Linda also “kindly” made it easier for Greg to move to a new position and the original 6-month Notice Period was shortened so that Greg could leave the company earlier. She allowed it specially as this should be a lot more convenient for Linda. Thanks to the narcissistic Danny and puppet Carl, whom Linda had successfully controlled from the backstage, Greg had turned grumpy and difficult as if a different person. No matter how much Greg complained to Carl about Danny, Carl wouldn’t fix the situation within his team, and things only got worse.
Sanae was in a tight spot; everybody in her unit including Greg hated Danny and it was impossible to “collaborate” any more. Of course, she herself didn’t like Danny at all, but sometimes they still needed to work together on certain topics. One day, when Sanae set up a one-hour meeting with the three of them to discuss a certain matter, it literally turned out a fiasco. Hating each other from the bottom of their hearts, Greg and Danny had a quarrel from the beginning to the end, pointing out each other’s misbehavior. It was simply impossible to talk about anything else and Sanae sat there frozen, not uttering a word.
Some time later, Greg heard from Sanae that Danny was complaining about Greg, as if Greg was delaying his response to Danny’s team on purpose. The message she wanted to bring was, they were waiting for Greg’s input. However, Greg thought this would be a chance to attack Danny. Greg sent a confronting email to Danny, copying his manager Max, pointing out Danny’s dirty politics. Greg was to accuse Danny of his misbehavior by setting this meeting together with Max. Sanae didn’t know how to behave and she didn’t dare to take Greg’s side in accusing Danny in front of Max. After listening to all the complaints from Greg, Max simply told Greg, “Rather than sending such an email, you just go have a coffee together.” Greg didn’t respond but fell silent, turning pale. He was on the verge of losing his mind as he felt he missed the chance to shoot Danny to death. Greg’s anger was directed at Sanae then.
One day, Greg became angry when Sanae left the office after 4:00 p.m. without specifically informing Greg. In fact, the core working hours were till 4:00 pm and Sanae didn’t see any issue. Greg was in a meeting and was not in his office, so she did not have a chance to say good-bye. However, Greg, being used to core work hours being until 5:00 until a few years ago, felt as if it was a problem and sent Sanae a warning email with the title “core working hours”, saying that Sanae should respect the core working hours till 5.00 p.m. In the email, he also copied the “HR_Switzerland” email address that was used for reporting sick leave. Sanae saw this email from Greg on her way home, and wrote that she thought she could leave because it was past 4:00 p.m. The core work hours written in the work contract when she joined the company stated 2:00 – 4:00 p.m as the core hours in the afternoon. She didn’t receive any other instruction from Greg or others that she should notify her manager in case of leaving for home before 5:00 pm.
The next day, Greg verbally told Sanae that it was his misunderstanding. She did not receive any response from the HR email address about Greg’s email on core working hours.
Sanae, who had learned from Linda at lunch that the administrator of the HR_Switzerland email address was Monica, who was also in charge of Payroll, mentioned Greg’s email to Monica and told her that it was a misunderstanding about the core working hours. Monica then finally read the email in her Inbox and recognized the email from Greg. In her reply, Monica wrote that it was fine for Sanae to leave the office after 4:00 p.m. without specifically informing her supervisor, since the core work hours under the company’s regulations were until 4:00 p.m.
Later, when Sanae was talking with Linda, she told her that she was glad that Greg’s misunderstanding was completely cleared up, thanks to Monica’s handling of the situation. Sanae reported to Linda that she often found herself in a difficult situation between Greg and Danny at work, and that the three of them spent an hour arguing in the meeting without any proper discussion. As Linda listened to Sanae’s report, Linda was delighted to see that the poison she had spun was slowly spreading throughout the department. Destroying the team atmosphere, causing mutual distrust and quarrels; these were Linda’s master skills.
However, Monica’s “fair” treatment of Sanae really pissed Linda off. Greg sent an offensive email to Sanae for whatever reason, even for misunderstanding, and HR was copied in there. That would have been the best chance for Linda to attack Sanae officially in the name of HR. How stupid, this idiot Monica, to destroy the best opportunity for Linda to attack her enemies? If Monica sent a letter in HR’s name to both parties saying that there was nothing wrong with Sanae’s behavior, Linda couldn’t use this great chance any more. Why would anyone in HR take the side of that damn Asian woman? Monica wouldn’t understand what it meant for a maid to serve the Queen of HR, Linda. We can’t keep such an infidel betrayer in HR. Even if Linda would use Greg’s email as material evidence for attacking Sanae, it would be inconvenient to have Monica around, who knew all the details. Monica should be fired immediately.
Thus, Monica, an Swiss HR person, innocent, fair, honest and professional left the company two months later. The reason for the change reported, of course, was that she had found a new job near where she lived. Linda even gave Monica the opportunity to Farewell Apero so that Sanae and the others would not be suspicious about the sudden departure of Monica. Sanae was sad hearing the departure of the kind and supportive Monica. But Sanae had no way of realizing that this was Linda’s move to attack her later.
