She Quit 8 Months Later
I was one of the managers.
Recently an economic downturn had effected our sales.
One of the VPs sent me an email saying that we would have to cut 20% of our existing staff and he wanted me to send him a list of the people in my department that I could let go.
Well, first of, there was not a whole lot of people in my department.
Because my department was so busy, I couldn’t let any of them go.
And I told the VP that.
That actually didn’t go over very well.
“Perry,” he said with a “hrummph” in his voice, “You have a 5 member team, I need two names of people who can go.”
“I don’t have Any people I can let go,” I said, “We are so busy we can’t keep up with orders now, in fact, I need More people.”
The VP next said, “I don’t care who and I don’t care how you do it, but I want the names of two people in your department that we will let go at the end of the week on my desk by tomorrow morning.”
I walked back to my office wondering “who” I was going to cut.
After half a day, I decided that “Tom” — our new guy would be the one and only name I would provide.
I liked Tom, but he was brand new, fresh out of college and had just started with us a couple weeks ago.
It takes nearly 6 months to be trained on all our systems, so letting Tom go would be difficult, but we could pick up the slack.
In the morning I dropped off a piece of paper on the VPs desk with Tom’s name on it.
“Just one!? I need TWO names!” he said.
“That’s all I can afford,” I said, “My department is swamped now. Take it or leave it.” And I turned and walked out of his office.
Later that day I received an email from the VP that Lisa — one of my best team members would have her job cut.
I went to the VPs office again, and we argued about letting Lisa go, but I couldn’t persuade him to keep her.
A little later that day I received an email from HR that effective as of close of business on Friday, both Tom and Lisa would no longer be working for us.
I wondered how to fix this.
Lisa was one of my best, personally handling almost 35% of all the calls that came in, losing her would be a huge blow to the department And to the company.
That’s when it hit me.
I needed to write a letter from the point of view of The Company, as to why Lisa had to keep her job.
I wrote the letter quickly, then I rewrote it.
And again.
After a full day — and several rewritings, I sent the letter about Lisa to several department heads, a couple of VPs, including the one who told me to find two names of people to fire and the company president.
Just before I was to leave for the day, Lisa came to see me.
“Perry,” she said, “I just received a note regarding my severance package. My last day is Friday!?”
“I don’t know Lisa. We will see. I will talk to you tomorrow.”
The next morning — Thursday, Jack, the senior vice president walked into my office with a piece of paper in his hand.
“Perry, this is your email I received last night. About Lisa.”
“Yeah, we really need her,” I said, “she does more work than any two other people combined.”
“With what you say here, maybe we should keep her and let you go,” he said with a smile.
“You could do that sir, but then who would the VP be angry at?”
We both chuckled.
“You know, I didn’t realize just how much work your department does, or how integral Lisa is here.”
“Thank you sir.”
“I have just informed HR that Lisa will be staying.”
“Thank you Jack,” I replied.
Just as Jack was turning to leave, he turned back and said, “Have you ever thought of writing sales copy?”
“Been there, done that,” I said and we both laughed because months before, I had rewritten all the sales scripts in the company, and Jack had personally signed off on each one.
The economy began to recover and months later, my staff had increased to 8 people from 5 and Lisa was my lead engineer.
Days went by and Lisa asked to talk to me.
“I have been offered a job,” she said.
I asked with whom and when, hoping that I could keep her onboard.
“Oh. That’s a good company,” I said, recognizing the name of one of our staunchest competitors, “maybe we can match their offer. How much are they offering?”
She told me and I was shocked. It was more than twice as much as she was making now, and she would be in charge of the entire team.
I knew I couldn’t match their offer. Maybe if it was 10% — sure. 15%? Probably. 20%? Maybe. 30%? Possible — if I wrote another persuasive letter, but 100% plus? That I couldn’t do.
I stood and held out my hand.
“Congratulations, Lisa. You are going to do fine there. If you ever need anything, some advice, anything, you know who to call.”
“Thank you,” said Lisa as we shook hands.
Three weeks later, exactly 8 months to the day that was due to be her last day, Lisa walked out the door with her box of personal items from her desk in hand.
I hated to see her go, but I knew I had trained her well, and our competitor — was going to be getting an extraordinary employee.
