our own kaiser soze

I've been working with this one woman that I have to admit, I absolutely despise. She has a major attitude problem - just a generally bitter person. But considering I can be a super-bitch myself, I usually excuse attitude issues if people can deliver. Well, on top of her holier-than-thou-I'm-better-than-you bitchiness, she also actually doesn't do her work on time.

Last year, we gated a release by a day because she was writing her documentation - which was due months before - the day of GA. (She's a tech writer, clearly.) In the next release, she delivered documentation three weeks after a product was released. This year, it took me and her manager weeks to actually get a schedule out of her. And even the schedule that she gave us for her deliverables didn't actually mean sh*t - she never managed to meet a single deadline she set for herself, or even let us know about it.

Well, today we hit the last milestone before release of this huge revenue-generating product. She was supposed to originally deliver the Install Guide for this on 12/15 - but then it got pushed to 12/18... then 12/19... then 12/22... and finally 1/2. Needless to say, even though we are this close to GA, she didn't have anything for us but excuses.

But that's not what was totally unbelievable. She comes in this morning, tells us all these things she's "waiting on" before she can send the doc out for review, and then, around 11am, she just disappears. Doesn't quit. Doesn't tell anyone she's leaving. Doesn't finish anything up or let us know what's going on. Like Kaiser Soze, its POOF! and she's gone!

I've never even heard of such a thing before! Clearly she doesn't expect to have a job if she ever comes back, considering how she just left the whole team in the lurch. As one of my-coworkers said, she basically shanghai'd us into doing her work for her.

Her poor manager... dealing with this the first day back (after dealing with her ridiculous behavior all these months). I, personally, am relieved. Yes, its nerve-racking to wait to see if the new tech writer we assigned to it can get stuff done on time, but at least I don't have to deal with her pettiness, attitude and endless non-answers anymore. But still, so unprofessional.

"I wonder if she's go all post-office and come after you and [her manager] with a shotgun?" my psuedo-manager Drew perused.

Lovely.

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UPDATE: Well, so she's not dead. I was actually really worried there for a while, since no one heard from her until about 1 this afternoon. Now, I'm pretty steaming pissed. What a total bitch! She got her doctor to courier a letter saying that she couldn't come in to work for the week. One could say, if they didn't know her, that maybe she had a breakdown or something.

But those of us who do see this as a totally bitchy and vindictive act. With a doctor's note, we can't fire her - well, we could, but then she would have grounds for a lawsuit. Does she honestly expect to come back after a week after pulling this stunt, leaving the rest of the team in the lurch like this??? Or even to take disability pay???

Even some of her previous supporters - or at least those that have given her the benefit of the doubt before - see that she just f*cked up and couldn't face up to it. Now those people despise her too. In the last few weeks, all of her lying and incompetence has been surfacing. The fact that we found a barely written guide on Monday afternoon says something. The fact that it took her over 4 weeks to get together what the replacement tech writer pulled together in less than 24 hours says something.

I hope that they fire her. Lawsuit threat or no, I'd say that there were plenty of grounds for dismissal even before yesterday's disappearing act.