This was eons ago but thinking about it still brings me joy.

I was working for a great company and had earned a good reputation among my peers, manager and across all departments. I liked my job.

As many companies will do, we had a buy-out followed by a change of leadership at the senior level, but I had gone through big changes before and was used to bending with the wind. Not this time though. This time would be different.

Our new VP was an odd one to read. He could be emotionally weak as a sick puppy one day and a pit bull on crack the next. The change was so drastic that even his direct reports would call his administrative assistant in the morning to ask what creature he had morphed into during the night. I think he had mental or substance abuse issues but that’s just my opinion.

The new VP canned my boss and replaced him with a real Goober of an idiot and it didn’t take long to see why. My new boss was a “yes man” and he had a new assignment. Me.

I was never good at pretending respect and I guess it showed. I wasn’t disrespectful to the VP or to my new boss but I didn’t stand in line to kiss their ass or laugh at their juvenile jokes and I’m sure they noticed. I simply remained professional and courteous but it didn’t take long to see that I had been lit up by the manic VP. He started riding me and pushing my boss to do the same.

My boss was directed to start performance discussions with me. I’ll shorten the details by saying the performance discussions were a complete cluster. I knew more about creating PIP’s than he did. I was given a vague list of non-specific goals and a deadline. I asked for the target numbers and was told we will let you know in 90 days if you reached them. I’m not making that up. There was no doubt they were beginning the documentation process to root me out. I had 11 years of spotless service and they needed a paper trail.

My new boss was very close to being illiterate, especially when it came to using his office PC. Even while hobbling me with threats and vague goals he would frequently ask me to proof his memos and work on his spreadsheets, and he was almost obsessed with his precious budget spreadsheets because the templates came from his VP and he was terrified of screwing up a formula and having to ask for a fresh copy. I know this because he stated it several times during the yearly budget prep. I also had the thrill of watching him repeatedly click the “save” button after each change, possibly because he thought that repeatedly clicking save-save-save-save-save-save-save-save would leave a permanent impression on the drive make or make the text more dark.

He had backups, but being the paranoid Goober that he was did not trust IT and decided to keep confidential files on his local drive instead of the network. He feared if they were on the network someone would intentionally alter one and make him look like as ass (not that he needed any help) during a meeting. I don’t know how he slept at night with his paranoia. He trusted no one and the only reason he asked me to help was because I was across the hall from him and could do what he needed. He didn’t trust me either and usually watched over my shoulder even though he never really understood what I was doing.

The date for my non-specific review follow up was closing in and tensions were high. My boss and VP were now looking at me with disgust and I could almost hear them thinking, “Why can’t you just die or leave?” The feeling was mutual.

We met and the PIP was never reviewed. It was a farce anyway since my new goals had never been discussed or put in writing. However, instead of discussing performance my boss informed me that my position had been re-classed and I could reapply and be rejected or take a package. Obviously I took the package.

Revenge? A few days before our meeting I put passwords on all of his precious files. There are ways to break MS Office PW’s but I won’t get into that. The fact is he didn’t even know how to add a PW so he sure as hell had no idea how to remove or break one, and since his current files were stored on the local drive, the only option would have been to pull an outdated copy from an email or ask his boss for help with a new template.

Why would I stoop to revenge after receiving an exit package? I worked my ass off for 11 years, bled the company color, volunteered for community projects, painted our office during the weekend to save the company money, and responded to false smoke alarms in the middle of the night to meet fire trucks at our office. I didn’t get paid for that and I didn’t ask for anything. I did it because I was proud of the company and the people I worked with - until a twit with an MBA and personality or drug problem arrived. He destroyed several careers before being canned less than a year later just as I was starting over.