Mean Karen Lets Hospital Patient Die… and I spent YEARS planning to get her FIRED - Reddit Podcast

a karen lets a hospital patient die because she wanted to surf on the web instead of doing her job so i spent years of plotting planning and putting a plan into action to get her fired here's how it happened subscribe to am i the jerk on youtube and hit the bell to turn on notifications i used to work at a hospital data center in the network operations group we physically sat in a room 24 7 next to the servers to make sure things didn't catch on fire monitored for alerts and did routine things like swap out tape backups but it was pretty simple work this was basically a tech job but there were people who had been there for many years back when you had to change out printer paper and run a command from an ibm mainframe it was on really specialized hardware and software that was difficult to apply elsewhere so it had become a dead end job and because there were people who weren't tech savvy at all we weren't really given much responsibility you can't tell someone they can log into a server and others not so we will to the lowest common denominator we were a network operation center where nobody was allowed to interact with any network equipment the lowest combat denominator you say meet my supervisor karen not her real name but definitely her real spirit she had been there for over 20 years and got the job solely based on seniority she was a sociopathic narcissist and one of the most unpleasant people i've ever encountered after i was hired we were bought by another hospital in combined data centers karen was demoted to shift lead and had to work with us in the 27 rotation she was very bad at her job and our responsibilities diminished to very little we had no agency to fix any problems of our own because it had to be a problem that karen could solve and karen was both lazy and stupid after a couple of years i was promoted on my first day they announced the promotion she said he will fail straight to my face but she had a powerful tool at her disposal the hospital bureaucracy since the place was unionized the hospital had a just cause firing policy instead of an at-will policy even for non-unionized employees this i think is generally a good thing but on the edges it sets up ridiculous situations where it was impossible to lose your job unless you were really egregious about it with repeated violations or you showed up sloshed blazed we had someone steal computer equipment and they still kept their job it was nuts and karen had been there for nearly 30 years so she was not getting fired without a lot of work that's okay she was terrible at her job one of the most important things about the job was monitoring for an alert which would pop up and then there was a procedure that we had to go through in order for some data to go through if we didn't do this then a nurse wouldn't get their lab results back so in one case an alert came in karen saw it and then decided to keep browsing the web because of this a patient from the cardiac icu intensive care unit was going into surgery and the doctors and nurses operating on the patient couldn't get a white blood cell count i'm not a doctor i just work in a building with a lot of them this was something very dangerous for this patient and the patient died this still did not get karen fired the reasoning from human resources was it didn't directly lead to harm she didn't even feel bad about it just a complete soulless sociopath i'm very pro-worker in general but some jobs you just absolutely have to do i was so mad she had to go i kept a paper trail of everything she messed up on it wasn't nitpicky literally life and death stuff here verbal warning first written warning second written warning final rain warning termination a slog and i'd rather spend my time doing anything else but that is the way that it went then she figured out that she could work the system as she approached the work armageddon termination she would tell hr that she was being harassed the person harassing her was different every time which would trigger a mandatory investigation this investigation took about six months and they wouldn't find anything so we would carry on except these warnings they had a six-month expiration so she could always reset the clock when it got close everyone was helpless even the cio couldn't do anything about it because of the bureaucracy karen was a menace and the entire it department had to interact with the data center staff and that meant interacting with her and she was universally disliked and she had 20 years until retirement so she would outlast the heat death of the universe then i had an idea what if under the guise of developing skills relevant to the 21st century everyone was required in the network operations center to pass the net plus exam it is not a difficult exam but it's not trivially easy i felt pretty sure that everyone on the team fell above the line between able to pass and not able to pass except karen we would give everyone better titles a significant pay raise and entrusted to do more with the equipment which is something that everyone desperately wanted then people could actually leave the hospital with transferable skills and do something else if they wanted to and not feel trapped i spent three years in meetings with human resources with my director with the ceo with human resources again job description meetings it took six hours to tweak small wording hundreds of hours in meetings red tape hell absolute red tape hell do you have any idea what it takes to approve a significant raise in a bureaucratic factory like that but the raises were crucial because it would absolutely not be fair to ask this of them pass a test or you lose your job without a large carrot attached that would just lead to mutiny and then finally it got approved i also wrote the exam requirement into my own job description it was important to still be able to do the job and not let my skills lapse just because i was promoted also this meant i could cover for people when they were on vacation or sick plus i also got that sweet sweet pay bump it went over well i was nervous but the plan made sense and i was able to communicate that people would be more marketable the job would be more interesting and more importantly they would be making 20 more than they were before and i think it really helped that i also gave myself the same requirement when i absolutely could have chosen not to the hospital would pay for offside training they would still get paid their full hourly during the training including shift deferential for second and third shifts we paid for all the materials i scheduled eight hours a week for people to go someplace quiet and study the job itself had a lot of downtime so people could study