Today is My Last Day
I used to work in a small family-owned doctors office. A couple of years in, they got in a legal fight and experienced staff started leaving. Being young and dumb, I wanted to be loyal and ended up managing half of the doctor’s office.
The other half was managed by Brittany. She had a team of three that did the work of six.
The company got bought, and a new owner came in. He was like Danny DeVito in gold chains and a bad toupee. He was dumb and no one respected him. He screamed constantly, about little things, at anyone. He micromanaged and didn’t bother to understand someone’s job before telling them how to do it better. He tried to streamline processes without knowing how they worked. But mostly, he yelled.
One day, the hardest working person in the entire clinic, a nurse who started every appointment, was a few minutes late. She was a single mother and her kid was sick, so she showed up less than ten minutes later than usual.
Danny proceeded to berate the nurse in front of the entire office. When the nurse put in her notice at the end of the day, Danny fired her on the spot. Told her to leave and never come back.
I had been job searching, and had actually gotten an offer. I was planning on giving a lot of notice but couldn’t give notice if I’d be fired immediately — I had student loans and was paycheck-to-paycheck.
I grabbed the two remaining members of the admin staff and explained that I was going to quit without notice before too long. Brittany understood, and said she too was in the final stages of taking a new job. We agreed that we would quietly all find new jobs, then duck out when it was convenient.
A week or so later, Danny started screaming about the color of tape I’d used to duct tape down a power cable months before. I had used orange and yellow to make it more visible, but Danny said that was unprofessional. I asked him how he’d like me to fix it.
Danny: “Well, that’s not my problem. That’s yours.”
I paused for a second and said…
Me: “You know, I don’t think it is my problem. I’m out.”
I grabbed my small box of desk things as Danny howled at me:
Danny: “You will never find another job in this town! I own every doctor’s office in this county! I don’t need you, since I’ve got Brittany”
Brittany looked at him and said:
Brittany: “I’d been meaning to tell you that today is my last day.”
We packed our things and walked out, as Danny called the cops saying his employees were stealing things like their own birthday cards and pictures of their kids.
Without front desk, billing, or nursing staff, a doctor’s office simply can’t run. I’m told they were closed for almost two weeks before they got temporary employees, but had no one to train them.
Danny shuttered and re-sold the business a few months later to the Big Dog in the industry, which is a charity. Since their books are open, we saw that they bought the company (really just the clients list) for about 15% less than what Danny had paid a few months prior.
Story credit: Reddit / persondude27