"This month's performance scores are in. Steve Dickerson: negative one hundred and eight."
"Per company policy, you are terminated effective immediately."
"Head over to HR and process your paperwork."
The moment Nelson Lambert made the announcement in front of the entire department, the room erupted in laughter.
I pressed my lips together and said nothing.
I started packing my things in silence.
I'd been here since the company's founding. Seven years.
The very first client we ever landed? I'd spent three months chasing that account down.
The first eight-figure contract? I'd drunk myself into a stomach hemorrhage closing that deal.
None of it mattered.
No amount of contribution, no track record of results, could stand up against the performance system Nelson Lambert had cooked up.
Fine, then.
This dead-end job could go to hell.
……
I walked out of the sales department with a cardboard box in my arms. Behind me, voices dropped to a murmur but carried just the same.
"Steve's been here seven years. How can they just fire him like that?"
"Seven years, so what? Negative one hundred and eight on his performance review. The company doesn't need a freak show like that."
My steps faltered. The edge of the box bit into my palms.
Negative.
I'd spent seven years running accounts for this company. Stack up every contract I'd signed and the pile would be taller than I was.
And the label I walked away with was negative-score freak show.
The hallway stretched on forever. Getting from the sales department to HR meant crossing an entire floor.
Every few steps, a colleague stopped me, asked what happened.
I told them I'd been fired.
Their reactions varied. Some looked shocked. Some looked sorry.
A few of the old-timers who'd started the same year I did opened their mouths to say something, then thought better of it. In the end, they just squeezed my shoulder.
When I reached HR, the girl handling separation paperwork was Ivy James. We knew each other well enough.
She took my badge and started clicking through the system. The glow of the monitor washed across her face, and her expression turned uneasy.
"Steve, your performance score..." She hesitated. "It's really negative one hundred and eight?"
I nodded. "That's what the system says."
She didn't push it further. She printed a few forms and slid them across for my signature.
I went through them line by line. Under Reason for Separation, it read: personal reasons.
I tapped the line and told her this was a termination, not a resignation.
Ivy lowered her voice. "Steve, writing 'personal reasons' is better for you. When your next employer runs a background check..."
"Write what actually happened."
She looked at me for a long moment, then changed it to terminated by company and had me sign again.
Once the paperwork was done, she handed over my separation letter.
I took it and headed for the door. Just as I reached the threshold, she called after me. "Steve, what are you going to do now?"
I waved her off without turning around.
"Take a couple days off. Figure it out from there."
Nelson Lambert had joined at the end of last year.
Kerry Finch himself had escorted him into the sales department that day and made a grand introduction.
Lambert stood at the front of the room, his suit pressed to a razor crease, his resume projected onto the big screen behind him.
Master's in Management from some prestigious overseas university. Former regional director at a major domestic corporation.
Mr. Finch was brimming with confidence. He said Lambert's arrival marked the beginning of a new era for the sales department, a transformation, an upgrade.
Under his leadership, the department would reach new heights.
I was sitting in the third row at the time. Unimpressed.
Our company provided support services for traditional manufacturing. Our clients were factory owners. Everything ran on long-term relationships and trust built up over years.
Could big-corporate playbooks even apply here?
My concerns turned out to be anything but unfounded.
Lambert's first week on the job, he didn't ask a single question. All he wanted was every piece of data the sales department had generated over the past three years.
By the second week, the new performance evaluation system had already dropped.
The document was massive. Nearly twenty pages when printed out.
It broke down into multiple major categories, each one subdivided into a dozen smaller metrics.
