Do you recall my comments about taking in strays? Well, it wasn't meant as a slam against those people who have come to me for help when they couldn't get help anywhere else. Actually, the word "stray" was used by one of my friends when they admonished me for being less wise than I apparently should be, all things considered. Look at my age, my profession, my history, after all. But, I am ever the optimist, ever the romantic, always kind, forgive easily, try very hard to understand why people do things to other people, and above all, I am consistent in my attempts to help people understand why bad things happen to them and how they can help their own situation. I am learning, slowly but surely, that some people cannot be reached. It is kind of like the alcoholic who cannot actually be helped if they do not want to be helped or if they won't admit they have a problem.
A few years ago, I told my Husband, Jim, that if I ever thought about hiring a former client, again, to just shoot me before I did it -- again. I have had employees who became clients during the course of their employment with me, and I have had clients who became employees once their case finished. To be fair, I have had more of the former category than the later category, but it seems that the later category has been the most troublesome. Case in point, a recent employee, recently let go for "gross misconduct." She was a former client, and we worked on a follow-on case after she started working for me. So, she was a "hybrid" of the two types. She could not get (or keep) a job in the area, and blamed her former spouse for this. She was evicted from the place she had been renting, and needed a place to stay, and furniture. We put her in touch with a friend who had a rental, and gave her furniture. We were flexible with her hours to help her out. Obviously, there are more facts, but the bottom line here is that we could not have worked with her more, or helped her more, in every possible way if we sat down and spent hours thinking up ways we had not already helped.
My license to practice law is important to me -- duh!! That goes without saying, of course, but I have a hard time trying to explain that to people like this former employee. I should just make a recording for as much good as it did, but this employee stepped over the line recently. The more we all talked about it after she was gone, the more I found out about this person and what she had done. The thing is, none of us looked for this kind of thing that was going on behind our backs, because we just do our jobs and all of us assume everything is fine among the staff at the office. Back stabbing and purposefully doing things to cause mayhem with the files, the calendar, the clients, and the staff, is not something that any normal person would expect from someone who has benefited daily from working at the Firm. Yet, the signs of her treachery are everywhere. So, I let her go, although we attempted to do so in the nicest possible way, only to have it literally thrown in our faces. Now, it is time for the ever popular "Separation Notice" required by the Department of Labor.
I thought I had done my usual job of writing everything down, covering all angles, and basically educating this former employee to give her some idea of what she did wrong (as if she did not know), and how she might improve her lot in the future. Having a friend and colleague or two critique it, I now see that it was too long, too nice, too "human interest" in nature. Cut to the chase, and move on. Problem is, this former employee threatened defamatory action against me and my staff. How does one squelch that sort of thing and do it nicely -- or at least squelch it in a way that is not defamatory in itself, or intimidating in its own right?
So, nice lady lawyer, former employee from hell, who tells me my people skills suck. Gee, coming from her, I take that as a compliment. More later, this time on some clients!
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