updates: the disgruntled fired employee, the raise that didn’t come through, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. A disgruntled fired employee says he’s coming to a work event I’m planning (#3 at the link; first update here)

I just thought I’d send a final update on the situation with Sam, the fired employee who threatened to attend a work event I was planning.

The tl;dr: the event happened with police presence, and Sam did not show.

I’m glad I followed up with our administration about whether the police had agreed to attend the event, because in the process I found out that they had only meant they asked the police to deliver the letter to Sam stating that he was barred from attending the event, not that they had asked the police for assistance with the event! The letter also had not yet been delivered to Sam.

It took a bit more pushing to get the director to agree to ask the police to help us with the event, but she finally did. They agreed. I never heard of any formal safety plan, but I decided that was the best I was going to get.

At this point, I’m just going to say for clarity that I work at a public library, because I don’t think the story makes much sense without that information.

After Sam received the letter, he apparently sent the director a nasty message on Facebook. When she blocked him, he strolled into our library once again, asking to speak to her. On learning she was out for the day, he stayed and talked to his former manager, whom he seems to like. I don’t know the contents of that conversation, but I heard later that he was agitated.

After that happened, I went to our assistant director, who’d been out of the office when I found out about Sam’s threat, and insisted that Sam needed to be banned from the premises entirely. The AD told me that our director was vehemently against banning Sam, but he encouraged me to put the request in writing and implied that it would be wise to encourage any other staff who felt similarly to come forward. I ended up writing a letter in which I detailed the reasons I was concerned, pointing out that all of his reasons for his previous visits to our library since being fired were clearly false pretenses — e.g. he said he needed to get things from his office that he’d forgotten but then left them behind on his way out, requested books via interlibrary loan but then had them sent back when they arrived — as well as asserting that I had considered whether I needed to quit my job for my own safety (I know that last point is against typical AAM advice; unfortunately, it was true). I also spoke to colleagues I knew were concerned and encouraged them to speak up.

That worked! A few days after the event was over, the director came to me and said she wasn’t aware of the suicidal comment Sam had made, which changed her perspective a lot. She got the necessary board approval and banned Sam from library premises for a year.

The event itself went swimmingly. The police were there, Sam was not. My two food vendors all showed, the speakers all showed, and more people were in attendance than I have ever seen in the library at one time! I have mixed feelings about that, because I was pretty angry about being forced to plan it. It did make for a nice final event for our director, whose retirement was already in the works.

It’s been over a month since Sam was banned, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. I have accepted that I’ve done all I can do about the situation and for the most part moved on with my life. There are a lot of unknowns with our AD transitioning into the director role, but I can definitely say he’s more sensitive to staff’s safety concerns than our previous director.

Thanks again for your advice! And thanks to the commenters as well.

2. I was promised a raise for doing a lot more work … and it didn’t come through

I was holding off until I had something concrete to share. I am delighted to share a happy update finally!

I received and signed today an offer for a new position that comes with better benefits, a 37% pay bump, more opportunity for growth, and a company that is actually dedicated to supporting the local market I would be working on.

While it is a completely different category than I have ever done before, a lot of the vendors and partners are the same, and I am excited for the challenge. And that’s not to even touch on the pay bump, which will be a literal life changing amount of money for myself and my family. The six-month-long job hunt has been exhausting but holding out for a position that reflected my value and worth as a professional has made it all worth it.

I want to thank you and everyone in the comments for their support and advice during one of the most frustrating experiences of my professional career. I hope everyone who was following along in the comments is able to share in my excitement. To anyone else running the job hunt gauntlet, stay strong and hold out for as long as you can- better things will come!

3. What to say when you quit your job to start freelancing (#5 at the link)

I finally gave my notice to my lovely boss yesterday, and she was as kind as she always is, so that was a relief. I did actually get a big freelance project before leaving that I could point to for needing a specific end date, which helped. I wound up giving a longer notice like you mentioned since I did have some flexibility, but it was helpful for me too, because I’ll get some extra paid holidays. It all worked out and I’m excited (and terrified) to soon be managing my own schedule 100%, but at least I have plenty of work lined up.