The Joke Was On Her...

One of the frontline supervisors who works under me recently had a frustrating situation.

He had an employee, Pam, who had been a star performer for a couple of years. She wasn't the most friendly or likeable person in the department...but damn, she was good at what she did.

A few months ago, he started noticing some odd behaviors in her. It started out small...punching in a few minutes late, casually abusing her internet privileges, using company email for personal use, taking long breaks, etc. Then it got more obvious: he caught her reading a magazine on the job, overheard her dissing him, sloppiness in daily work, etc.

Eventually the time came where he had to let her go. Fired.

Apparently, she was overjoyed. As she was being escorted out of the building, she told the personnel rep that she had been trying to get fired all along so she could take some time off of work and still get paid via unemployment.

Unfortunately for her, she must have soon found out that the joke ended up being on her. Unemployment only applies if someone is canned for poor performance, and she was great at her job. If you're fired for insubordination, then there's no unemployment benefit. Oops!