One of our new CSRs had her last day today. It was the one who listened to Silvia Browne, the psychic Montel Williams lady, on her computer. I knew she was leaving us because she came in earlier this week and told me as much. I never had much hope in this one. She was a little rough around the edges when she began and pretty soon it became eveident that she was not that good a fit with her role in the company. I can't say it is all her; a lot of it (her leaving, that is) probably has to do with the training we did/didn't provide her when she began. I know her manager has not been racking up points lately with any of the new CSRs. He talks down to them, like they were children. Mind you, they may well deserve that sort of talk, but you can't do it that way. It belittles them and makes them want to leave even faster. This guy is always talking up his MBA and yet he seems a pretty shitty manager to me.

When she came in and told me she was leaving she said she was on her way to a real estate management related position. I think I saw the ad she repsonded to on Craigslist. Apparently she did this sort of work before, real estate, and she described the move to me as "more than a job, a career move." So be it. I don't know what kind of environment she's going to be working in as far as culture is concerned (she did mention that the enterprose was being run out of the owners mansion), but I doubt if she will be able to find somewhere so lax as we. Hell, some CSRs wear T-shirts to work. This outoging CSR was also fond of making phone calls to her husband very frequently on company time. From her phone calls right outside of my office I know a lot about her personal trevails, from her high school drop out son's recent trip to California to her husband's workers comp claim being denied.

I won't miss her, but I'm not going to beg her to stay, either.

We also let go our Collections woman this week. She was an old workhorse of a woman. Very Catholic. I liked her as much as I could. She smoked like a chimney, always in front of the building in the morning sucking on her cancer sticks. She took several breaks throughout the day to feed her habit, always returning to her desk with a hacking cough that I could hear from inside my office.

We had to let her go because she apparently paid for a client's state fees with company money. It doesn't take an MBA to realize that isn't the typical way business works. Especially since the client was already in collections and not someone we were willing to eat fees for. The facts are in dispute as to where she got the go-ahead for this course of action, but it certainly is a strange set of events. I tip my hat to the Boss, he handled the disputing parties in a very King Solomon manner: either I get money at the end of the day or I get a resignation. Take your pick. The man wasn't playing. I heard from Boss yesterday that she was already planning a law suit against us. I know that she showed up at the office this afternoon and was politely told to leave. We'll see how this develops.  ¶ 6:40 PM