Provisional Pink Slip for Ike Leggett

11 July, 2013

Dear Mr. Leggett:

We regret to inform you that your services will probably no longer be needed once your present term in office ends.

We believe that is always best for employers (us) to inform an employee (you) as much in advance as is possible once it has been determined that the employee has not done his/her job and that they have failed to improve their performance despite multiple conversations in which efforts were made to inform the employee that his/her job performance is unsatisfactory and to suggest what improvements need to be made.

Advance notice of an impending job termination seems an entirely appropriate action for upper level management to take, in cases such as this, because it gives the employee ample time to seek new employment, well in advance of the actual termination date.

Since many employers find informing employees of such impending job terminations to be rather unpleasant, they often use euphemisms like "pink slip" and buffer procedures such as sending a pink slip, rather that simply telling the employee that s/he is being fired.  In fact, the act of firing an employee for failure to perform his/her job in a satisfactory manner is so stressful to many upper level managers that they frequently resort to having some one lower in the "food chain" deliver the message.  Thus it is that I find myself delivering your provisional pink slip (PPS).  I would have preferred to do this in person, especially since I know you so well, but it was my presumption that you would not take kindly to my showing up at your office door to deliver the PPS.

Therefore I am using this posting, and the Emailing of it to you, to inform you of the probable job action.  As you know, I have attempted to inform you of your unsatisfactory performance via this same mechanism - essentially because the management team is rather large and this method of communication is fairly effective.  In some cases.  However, once it became apparent that you were recalcitrant, I sent you a number of personal Emails - privately - so as not to embarrass you unnecessarily.  Given that you did not respond (or responded inappropriately) to those various private communications, and that you have not improved your performance, you have left us/me no other choice but to send you this PPS.

Some readers of this posting may not understand much of it.  In fact some members of the management team will not even understand that they ARE your employer(s); because they pay taxes and the taxes they pay are used to pay your salary.  I find this to be quite shocking, but is the unfortunate consequence of our defective educational system, and that is an entirely different matter.  For now.

Given that a final decision cannot be made, in your case, for some time, we can take a while to educate everyone involved as to why at least some members of the management team have reached the conclusion that your employment must be terminated.  We will use this same mechanism to inform the voting public (at least those who actually vote and thus form the management team) of your various failings.

We will also use this mechanism to inform all who are interested as to whether we actually need to hire someone to replace you (there are various options) and whether we should replace you with a small group up qualified people, each working - in essence - part time.  [We have a number of lawyers working on the technicalities of this.]

So.  This is to wish you the best of luck in whatever future path of employment you choose - and to urge you to make the most of the time remaining to you as you plot your future.

Yours in earnest,

Mark R. Adelman, Ph.D.