Bad Rapport Leads To Bad Reports

About six or seven years ago, I had a friend, [Employee], who was sixty-four and thinking about retirement. He worked in health analytics for a large metropolitan health organization. His job was to analyze patient data, find ways to improve outcomes, and share information about government grants and funding opportunities. Every month, he would email department heads with data and links for applications.

A year before this story, a new boss, [Manager], came on board. [Manager] didn’t seem to value what [Employee] did. Her only instruction to him was:

Manager: “From now on, all data and reports come to me. No one else. I’ll deal with it.”

She pretty much ignored him otherwise.

A big restructure gets announced, with plenty of job losses. Management is pushing hard to get it through. During a meeting, [Manager] tells [Employee] he is going to be made redundant.

Manager: “Your work is useless. You’re of no use to this organization. I haven’t opened one of your email reports in twelve months. That clearly shows you don’t matter here. In three months, you’ll be redundant. You’ll get a handsome package, over a year’s pay.”

She was so rude that HR asked her to leave the room. It was decided then that she would no longer deal with him directly.

The union was fighting the restructure and slowing everything down. So, [Employee] makes an offer to HR:

Employee: “I won’t fight the redundancy if you pay me three months’ sick leave, and then my redundancy afterward.”

They agree, but on one condition: he must complete a full data clean within the next two days for patient confidentiality reasons. After that, his sick leave would start.

[Employee] backs up his data, then calls IT and tells them to wipe his hard drive. Because he had always saved everything locally (not on a server), IT deletes all his files and physically destroys the hard drive. He also instructs them to remove any unopened emails he had sent from the server. By the time they’re done, every trace of his work is gone.

Before leaving, he hands a copy of his data to the internal auditors, and only them.

On his last day, he gets a phone call. Turns out [Manager] didn’t know he was going on sick leave starting the next day.

Manager: *Sweet as pie.* “Hi, [Employee], I need to look at those numbers you sent me, but I can’t find them. The auditors say we’re $2.2 million short on funding this year, and you might be able to help out.”

Employee: “Sure. Call me tomorrow.”

And then he leaves for good. He retires happily and ignores her calls during his sick leave.

Weeks later, [Manager] still can’t find the data. The internal auditors investigate and discover that her failure to act on his work has cost the organization more than $2.5 million in funding. Department heads begin filing complaints about his redundancy.

Several months later, [Employee] gets an email forwarded to him from the CEO that says:

CEO: “After a brief conversation with [Manager], she has decided to look for other opportunities.”