Spiteful.

Oh, not me being spiteful. My boss.

Our departing developer put his two weeks in on Friday. Yesterday, he was in place for a meeting with the client that he manages. On Thursday, he was in a discussion with that client about deadlines, and he had to tell them that the deadlines would be delayed. When pressed for the reason that he delayed them, he had to explain that he was leaving the company, and thus the project, and that some transition time was needed.

Yes, he told the client before he told the boss, mostly because he was backed into a corner. He would have told our boss sooner, but he needed our boss to finish his internship letter for his college classes.

Was it unprofessional? Perhaps. Yesterday, he explained the situation to our boss (before the meeting). Apparently, words were exchanged. Developer said he was sorry, and was a mistake. Boss called him unprofessional. Developer told boss that he didn't think boss could say anything on professional conduct.

This morning, developer (who was supposed to be here at least one more week, then finish up with his vacation time) received a letter asking him to leave the office.

Yeah, I think the developer was right. Expecting my boss to be professional at all times is a stretch. I mean, this is a man who, whenever you offer an opinion opposite to his, or point out flaws in his plan/opinion, will change the subject and/or walk out of the room.

So, really, I would have expected more out of him, but I know better. Still, though, I think it was a shitty thing to do, cheating our ex-developer out of the vacation time (and thus, the pay) he earned. That's the sad thing, too. Knowing that if I jumped ship and did the responsible thing -- putting in my 2 weeks -- that it might not matter, that I might be asked to leave immediately and be denied my pay. All the more reason to take my vacation time before things come to that.

Spiteful: Addendum

Apparently, there were more words said between developer and boss than I knew about, and my boss decided that it was in the company's best interest to sever ties with said developer before things got worse. While everyone feels that the situation was messy, consensus seems to be that this was for the best. In retrospect, I have to agree.

Just a messy, messy situation when you've got two people who are equally stubborn butting heads, and one no longer has any need to keep up pretenses.

Spiteful: Addendum to the addendum.

Ex-developer just called our salesperson -

"I'm going to be down there in 6 minutes to pick up my last paycheck. If you don't have my last paycheck cut for me by the time I get there, I'm suing you. I have dismissal rights!"

Well, here's the problems with that logic:

1) Our salesperson can't cut paychecks. Only the head of the company and the accountant can do that. Accountant's out right now, and the boss was unavailable at the moment.
2) He doesn't have dismissal rights. He resigned. He put in a letter of resignation on Friday, and had announced his resignation to co-workers and clients on Thursday. This morning, he was asked to leave the premises, which is standard operating procedure for IT departures.
3) By suing us, he'll hurt the entire company, including his former co-workers. The second he threatened to hurt my livelihood by making ridiculous demands, he lost all respect in my eyes. I've got no problem with him wanting to be paid for his last week of work, but to dangle legal action over our heads if he doesn't get it within a moronically-short timeframe not set by the company makes it personal. He should get his final paycheck, and then he should stay the fuck away from our company, and from me.

Funny how I can go from having total sympathy for someone to thinking they're a total fuckhead in one day.