Dear Mr. Rogers: The University has made the decision to terminate your employment effective immediately. We have reached this decision regretfully following a review of your ongoing inability to work with co-workers, supervisors and clients in a professional, courteous manner. Your sarcasm and hostility towards your supervisors has created a situation which is continually insubordinate. Your relations with clients over the past several years have deteriorated to the point that few clients are willing to use your services resulting in an adverse impact on the reputation and ultimately the financial situation of Computing and Communications Services. You have been advised on several occasions over the years that your conduct must change. After careful review we see no future prospect that this will occur. We believe that this employment relationship has therefore been irreparably frustrated. We are, nevertheless, committed to dealing with you fairly and are providing you with a severance package which includes termination payment and severance pay plus current pension and earned interest of $101,014. There are a variety of options which deal with how this money can be paid to you. Please contact Ken Low in Financial Services to discuss these options by July 5, 1995 failing which a cheque will be forwarded to you. Your salary to June 30, 1995 will be deposited into your bank account on the last day of the month. In addition, your group benefits will continue to be in effect until February 29, 1996. The University will provide you with an outplacement counsellor as part of this severance package. Mr. Bruce Merklinger of the firm Right Associates will be in touch with you by telephone to advise you of he services which they are able to provide. Your UIC Record of Employment together with any outstanding vacation pay and refund of social contract deductions will be mailed to your home address by Financial Services. If you have any property belonging to Queen's University in your personal possession, please contact Howard Staveley by June 30, 1995 and he will arrange to have these items picked up Stan Yagi Acting Director, Computing and Communications Services It did not used to be like this. Managers bore the responsibility for the well-being of their employees and were held accountable for their own effectiveness. But thorns-in-the-side who are proven to be right time and time again, do become tiresome, don't they? And there is nothing like a scapegoat for quelling rebellion in the ranks, is there? The bottom line is that if staff were unionized, this could never have happened. Bitter? Yes, I am - very bitter. With more than a quarter century of service to you, myself, I have felt my pride in being one of your graduates slipping away with each passing year. I no longer believe in collegiality. I no longer believe that you respect or reward honest integrity and hard work. I am fortunate in that I am now looking forward to retirement and that I can expect to be comfortably well off. Sorry ~ generous bequests to the old Alma Mater will not be forthcoming.
Computing and Communications Services
cc: H. Staveley
R. Weatherdon
T. Hytonen
K. Low
THE "CLIENT" REPLIES: Congratulations, Queen's, you've done it again. No, I'm not talking about the Maclean's survey - I'm Talking about another dedicated employee (and alumnus) who has disappeared overnight. You did if beautifully – grind them down until they haven't the energy left for grievance procedures.
