Well, here’s the rest of the story anyhow.
This woman came from a competitor (located in California) that started out the same time as we did 10 years ago. Our company grew from 2 employees to 20 employees in 10 years. Her company grew from 5 employees to 500 employees in 10 years (and then got a $100 million IPO). We’ve had our eye on this company for a while, and always wondered what the secret for such growth would be.
This woman was one of the original 5 start up staff, but she grew very discontent with the company she was with and she wanted to become the COO of our company, and she came with the promise of having the knowledge of knowing how to grow our company the same way.
She flew up from California to meet with us, so it wasn’t your typical mailroom interview.
I don’t remember what we said while she went away, but I remember, I thought it was fishy she would want to leave a company that had grown so much to work with a small company of ours. What did she really want? We kind of agreed that we would make an offer to have her on a two month contract to see what she really had to hire instead of hiring her on as an employee.
I am SOO glad that we hired her on contract for only 2 months. I learned very quickly that was was VERY VERY VERY liberal. My first webcam meeting with her, I saw her uncovered arms for the first time, covered with tattoos from top to bottom.
First thing she did was she edited our employee handbook. I got it back with all this crap about not discriminating on people regardless of gender identification, a bunch of California laws that had to do with paid time off.
She was very angry and bitter at her former company. (I suspect they got a $100 million IPO, and then cut her out of the picture). She was also very paranoid and controlling. She would start telling employees to stop projects they were working on until they heard from her.
Once I asked her about that and she went crazy (on web cam). She started crying and screaming about how she got screwed at her last company, and she would never let that happen again.
To say the least, we didn’t rehire her after the two months, and she was very bitter about this !
It was just afterwards that I was talking about this woman with this employee and I was mentioning “Wow, she seemed to like Bob (president of our company) but she never seemed to like me from the beginning. It was almost as if she knew I had reservations about her” Then suddenly I remembered the purse on the table, and just started to wonder. Most everyone thinks she was spying. Guess I should have thought of that, but that’s so much something you’re not thinking about at the time.
Once I asked her about that and she went crazy (on web cam). She started crying and screaming about how she got screwed at her last company, and she would never let that happen again.
This sounds like my last boss. He was paranoid and controlling. I could write a novel about all the things he would do to manipulate and control his employees.
His paranoia is what really got me. He freaked out because I called an outside contractor that he had hired to repair something (and whom I knew personally)to get some background info before making a second repair on the same equipment. I had the office manager conference call the guy instead of calling him direct just so it wouldn't look like I was going behind his back, since his paranoia was getting worrisome. He freaked so bad that he started illegally recording all phone calls going through the office and tried to hide it from all of the employees.
That bastard paid me minimum wage, about a quarter of my normal wage, on my last check because I didn't give him two weeks notice. (I gave him only two days because I saw what he did to the last guy who gave two weeks notice.)
BTW, only one of the five employees that was at this company last year still works there, and he's desperately looking for another job.