but this was formally carved out time anyway we paid for the exam and if they failed we'd pay for the second attempt we were given eight months to pass the test so this is how it was for the eight months i did not want karen to have any excuse whatsoever and somehow convince hr that this process was rushed or that it was unfair everyone passed on the first attempt except karen karen also did not pass on her second or her third attempt a bonus attempt karen being the classic narcissist thought this was somehow all about her that this was a vast conspiracy engineered over multiple years and hundreds of hours just to get rid of her and she would tell everyone within earshot that was what was going on yeah okay karen you realize how insane that sounds right not everything is about you sheesh well in this case it is but still only i and two other people know that i remember the exact time and date we told her she was in such deep denial that it could ever happen she thought that she was bulletproof i don't think i will ever achieve anything more satisfying in my career i'm not usually want to take satisfaction in seeing someone's livelihood go but she was uniquely awful and she was a patient danger and it had been nearly a decade of working with her by this point and i was just so sick and tired of her nonsense i was a hero the day after she was fired i went to the main office for a meeting and people were congratulating me like i just had a kid or i won a marathon or something even the cio they were just happy for me that i didn't have to supervise karen anymore but in my headcanon they were congratulating me for pulling off this elaborate plan morale back at the data center was also high we learned interesting things a couple of my co-workers left for better gigs elsewhere the ones who were content staying were able to stay and we all had more money and job security and because anything could set off a bs karen harassment complaint people were stressed out working with her her being gone was like a breath of fresh air newcomers were told stories of karen and they seemed exaggerated they were not in order to solve a very important and extremely difficult problem i pulled off a vast workplace conspiracy that improved the lives of the people that i work with in addition to keeping our patients safe getting karen fired is my greatest and most difficult accomplishment and i can't put it on a cv anywhere so was i the jerk for getting karen fired from this job that she had held for decades at this point i can't believe that a patient died because this lady was browsing on the web that is sad maybe the reason this happened the way it did was if they actually fired her for that reason it's pretty much admitting that it's the hospital's fault that patient died and as i'm sure all of you guys know all medical providers hospitals everywhere don't want to take on medical liability issues especially if it wasn't them that did it so maybe the reason it played out the way it did was because of that some people pointed out that ultimately it comes down to the surgeon making the decision on whether or not to proceed with the surgery if he doesn't have everything he needs the one thing i can't write my mind around in a situation like this is why the original poster would even continue to work here for that long i get that he was trying to help everyone else and save the department inside of this hospital so nobody else had to deal with this but he also gave an additional three years of his life where he still had to endure her the entire time that he was doing this when he probably could have gone somewhere else and even if none of the skills transferred which is exactly what he's saying in the post starting from zero sounds a lot better than having to deal with all of this but in the end he was the hero he got everyone the pay raise he got rid of the karen and no one has to worry about the day that they get promoted and somebody goes up to their face and says you will fail so if this was you in this situation would you spend the three years of red tape going to meetings with hr and everyone else on the whole planet in order to make this happen or would you have left let me know down below and jerk or not a jerk and why am i the jerk for kicking my mom out of my house because of how she reacted to not liking my wife's chili my mom and i have come off of a three-year estrangement her and my wife have hated each other from day one they just really clashed and my mom was going through some stuff in her personal life and was acting it out we mutually agreed that it wasn't fixable and we should go our separate ways i recently connected with her at a party and i told her that i wanted to try and fix things my wife supported this my mom is with someone i'll call rob i'm pretty sure they're engaged but to be honest i'm not 100 sure we've seen my mom a couple of times since reconnecting and i can tell that she is really trying she seems extremely anxious and too nervous to talk so we are taking it really slow but i do believe that that is her trying recently we invited her and rob over my wife was making chili in the crock pot and it was done but we weren't ready to eat she had some tortilla chips and said that she likes dipping it in the chili and inviting them to have some while we waited rob took some and gagged i don't think he did it on purpose and he seemed embarrassed but my wife's chili is very sweet she uses maple syrup chocolate powder cinnamon and brown sugar my mom laughed which upset my wife because she has always been smug about not thinking my wife is a good cook i could see my wife getting annoyed and she snapped at my mom rob kind of looked ill and excused himself my mom stood there for a minute in silence and then bolted after him and started banging on the bathroom door and demanded to be let in he was ignoring her and she started freaking out and said that she wanted to be hugged she has some anxiety and ptsd related stuff and he is her comfort person just as i got to the door to tell her to stop banging rob letter ran and i heard their conversation rob was saying that they had to get out of here because he can't eat that chili my mom was kind of teasing him about ah you didn't like it and telling him she served it with rice and raisins and sugar and chocolate sauce a lie and he said it tasted like dog food with sugar and that he was gonna have nightmares about it i saw red and my mom was laughing it just brought me back to how smug she used to be and how she looked down on us when they came out i told her to leave to get out of my house my mom got really quiet again and she said that it was creepy that i was standing outside of the bathroom door she said she's been trying and she feels like i'm looking for reasons to hate her i told her to