OK. First off, thanks everyone for your supportive words. It seems like things have gotten even more strange . I got a call back from HR late on Friday and the lady thought that I was just asking about benefits, but I really clued her in to there being a bigger problem that the company owes it to itself to investigate. I didn't give her all of the details, but got enough out there to spark interest.
I did get some good advice from some other people that work(ed) for HR departments (unfortunately not around Des Moines where I live). They said to make sure to use key words that HR people are trained to listen for. So, and I was being completely truthful, I used words like "hostile work environment," based off of the true tyrant that my boss was all of the time to people, "descrimination," even though it is pretty weak, I found that of the last 4 people that have been terminated by my boss, 3 (including myself) were men, and we were all terminated imediately without reason, and 1 was a woman that lied on her job application, lied on her resume, lied in her interview, and it took over 9 months of written warnings and meetings before she was fired. That did get the HR person more interested.
I asked for a face-to-face meeting for Monday, and was told "We don't usually do that since there is an HR representative in the termination meeting." I told her that the reason I wanted to meet with HR was because there WAS NOT a HR person at the termination. I also said that the reason I was given, which I had to ask repeatedly for, went like this:
"What exactly did I do?" - me
"If we didn't have the outage this morning, we wouldn't be here." - my old boss
Pretty severe since the system outage (I work in IT) impacted less than 10 regular (not high paid executives) employees for less than 15 minutes, and it would have been even less if the support people that were in the office at the time (it was about an hour before I nromally get there) had been more responsive. It was even proven that other people were directly responsible for the system problem, but since I was the "manager" (even though the primary person that caused the problem doesn't report to me) it was my fault.
Here is what we (myself and a few other people I worked with) think really was the reason. Our IT department had been hit with a rash of system outages lately. My part of that department had about 2 (including the one in question) in the last week, but none for months before that, and other parts of IT have had dozens of outages, so really we were doing pretty good comparitively. Anyway, the CIO said in an executive meeting (which my boss would have been at) that if there were any more server outages, his staff would be in big trouble (keeping this post clean). Well, there was an outage, and my boss saved his butt by putting mine on the chopping block. Pretty typical. He always stole my good ideas as his own, and always blamed us for his mistakes, which of course doesn't help build credibility with others that don't know the "real" Randy (my boss, not SirQuack).
What is even worse is the fact that I had been busting my butt for the last month as we lost probably the best server admin I have ever worked with and I had to do my job and his. Anyway, I was picking up new skills and polishing old ones that I hadn't used to make sure that our department keep running. In fact, other parts of the IT department had told me that they expected projects to be delayed, but were happy when they weren't and that because of my extra efforts things never skipped a beat.
The lawyer also told me that since it was for no fault of my own, that really I was layed off and not fired. He said that this is a big difference. He also said that to him it was a clear cut case for me getting unemployment, which is something like 60% of my salary, so that would be a big help. I know that it will take some time for that to kick in, and I anticipate my employer will fight it, but I should get it. That would be HUGE for my family as at least there will be some money coming in.
So for those of you wondering what I need (for the praying type, or even those that just like to make wishes in wishing wells, I'll take what I can get)...
1) A new job in my field soon.
2) Unemployment money
3) Some sort of compensation from my former employer. I would prefer not to deal with a lawyer, so a severance package agreement, or something would be good.
4) That I don't have to pull out my 401K. I got a late start, and at 33 years old, would hate to have to start over.
5) Upbeat spirits for me and my family. My oldest daughter has been uprooted so much. In fact, with each of my last 4 jobs changes, we've had to move. She is afraid of that again.
Oh, and SirQuack, I have been in IT since graduating college in 1994. Started as a PC tech, moved in to Microsoft and Novell networking, was offered a promotion into management, have been doing hands on networking and staff management since. The last 3.5 years at my latest employer was about 85% staff and project management, and about 15% Windows server related work. My best management skills are working with people and getting them to be productive. I believe in some structured weekly meetings (one on one meetings) but find it more critical to be with the team daily to keep up to the minute on what is going on and how I can help the team to be more successful. I do not micromanage, however, unless a particular person needs the added "attention" to get back on track. My biggest weakness is my company loyalty. I am pro-company when talking to others both inside and outside the company so much, that sometimes it takes preceidence over my own needs.
Whew, was that a good interview answer or what.
OK. Now that wou are all asleep from reading this. Thank you and good night.
