One last post on the Dougie Saga

[shipperx]

Nothing particularly explosive.

Came to work and Doug was nice to me (which was creepy), but his typical reaction whenever he realized that he'd pushed something too far and maybe he had better play nice to Jen and myself to smooth our ruffled feathers. Jen and I have long since perfected the art of playing along and playing 'nice' right back.

However, I had the positive sign of Joyce and Mack closeted in Mack's office -- a sure sign that financial things were being discussed. Tim walking by asking whether Jen or I had any second thoughts, a thumbs up and disappearing into Mack's office, pretty much let us know that something was up.

Dumbass Doug was oblivious. Hell, the dumbass was planning to take the afternoon off. Jen (excitable girl) wanted to run tell Mack and Tim that Doug was planning to slip out early, and yet again I had to hold her back. No, don't do that. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. And if a firing is in the offing, his leaving in the afternoon won't change that fact. What's more, if he slipped out early, it would be enough to royally piss Mack off -- BIG TIME. So there was no need to *do* anything, I advised her. Sit back and wait. Either they'll fire him... or he'll leave, Mack will get pissed off, call his scrawney butt BACK into the office and THEN fire him. YOU don't need to make yourself conspicuous in this.

In point of fact, Mack did catch on that Doug was about to slip out. I'm not sure when, or how Mack caught him. But Doug went from happily anticipating an afternoon off, to returning to the drafting room and slamming drawers to clean out his desk at 10 til noon. I'm not sure where Jen went, but a few minutes later she returned to my desk and wrote on my note pad "He's GONE!" Vanessa showed up a few minutes later with the same information saying that he'd turned in his keys. And that Jerry had been told to stay in the office and watch Doug clean out his desk during lunch. Howard (computer guru) then came to my desk to tell me that he'd just removed Doug from the computer system.

Then we all went out to celebrate with pizza (so much for the low carb diet, today. Then again, due to stress in the last two weeks I've lost 7 lbs!) So lunch celebration ensued. And we were happily making fun of Doug when we returned to the office building. I ended up walking into Peter's back because he stopped abruptly... and there stood Doug at the door walking out with his aviator sunglasses, black cowboy boots (heels used to compensate for his scant 5'4" in height) and smirk saying "Hot day isn't it?" and walking off. Walked into the lobby of the building and Kevin was hanging off the upstairs railing (and our office ISN'T upstairs) saying that when he'd entered the building a minute before us he'd seen Doug coming down the hall so he'd run over to the elevator and desperately hoped that it would come before Doug got to the lobby. He had hopped onto the elevator just in time for him to make it upstairs to look out the window so that he could watch Doug run into us. (LOL! Too bad we didn't put on a better show).

Went back to the office. Passed Jerry going out saying now he could FINALLY go to lunch. We started talking and -- woo -- it hit us! It's scavenger time! (you have to understand, our cubicles and office furniture consist of what we can scavenge like vultures from abandonned spaces. And --woohoo! I could get the chair! A good, decent, desk chair. A new one from what had been the Auburn office instead of that piece of shit used to be conference table chair. Damien (intern) then begged for my chair, which I delivered to him as I took Doug's and moved it to my desk.)

Mack came in around that time. And made all the right noises about how the bosses were concerned about our situation, yadda yadda. Then he noticed "Isn't that one of the chairs from Auburn?"

"Um... yeah."

He just smiled and nodded.

For a slightly amusing anecdote for later in the afternoon. . .

We were talking about Doug having cleaned out his desk and I suddenly gasped. Crap. He forgot something. I have his Graphic Standards at *my* desk! (The book costs around $180). Shit he's going to come back for that. I then proceeded to tell Kevin, Richard, Jen, Davis, etc. That last week I had been complaining -- out loud -- about the Graphic's Standard. Once upon a time our office had had TWO *current* Graphic Standards instead of the ancient ones that we still had around. However, when we openned our office in Auburn we had shipped McCauley's Graphic Standards down there because we had Howard T's copy here. And, of course, when Howard T had been fired, he took his copy. After all it was his. However, when we closed our Auburn office OUR Graphic Standards had *somehow* never made it back.

When I had been saying that last week, I had been explaining this to Jen. And I'll be honest, I *always* suspected that Doug had walked off with it. But I hadn't really been talking to Doug, so there was no accusation in what I was saying. I was just imparting the situation as it was. We'd had a Graphic Standards. It had been shipped to Auburn. It hadn't come back. That's why we don't have a Graphic Standards.

Doug had then inserted himself in the conversation saying he didn't know what I was talking about. Was I sure that had happened? He didn't know anything about a Graphic Standards. No, I repeated, I absolutely know that we used to have TWO Graphic Standards. The office's copy was shipped to Auburn because we had Howard's (Howard -- Interior Design, not Howard --Computer Guru) copy. When Howard (interior design) left he took HIS copy. We do not have a copy of Graphic Standards now. It was last seen in Auburn. It never came back from Auburn. . .and at that moment I turned and I happened to see. . .

A current copy of Graphic Standards laying on Doug's desk.

"That is MINE" he said quite ephatically. "My personal copy."

Shrug. I wasn't going to openly accuse the dipshit. The book has been missing for 7 months now. So I went back to work.

Next day I was laying out parking lots so. . .sort of needed a graphic standards. So I went to his desk and asked whether I could borrow his, since he had a current Graphic Standards and we only had old ones left here.

So, all of this week I've been getting the Graphic Standards off his shelves to use. I just so happened to have had the Graphics Standards laying on my desk when Doug was fired, packed up his office and left. So this afternoon while we spoke of Doug packing up his stuff and leaving it hit me -- I have his Graphic's Standards (and then repeated the story I just gave you.) Jerry said he didn't remember our having sent a Graphics Standards to Auburn. I *insisted* that yes. We had a Graphics Standards which had gone to Auburn. Peter remembered the thing the same way. Jerry went out and pulled his list and he didn't have a Graphics Standards listed. Still, Peter and myself were *dead certain* that we'd have a Graphics Standards that had been sent to Auburn. Davis walked up at that time and he remembered it the same way.

Jerry got this contemplative look on his face, frowned, then told me "Go get the book off your desk. See what's written in the front."

Went to my desk, flipped over the cover. I said out loud, "Son of a bitch!"

Yep. STAMPED in the front cover was "Property of McCauley Associates."

It was OUR Graphics Standards all along. The little bastard had bold faced lied straight to my face.

Now... the question is... is he going to have the nerve to demand "his" Graphics Standards back?