just go because i was too emotional to talk to her she left willingly but rob told me i can't just nitpick and kick her out and then think that she's going to want to continue to put work into this relationship so am i the jerk for kicking my mom out of the house because of how she reacted to my wife's chili i don't know much about making chili but that sounds like a strange recipe to make chili maple syrup chocolate powder cinnamon and brown sugar i've never heard of any of those things being part of making chili but even if it was terrible if it was dog food with sugar as rob put it just don't eat it some people are extremely dramatic when it comes to eating food that they don't like and then they have to make a big scene about it like this where the guy has to run to the bathroom and call it dog food but if it was that bad you could probably just sneak spit it into a little napkin and not eat anymore since it seems like everyone in this situation is already on pins and needles they've been estranged for three years so everyone is kind of on edge to begin with anyway let me know what you would do in the situation down below is this recipe normal let me know that too and jerk or not a jerk and why am i the jerk for ruining my work colleague's wedding and then getting them arrested the title sounds bad but hear me out i'm a 38 year old female and i have two war colleagues mary and adam both in their late 20s or early 30s mary started at the company first and then she got adam to join they worked in different departments and mary was in my department later mary left the company to pursue another career when they started the company they were already married for a few years now mary is the kindest and loveliest person i've ever met she was always polite helpful and she would cheer anyone up we missed her dearly so it came as a shock when we found out that she is divorcing adam because he cheated on her i have called her to express how sorry i am that this happened to her and we were talking almost daily ever since i was impressed how well mary holds herself in such situations and she wouldn't bad mouth adam and the only thing she mentioned was how her wedding dress and a few family heirlooms went missing when she was moving her stuff from their apartment she thought they might be misplaced in a different box and that it would turn up eventually a few years passed i now work in the same department as adam he is a good work colleague but can be dismissive and ignorant sometimes adam invited me to his wedding with the lady chelsea that he cheated on mary with the entire department was invited and i said yes making sure that mary was okay with this i also told her where the wedding will be it's not too far from where she lives and we could go for some drinks after if she wanted to on the day of adam's wedding i noticed that chelsea is wearing a similar dress that mary wore in the photos of hers and adam's wedding years ago so without thinking i snapped a picture and i sent it to mary with the caption saying doesn't this dress look familiar mary saw the message but she didn't respond but about an hour later the police showed up at the venue during the wedding i should add that the police in our country are ruthless and any theft is considered a criminal matter for police to deal with the police had asked chelsea to take the dress and all of her jewelry off chelsea refused and started arguing with them and then adam joined in as they were rude to the police they were taken to the police station everyone at the wedding had to leave i tried to call mary but she wouldn't pick up the phone as we found out later chelsea was wearing mary's wedding dress and her family heirlooms mary spotted them on her in the picture that i sent to her and called the police apparently she has previously asked adam if he had them and he said no saying that he never saw them so after she saw the picture she knew that he was lying and stole them chelsea had to leave the wedding dress and the jewelry at the police station and go home wearing her underwear and adam's jacket after they were bailed out yesterday adam returned to the office and went completely mental on me blaming me for sending a picture to mary and ruining his wedding he also called me a jerk for what i did so am i the jerk for ruining my colleague's wedding and then getting them arrested adam is a pretty messed up guy not only did he cheat on his wife marry the girl that he cheated on her with but he stole his ex-wife's wedding dress and her family heirlooms that is really twisted not only are you stealing something that is not replaceable but you are lying about it too and the natural question that comes up is did the new wife know that all this stuff was stolen or not did he lie to her too or was she in on this whole thing both sides are possible one person that thought that the new wife knew said the new wifey knew no way would you go through a wedding planning and not go dress shopping because he already had one i doubt that he would have his mother act like it was her old dress and then wanted her to wear it and from another perspective not necessarily the opposite he very well could have lied about it but it's hard to tell since chelsea had no problem participating in the downfall of a marriage via adultery it sounds like she wanted every part of mary's life and one more thing adam obviously knew that the opie the original poster here was friends with mary and he also knew that mary really wanted these family heirlooms back in the wedding dress so in what possible scenario did he not put two and two together to realize that the op here was going to tell mary that all this missing stuff was at the wedding or maybe he did expect that but he thought it was gonna be handled after the wedding was over and didn't expect the cops to come during the wedding itself so anyway let me know how you would handle a situation like this do you think the new wife knew or not and jerk or not a jerk and why when you subscribe make sure to hit the bell to turn on notifications to finish listening to all the stories in this series use the playlist at the top of the description and next time you live stream use the cream of the crop music search for cream of the stream on spotify or whatever music platform you use 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Channel: Am I the Jerk?

Views: 397,769

Keywords: subreddit, reddit top posts, funny reddit, funny reddit posts, reddit, reddit storytime, r/confession, r/confessions, r/tifu, r/maliciouscompliance, r/prorevenge, r/choosingbeggars, r/IDOWorkherelady, r/Idontworkherelady, r/AmITheA**hole, r/AITA, finance, real estate, podcast, funny, am i the jerk, i am the jerk, im the jerk

Id: incz2Y4hRH8

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 31 2022