The Start of the Downfall

Wednesday September 5th
I come into work and Manager had called in sick. No big deal. Coworker leaves a note detailing all the work he has done to set things up for the next few days. I think it’s odd, because it sounds like he is setting things up for his vacation but that doesn’t start until Sunday. I know that because it is written on the calendar we keep right in front of us.

Thursday September 6th (Happy Birthday Patrick)
I walk into our area at work and see that things haven’t changed from where I had left them the night before. I ask Manager “where the fuck is Coworker?”. Now mind you I come in to work at 2, coworker is scheduled from 8-4. Manager says, it’s his first day of vacation. Um… no it’s not it starts on Sunday. Manager pull up his vacation request form and hey.. look at that it starts on Sunday. 5 minutes before our weekly staff meeting Manager calls dumbass and informs him he should have been at work. During the staff meeting we come to find out that there 4 trade spots that should have been edited together by now and ready for me to start scheduling. That was the first I had heard of it. Guess who was to do the editing??/ yuppers, dumbass. The Boss says Coworker has had all the pieces to put them together for over a month, when is he going to be in because we need these on the air literally last week as some of the contracts are up at the end of the month. Answer… Sunday the 16th. The boss wigs out and assigns them to someone else so they can on the air by Sunday the 9th. This makes me smile because that might mean Coworker might maybe get in trouble. We get back to MC and there is a message on Manager’s voice mail. “hi, someone called me. I am not sure what’s up… call me back” he either failed to listen to the message or we has playing innocent. Manager calls him back and they have a discussion about the fact that he isn’t on vacation yet and that he has to come in to work on Friday to make up for the fact that he failed to show up and BTW all hell broke loose in the staff meeting because the spots aren’t done. Coworker claims and I quote “I wasn’t sure what days I was to work this week or not and I thought my vacation started today” even though it was written on 3 calendars that we walk past countless times a day. I got EXTREMELY giddy and went in to The Boss’s office and informed him that Coworker will be in tomorrow because he wasn’t supposed to gone today. That made The Boss mad and I truly thought that something was going to happen. He hadn’t shown up, called or informed anyone that it was his intent to be gone. Any NORMAL work place would have thrown the book at an employee if they failed to show up for work. I had a glimmer of hope when The Boss kicked me out of MC so that he and Manager could have a conversation about “how this happened”. An hour later I was allowed back in to MC and Manager. Manager told me that The Boss was going to talk to Coworker about his behavior. Sad thing was I knew that wasn’t going to happen. The Boss had meetings on Friday and if he didn’t talk to him then he never would. Talk about deflating. Not only was there going to be no repercussions I was now going to have to look at Coworker on my one of two days without him. I hate that!

Friday September 7th
I checked my email before I left for work and there was an email from Coworker listing all the things I did wrong or left out the night before. The sad part is it was all the normal things I leave for myself to do. I am the last one out on Thursday night and the only one on Friday and Saturday, so anything I set out or leave out is meant for me and no one else. Just because he had to come in on his day off is not my problem. I called Manager I told him I had refrained from sending a smartass reply, I figured it would only cause me trouble. I came in to work and guess what??? No one talked to Coworker GRRRRR.
Side story… a year a go we bought new programming software that is meant to schedule programming, track paid spots and it publishes our program schedules to our website. In that time Coworker has all but refused to learn it. (We have 5 channels that we air and Coworker is in charge of 2 of them.) We started with 3 trade spots in March and Coworker was told then that he HAD to use the new software… period. He did for about a week and then considered that one week as a template. The software randomly schedules the spots for separation so they don’t air at the same time every day. So from March until September what the tracking software said was not what actually aired on his channels and the web looked as if we had no programming on his channel.
The 4 trade spots that Coworker was supposed to edit were scheduled to start airing that Sunday. Coworker was once again told again that everything is to be done through the new software period. That was his one and only priority for that day. I stayed at my cube until 5 minutes before Coworker was leaving. I walk in and he tells me “everything is done, through the new software, everything is perfect, you wont even have to look at it while I am gone. It’s great we are all on the same page” off he goes and I am just thankful I am not going to have to see him for over a week. Then I came in to work on Saturday…..