The End of an Era on the Job

A couple of weeks ago, one of my subordinates gave two weeks' notice after eight years on the job. He had gotten a promotion at his other job and this new position would be a floating shift, so he would be unsure about his availability for his position with our organization. He's not computer savvy at all, and one of my other subordinates believes that one factor in his resignation was not wanting to deal with our transition to using a business administration corporation to deal with HR and payroll, with all the changes in self-reporting timesheets that entails. I think he's onto something, because the guy who's resigning hadn't gotten paid for the first six weeks of the year, and I had to sit down with him and verify his hours so he could fill out payroll adjustment forms in order to get his wages. I suspect I am going to have to fill out additional forms and send them to him for his signature so he can get his final paycheck.

I have to admit that I am conflicted about this guy's resignation... he was reliable up to a point. Given a routine, he was steady, but any deviation from the norm, any novelty, would flummox him. I joke that the job is 75% cushy, 20% somewhat of a challenge, and 5% 'oh shit!' He was great 75% of the time, okay 20% of the time, and rattled 5% of the time. Even more frustratingly, he sometimes gave me the impression of being a fabulist. I wouldn't call him a liar, but every once in a while, he'd tell me of off-the-wall stuff that happened to him on the job, like teenagers in the parking lot revving up high-performance cars before peeling away. One axiom I have at work is 'if it's not written down, it didn't happen', and never once did I get an incident report. Oddly enough, though, every once in a while, one of his more outré stories would check out, but he'd still never fill out an official report.

Even after eight years, I couldn't tell you if he's got a nutty streak, if he's a magnet for nuts, or if he's taking the mickey. Having worked in the insurance industry, I am comfortable with apportionment, so I will say it's a 20/10/70 split. Having a snarky streak myself, I can 'recognize game', even as the butt of the joke. His last joke will be making me fill out more paperwork to ensure he gets paid... that being said, I will miss the guy despite, maybe even because of, his eccentricities.