So that happened
The last time I had a boss leave, she was taken away by security.
She’d just returned from lunch. The horrible woman in HR was there with a rent-a-cop.
No one told me or my colleague Sheela. We just wondered what was going on and sat quietly in our cubes in those days before text and IM.
The guard blocked Ann from going into her office. We couldn’t see or hear much but we could hear her begging to please just let her get her purse.
As they escorted her out, she cried, “Sheela, get my purse!”
She knew better than to ask me. I’m no one’s keeper. And I wasn’t sorry to see her mostly-absent, disengaged, blathering ass go.
Sheela was allowed to get the purse and nothing else.
These days, I don’t keep personal things in my office for that reason. I don’t want to be tossed without my prized shit in-hand.
And I notice when people do remove their prized shit. So when you get a “sudden” announcement, you have already practiced your surprised face for weeks in advance.
I’ve been worried for a while that something big was coming. And that this isn’t the last of it.