss found me to ask me to be in for 9:30am because he wanted me to report to HR at 9:45am to escort someone who resigned to get his personal belongings and say goodbye. The reason I was asked is the guy's immediate supervisor is on vacation, and he answers to my boss who is also on vacation. I replace my boss at least for such things, when he is on vacation. 

That person who resigned turned out to be someone I worked closely with about 10 year ago. At that time this guy had it in for me, because sadly, whether I like it or not, I'm a keener. I'm highly energetic and do more work then most so of course I make those who do the same job as me look bad. 

This particular co-worker used to back-stab me or my team whenever he found the opportunity. The sad part is, he was doing it for well over a year  before I clued into it. I'm an honest person. What you see is what you get.  I wouldn't think of screwing over a co-worker or his team. Since he and his team work for the same employer as me I would feel I was a bad employee by sabotaging someone else work.   

It was a couple of my more senior team members who pointed out that those days I wouldn't come in, suddenly the drive on the server my team used for testing would become unavailable. I'd realize it coming in the next morning that the drive was no longer accessible.  Or alternatively if I wasn't in, my boss would ask another test lead, usually this fellow, to assign work to my team. He'd purposefully ask them to do something completely different then what was needed to make me and my team look bad.

After a while I realized this was a problem, but talking to my boss didn't help.  I complained the guy was doing things like that, and his response was that he wasn't a kindergarten teacher and we had to resolve our own problems.  Faced with that and other problems there came a day in fall of 2001 where I could not face going to work. The thought of going to work had me crying nonstop. The morning it got the worst I took myself to my doctor instead of work. He suggested I might be suffering from a nervous breakdown and depression and needed time off and he put me on one month leave starting immediately. 

I remember going to work to talk to my boss and give him a copy of the doctor's note and also giving the original to HR. The worst part is my boss had the nerve to say "Well could you postpone taking this time off for a week or two, this is inconvenient right now" and "If you were having problems why did you come to me?".  At the time I was too worn down to remind him of his "kindergarten" comment, and also told him that the doctor said immediately as of today and I was going home now. 

I spent 2 months at home, I believe all of September and October. Other then sleeping, and watching M*A*S*H twice a day on my dish, I painted my garage in a concept I called Industrial meets Barbie - because of the colours I used :) The painting of the walls was highly therapeutic. Putting obnoxious and bold colours was something I'd always wanted to do. Most women think the concept is neat. Most men thinks my garage sucks. Someone even said I couldn't sell the house with it painted like that and I reminded him that most people never painted their garage. Hell I bought a 40 year old house with an unpainted garage. I rest my case! 

While I was on sick leave the company underwent the biggest layoffs in it's history I believe. When I came back this co-worker had been moved to another department, my team was half of what it was and when I came back I started part time and not in charge of my team. I started 2 weeks 1 day a week, 2 weeks 2 days a week,  and so on...  until Christmas and in the new year I started back full time and in charge of my team. 

After my return, my bosses attitude towards me had changed completely. At first he didn't want to give me responsibility because he was afraid I'd crack and he said he never wanted to lose me so long again.  Apparently one is never so much appreciated until they've been missed.  Things changed a lot after that point.  

The co-worker was still under my boss' purview but now he worked in a team dedicated to creating scripts for the QA teams.  In that role he was fine and from that point on my problems with him stopped for the most part.  To make sure I didn't have problems I'd report issues with his scripts to his immediate supervisor, so I can say for the last probably 6-7 years we haven't had any issues.

My first reaction to hearing he had resigned [after being on sick leave for 3 months already] was joy. I don't hate the guy, he does fine scripts but he's someone I cannot trust on any level so I won't miss him. I found it ironic that it would be me who would end up escorting him around and out, but I was prepared to be pleasant and supportive since I was never going to have to see him again.

He decided not to show up for his exit interview, and once one of his current teammates and myself went through his desk to collect personal items before the scavenging begins, we realized he had very little at his desk and we suspected he had already brought home 2/3 of his personal effects. Still we put all his personal effects together and told HR we had them and how should we proceed. We were told he'd contact his teammate, which made sense to me. 

On Wednesday this coworker sent around a goodbye email to his closest buddies and a few of the bosses, totalling no more then 20 people, this after 15 years in the same company. What puzzled me the most is that I was one of them!!!!   He didn't even say goodbye to the 4 newer members of his current team some of which he's been working with for more then 4 years, but he said goodbye to me?!?!?!?!

This will undoubtedly remain an enigma to me.