Moriah has worked in just one company her whole life, only to quit one day after a big argument with her boss. A few weeks later, by a twist of fate, she returned to the company and rose through the ranks, now with the ability to fire her old boss.
Immediately after graduating from university, Moriah got a job as a management trainee in a large company. She was destined for greatness as the position was designed for her to quickly climb the career ladder and be trained by the best in the business.
Over the years she has always been appreciated and respected by upper management. She delivered great results for the company and was the reason for many successful campaigns.
One day, however, a new employee engagement manager was hired. His task was to develop various programs to promote work-life balance for the company’s employees and to create useful incentives to inspire them to do better work.
In order to get to know all employees and their interests, he decided to have a personal interview with everyone. When it was Moriah’s turn, she walked into the new manager’s office with a smile on her face.
“Hello, Mr. Drew,” she said, offering to shake his hand. “I’m Moriah, I’m a Senior Customer Experience Manager.
“Hello,” said Mr. Drew without rising from his seat. “Let’s leave the pleasantries aside. Please have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the space in front of his table.
“That’s rude,” Moriah thought. She figured Mr. Drew was fed up with all the people he’d interviewed before her, so she let it go.
“So what do you bring to the table? I’d like to know a little more about you and your role,” Mr. Drew asked.
“Like I said, I’m Moriah. I’ve been with this company for 35 years now. I’m in charge of customer care,” she began to explain
Before she could say any more, she was distracted by the wild expression on Mr. Drew’s face as she mentioned that she had been with the company for 35 years. “That’s quite a long time… more than half my age!” he exclaimed. “How old are you anyway?”
“I just turned sixty,” Moriah replied. “Still young. The team I oversee here in the office also keeps me young,” she remarked with a smile on her face.
Instead of smiling with her, Mr. Drew looked confused. “60? Shouldn’t you be retired?” he said frankly.
Moriah couldn’t stand the man’s passive aggressiveness towards her any longer, so she decided to confront him. “I am very disturbed by your tone of voice and body language towards me, Mr. Drew,” admitted Moriah. “Do you have a problem with me?”
“No,” replied Mr. Drew. “But I have a problem with the way you lead the customer experience team at 60. What do you know about our target market? Shouldn’t your position be filled by someone of the same generation as our customers?” he asked her .
“That’s pretty rude,” Moriah said, feeling her cheeks grow hot with anger. “I don’t think our bosses would give me an important position if they didn’t think I was capable. If you wait, maybe you’ll understand why I’ve been with this company for 35 years.”
“You know what? Good,” she told him. “YOU tell all the bosses that I resigned. Feel free to tell the company,” she said and went straight to the office to get her things.
Mr. Drew shrugged. “Or maybe it’s time you accept the fact that the job is better off with someone else? At your age, you should be enjoying time with your family anyway,” he suggested again.
Moriah shook her head. She had no intention of giving Mr. Drew the satisfaction of seeing her go. She left his office and continued to work on another award-winning customer experience program that the company’s CEO described as a “work of art.”
After launching her latest campaign, Moriah met Mr. Drew again. “How many campaigns do you have left up your sleeve?” he asked her.
“I can go on,” Moriah replied.
“Or maybe you can give the rest of your team a chance,” Mr. Drew suggested. “Maybe they’ll have new ideas if you just let them do it.”
At this point, Moriah had had enough. She didn’t understand the problem Mr. Drew had with her, but she didn’t have the strength to argue anymore. “You know what? Good,” she told him. “YOU tell all the bosses I quit. Go tell the company,” she said, going into the office to get her things.
“Where are you going, Moriah?” some of her officemates asked.
“Ask Mr. Drew!” she said and entered the elevator without turning around.
Moriah spent the next few weeks at home with her grandchildren. Although she found it nice to be able to spend more time with her family, she still missed office work, which was all she knew for a while.
One day, while she was at a carnival with her grandchildren, she received a call from the company’s CEO. “I just found out the real reason you quit,” he told her. “Why didn’t you tell me the new employee hassled you?”
“I just didn’t think it was necessary. I got tired of arguing with him, so I gave him what he wanted,” Moriah honestly admitted.
“Well, Moriah, to be honest, I’d rather he was gone than you. The results of our customer experience campaigns aren’t as good as they were when you ran them. I need you back, please,” he pleaded.
“I can’t be in the same field as Mr. Drew,” Moriah told the manager. “He’s going to keep insulting me like he’s been doing all these months,” she said, recalling all the times she felt so bad about the new hire.
“Well, I’m promoting you to managing partner. He can’t talk to you like that anymore. Besides, have we ever needed him? When you get back, please check his employment first. I don’t think he has much to offer has,” the manager told her.
In fact, Moriah returned to the office to find that they were incurring unnecessary expenses from hiring too many redundant staff. One position that was not needed was that of Mr. Drew.
With HR already in place, there was no longer a need for an employee engagement manager. So Mr. Drew was fired and there was no one left to offend Moriah or any other employee.
What can we learn from this story?
Age is just a number and does not determine a person’s abilities. Mr. Drew thought Moriah was too old to work at the company and kept bugging her about retiring. In the end, he learned the hard way that age doesn’t affect a person’s ability to do a good job.
Respect your colleagues and treat them as you would like to be treated. Moriah felt so disrespected by Mr. Drew that she no longer wanted to work for the company. In the end, it was the CEO who asked her to come back, knowing how valuable Moriah was to the company.
Share this story with your friends. Maybe it will brighten your day and inspire you.
If you liked this story, you might also like the story of a mom of four who was fired from a company with no compensation and bought the company years later.