The paycheck is not important. Go about your business.

Greetings. I must apologize for not blogging more, but things haven't been quite as utterly stupid lately. I can almost believe that the Mecca is a viable company, and that we will make it. Then, I take stock of things and think that I must be REALLY crazy.

The competent accountant finishes his last day on Monday. He was the guy who did the payroll. That made him the canary in the coal mine. I used to ask him routinely - Are we going to get paid this week? His answer was always, "I'm still here, aren't I? When the money's gone, so am I." Needless to say, I have to question the state of the Mecca's finances. My understanding is that it's not that bad... and they haven't cut my pay recently, so that's a good sign.

What scares me is that the accountant did all of the things that made it worth my while to go to work. He did the payroll, administered the benefits, and made sure that, in general, Swiper and his crew of merry backstabbers didn't treat the employees in a fashion that violated too many labor laws. With the accountant leaving, the Accountant that does the SOX compliance (or not... as the case may be) will be doing payroll. Yikes. He is always out back doing business in Spanish on his cell phone. If you walk in on him when he's holding a private teleconference in the meeting room, he scuttles like a cockroach. When things get really bad, he resorts to using really bad English in order to make you think that he's too dumb to be up to something. Not the kind of guy I want responsible for making sure I get paid, and can therefore pay my own creditors.

The "Director of Finance" is a used car salesman that feels it necessary to shake your hand every time he talks to you. (Let me tell you that grows tiresome really quickly. He drives a gigantic truck with Florida plates (does he commute in to California?). Moreover, he takes up four parking spaces with this monster truck that he supposedly "inherited" from his brother. Ironically, I asked him why he was running Florida plates one day, and the story terminated in his inquiring as to my interest in buying the thing. As I said, he really is a used are salesman.

The HR functions are going to be handled by the "Executive Assistant". This is the replacement for the Horsie Princess. I actually like the Horsie princess much better than this woman. She keeps bragging to the Dragon lady about how she "Married herself a white boy". She is Latino... which I didn't think was that far from "white", but apparently, being a Canuck, I am not cultured in such things. I really don't care about her white husband, or white kids the she brags about. However, it would be really nice if she would answer the phone when she is supposed to be working the switchboard. Too bad she's too busy flirting with all of the senior managers. (That would be men and women.) If you are a VP, she has all the time in the world for you. If you are low level scum, she can't even be bothered to talk to you. My desk is literally one cubicle from the front desk, and yet she will call me two or three times in fifteen minutes to come and get packages when they come in. If they are offending her so much, she could bring them over. Needless to say, I don't see any useful HR functions being filled there.

Then, there is the fact that Flyboy will end up taking on a bunch of the accountant's shipping duties. That would be fine, except MNB keeps threatening to fire him. Of course, I should probably talk to MNB, as Flyboy supposedly reports to me. I should probably feel upset about my boss threatening my employee all the time. Unfortunately, It just makes me feel relieved, it means that MNB can get his threats out of his system before he runs into me.

In short, the guy who does everything useful (at least as far as the things that are important to me... like getting paid) has quit. There has been no real plan to replace him, and everybody who is supposed to be taking up his duties is either lazy, incompetent, or likely to be sacked for no good reason.

It all seems to be running fine, until you take a good look under the hood.