This can't be....or can it?

Oh, pooh.

Dear Lily:

Oh geeze -- you'll think I'm a terrible person. I know I feel like one.

A long term employee (who has earned my loyalty) is way past the age of retirement. This person hasn't been able to adequately perform the job (and by adequate, I mean "so-so" -- I no longer expected exceptional work due to age) at least the past six to eight years.

Thing is, I am really good to work for -- so nobody ever quits or retires. I've been paying this person for undone work for a very, very, long time.

Anyhow...things kept getting worse and worse. The less I expected, the less the person did. In fact, "personal phone calls" (from various friends, family, friends of family members too) took up several hours every day.

Still...how do you encourage someone to leave on their own (when they don't want to)...I didn't want to have to be the one to let the person go.

After a family discussion yesterday -- "what are we going to do" --- it was decided that someone would at least bite the bullet and tackle the personal phone call issue. We didn't know what the response to that would be...this wasn't going to be easy, but since it wasn't going to be me doing it -- I resolved myself to whatever will be, will be.

Today...well, this discussion no longer needs to take place. The person's arm is broken in several places due to a freak accident, and is expected to be out for months...if not longer -- at that age, perhaps never returning.

I feel awful...I wanted retirement from the job...but not this way.

--Debutante

If wishing or praying or any other form of magic actually worked, imagine what the world would be like. No, really, think about it. Would children in the south Sudan be starving to death if their parents wishes came true? Would the millions of children around the world with terminal cancers and such still be sick if wishes came true?

7 billion people a day wish for something. Groups of millions (sometime billions) wish for the same thing. If magic were real, no one would ever get sick, die, or be poor. The fact is that the majority of humans in the world are poor in varying degrees, and we ALL get sick and die. Therefore, magic doesn't do squat. 8->

Actually, we can and do wish for things. All of us, I think, and all the time. But wishing alone won't make anything happen -- you have to act.

An old expression I learned from my extremely Christian grandmother is "God helps those who help themselves." She prayed daily, but she didn't sit around waiting for God fix things, she did so herself.

Dear Joan:

It's my understanding that the arm is broken in several places. At that age, recovery prospects are not good. I doubt full range of motion will return. I guess that's better than death...but it's just sad.

Dear Pat:

I hope so...it's just that the night before we were all wishing that the work relationship would terminate. So it just seems a bad case of timing.

Dear Lily:

I hope so. I just wish we hadn't been talking about wanting this person to retire somehow...

Dear Raybar and Fred:

That's why I love the skeptics. I was feeling terribly guilty the wishing. I still feel...bad, but not quite as bad as I did before I read your posts.

--Debutante