The Karma Police

Yesterday was an interesting day for me. You see, I had a ton of people email me and phone me to tell me that my boss at my former company had been laid off. It was with glee that these folks relayed the news, as they couldn’t stand the guy. It’s a sentiment I agreed with. Needless to say, it kind of brought a smile to my face

You see, at the last gig, I had been with the company for over 5 years. I had been one of the first 20 people of a venture that was over 250 when I left. I had pretty much single-handedly architected, installed and administered our email and intranet infrastructure. It was my baby, and I really loved the people I worked with.

But for the last year I was there, I WAS pretty miserable. The budgets had been cut a ton, and it was hard to get things accomplished. The upper management also caused me to have 6 different bosses in a 14 month span. They either fired, or laid off, or re-aligned the business in ways that I.T. was thrown into turmoil. Every time I would get traction, they would either whack my boss, or re-assign our department to someone else, and the cycle would start all over again.

Now I didn’t have any problems with my immediate bosses. They were all competent, knew my value and supported me. It wasn’t until boss number seven that the problems arose. You see, this individual was a person that confused ACTIVITY with ACCOMPLISHMENT. He was the worst kind of micro-manager. He would have meetings to plan other meetings. He would want business case documents and other obscure documentation to do the simplest of tasks. He was completely ineffective, and everyone knew it.

Especially me, and I wasn’t afraid to voice my thoughts to him, calling him on the table when he deserved it. Well this was BEFORE he was my boss. Needless to say he took a deep disliking to me. Then in a horrible twist of fate, he BECAME my boss.

When this happened, I knew my days were numbered. Colleagues told me not to worry, that I was too valuable, but I knew. Deep down I knew.

Needless to say, I was laid off within a month. The decision was his completely. I have this on authority from several good sources. Employees were pretty floored. No one could really believe that I had been let go.

In a showing of support that I will never forget, everyone refused to take up the slack and do any of the work that I had previously done. They referred EVERYTHING to my former boss and told him to deal with it. People flat out refused to bail him out of the situation he had placed himself in. It warmed my heart 🙂

So yesterday my mailbox and phone bloomed with the news of his demise. As I had been pretty bitter about the whole ordeal, it represented closure for me. I can finally let it go. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted. I can smile about it now, and that’s nice.

I’m a huge believer in Karma, and I believe that he reaped what he sowed, as it should be. But, celebrating his demise like I did didn’t help MY karma any. Last night, after my day of walking on sunshine, my train home was cancelled due to a de-railed freight blocking the tracks. I think it was Karma’s way of telling me “Don’t get too cocky!”

No problem Karma, the celebration’s over. It’s all finally over.