Interestingly, Greg’s next job was with a human resource services company based in Switzerland. Linda wanted Greg to leave the company as soon as possible. Greg was going around proudly telling everyone how he had built the new Market Intelligence team by recruiting the most qualified and experienced professionals from different fields. More annoyingly, Greg even said that a diverse team with a mix of different profiles of gender, nationality, etc. would ultimately produce better results than a team with more homogenous members. Greg didn’t even understand why Linda kindly agreed two years before to give him the newly created key position of the Director Market Intelligence, and to save him from restructuring; it was simply because she wanted to have him as part of the glorious German alliance. Betraying her trust as a peer German, Greg hired women of non-German nationalities to his team and boasted that he did a great team-building, That was nothing more than insanity.
Upon the announcement of Greg’s departure, Sanae and other members of Greg’s department asked Greg to give them all a Reference Letter – an interim reference letter – before he left the company. Greg accepted and requested a template from HR. After announcing his departure, Greg was feeling fine again. Greg was planning to leave the company cleanly, giving a letter to the team that had worked for him with a suitably positive evaluation. Hearing about the reference letter request, Linda took this as an opportunity for herself. The key-point was Greg, who knew all the ins and outs of this team, should be gone in a few months time. This would be a perfect opportunity for Linda to manipulate things to her advantage. Once Greg was gone, she could modify things conveniently and put them on the official HR forms. Then she should present them as if they were the only documents, official and true.
For example, Linda could perfectly downgrade Sanae’s overall performance, as well as narrowing and understating her scope of work. On the other hand, she could expand the scope of work for Ollie, who was put as a “competition” to Sanae, and write it up as if he had done the most important pieces of work, not Sanae. Re-allocation tasks across team members should be a normal management task – even at writing reference letters. Also Linda could make sure to give Ollie the rating higher than Sanae’s. Once there was Greg’s signature, it would be easy to alter or fabricate the document later, using the original. As long as Greg or the other team members shouldn’t find it out. Of course, Linda should use a new, obedient, and completely innocent employee hired to replace Monica to do all of this work. As far as it looked like a real document signed by Greg and the HR Head at the same time, there shouldn’t be any problem.
Thus, those reference letters that Greg had written as evaluation for the subordinates’ work with an accurate understanding of their job descriptions ended up in HR for months after Greg signed the “final” versions. Ollie wondered why it was taking so much time and inquired Greg about their reference letters before Greg’s last day at work. Greg was puzzled but said that he had signed all of them and given them to HR more than one month ago. It should be just to receive Linda’s signature, but that seemed to be taking time somehow. Despite Ollie’s subsequent repeated requests, the letter remained with HR for a few more months after that. When finally their reference letters were distributed, they had almost forgotten that such reference letters existed.
Sanae did not raise any particular questions on this point; she noticed her work evaluation given was not the best of best, but she let it go. She thought, anyway past was past; this won’t be so important. Linda was happy with another trick of hers that worked so well. It was also a substantial and useful step: with these reference letters, the “official facts” were created against Sanae, such as “mediocre work performance” and “attitude as an employee”. Since Sanae’s work performance was one notch below the other members of the team, this could be used as valid evidence to deceive Joe and Rachel in the future. For example, if there was a male manager in another department who evaluated Sanae’s work highly, Linda, as the HR Head with authorities, could objectively refute it. She can say, “Sanae’s work was not that great, because her line manager officially wrote like this, look. Then, she could plausibly mention that it would be strange that the person was pushing Sanae so strongly: he might have a personal relationship with her. This would ruin Sanae’s credibility.
Another weapon Linda managed to secure: Greg’s email to the HR department. It would be a good way to report the fact that Sanae had left the office without respecting a guideline set by her manager. Thus, Linda put an additional text in Sanae’s evaluation , “Her independence is amazing”, which in HR’s coding scheme meant she did not follow her boss’s orders or workplace standards. This statement should be backed up by the evidence of a report by her line manager to HR. The email that Monica sent to Sanae and Greg was, of course, erased without a trace by Linda.
Linda believed she had done the right thing. Since Linda, the Head of HR, had decided that Sanae was not good enough, no matter what her line manager had written in her evaluation, HR should ultimately give this employee the correct assessment. Linda did not agree with Greg’s “final version”, ” so she made some changes to make them even fuller. It was done in good faith to reflect the truth, including emails received to random HR inbox as well as Linda’s personal impressions. Unfortunately, Greg had already left the company and Linda could no longer consult with him about this last correction directly. But Greg, who should be active in his new role at a new company, probably no longer cared about the performance of his past subordinates. So, in the judgment of the HR Director, some of the reference letters should be updated with Linda’s final views, while keeping Greg’s signature on them. Linda, as the HR Head, could finally sign off those latest versions and hence she added her signature. Well, could that be actually “document falsification” if the last changes were made without Greg’s agreement while his signature was on it? It was nothing serious. Linda laughed to herself. It was as if she found a typo while reviewing the document so reworded correctly. The HR department should have been given the authority to make minor changes at the last minute and that’s why Greg left them with Linda. The great news was, Linda was one step closer to taking down the damn woman, Sanae.
This story is fictitious and is not based on any real persons or organizations. Copyright: Kunoichi4You 2024
Psychopath in the Next Office 