-{Prev: A Time To Act}-

I’ve written before about my personal and professional clash with one Clem “Golden Boy” Hartford. About a week ago I took things to the next level.

Falspecs, my new Database application intended to monitor production within the department, is coming along quite nicely. I used it for the first time in an email.

I had been approached by Charlie Belcher and Martin Ross about Clem’s demeanor. Both were at least somewhat aware of my opinion the Golden Boy. Martin complained about Clem’s tendency to insert himself into conversations that don’t concern him. Charlie out of nowhere came up and asked, exasperated and apparently angry, if Clem was now his boss. I told him no and asked him if Clem had left him with that impression. Apparently, Clemmy joked with Charlie and Edgar that if Falspecs doesn’t start showing better numbers for them, he would fire them. Had Clem not an aura of superiority and had he not joked around with Charlie and Edgar - the two in the department most in danger of losing their jobs - it may have been funny. Melvin jokes about firing Clem all the time, but because Melvin is Melvin everyone laughs. Context, context, context.

With this information, I sent my boss Willard a rather sharply-worded email about Clem’s job performance. Despite still being responsible for everyday report-work, he’s gotten squat done (Marcel scores higher and he left before we even started keeping track of this info. Simon and I score higher even though we’re not even charged with writing reports anymore. Willard scores almost as well. We’re talking in the range of 1/200th of the productivity of Freddy and Martin, the top performers in the department, 1/50th that of cellar-dwellers Charlie and Edgar). I told him that two individuals had approached me about Clem (I didn’t name names, though I would trust Willard with that information). I remarked that he was exceptional at finding important people to talk to in the company, talking department policy, taking on unrequired projects, and just about everything except the programming that was allegedly his actual primary function. I forwarded him examples of his project work, demonstrating how lackluster it is for someone supposedly so busy doing it that they don’t have time to do any plebian programming. I pointed out that Carol Goddard, who does what he does in our sister department, still managed 50% productivity despite being newer to the task. Lastly I mentioned that he had fallen asleep and was snoring the day before. In fairness to Clem, I mentioned that this was not part of any pattern that I had detected, but it was something that I would want to know in Willard’s place.

I heard absolutely nothing back from Willard. Not word one. I was getting increasingly worried that I had crossed some line. My language in the email bordered on harsh. It’s somewhat out-0f-character for someone as affable and low-key as I am at the office. But if no one else was going to sing the chorus of the case against Clem Hartford, I would have to.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, Willard pulled Simon into the meeting to validate my email’s contents. Simon emphatically did so. By this point, Clem had gotten wind of something. When Willard said something to him about staying on task, he said that he is always on task and it’s not his fault that someone has it in for him. So I knew that Willard had gotten the letter, but I also knew that Clem may have known about the letter and my sending it. This caused a little internal drama as I tried to sort out what I would do if Clem knew it was me . And thinking to myself that if he didn’t, he would think it was sent by Simon. Simon’s less private about his contempt than I am, I think. The bonus was that if he thought Simon was responsible, there would be nothing he could do. Simon’s solid work ethic and quiet temperament makes him bulletproof while I am still trying to work myself out of the hole for some foul-ups a few weeks back.

But ultimately, I determined that I did what I did. If Clem came to me to ask about Simon, I resolved that I would tell him flat out that I sent the letter and why I did. It may not have been practical and it could have caused a conflict that could have hurt me if he was firing back. But part of taking a stand on something is accepting the blowback, whatever it might be.

Eventually Willard pulled Clem into a long and apparently contentious meeting. I was hoping to repeat Simon’s success with getting Teddy Forbes out, but when Clem got out of the meeting and got his stuff together, he said, “See you guys tomorrow.”

“Dammit,” I quietly replied after he’d left.

Ultimately, very little came out of it. Clem denied having fallen asleep. He denied taking on a superior attitude. He denied ever joking with anyone about firing them. He promised never to do the things he swears he never did. Willard told Simon and I that if we got more concrete evidence to bring it to him. The next few group meetings stressed the importance of not falling asleep on the job and how it was a terminatable offense on the first infraction.

A few days later Clem’s ANG counterpart Carol Goddard apologized in advance for some requests that Clem would have to take charge on (Willard was out). I commented that Clem was unlikely to get too superior on the matter cause he’d had a rough week.

My assessment was correct. It took a whole week for everything to return to how it was before I had said anything.