Dan 10: Dan's gone

[Notes from The Cube: Look back at December 22nd, the 17th, the 4th, and earlier for how we got to this point.]

To nobody's surprise - and, yet, it is always a surprise - Dan the Hyper-Active Boss Man was fired today.

Nobody's surprise: Dan has been isolated, ignored and abused for the past seven months. It's not paranoia talking here: about 6 months ago, at an all-management meeting, apparently the new President jumped so hard on Dan - for unexpected things - that other department management were talking about it. Not happily, either. And these were people who did not particularly like Dan.

Then the new Vice President was hired, by-passing Dan who had been the assumed heir-apparent for a couple of years, based on his till-then-superior job performance.

Then Dan began to act erratically: lost, forgetting how to do what he knew best, hurting everyone under him.

Things no one else knows: In the past week, learning that the new VP and Prez wanted to cut back personnel, Dan drew up a list of "expendables" as a first-strike To Fire shopping list. It was not a good idea: once Dan made that list - which of course he sent to the Prez & Veep in an effort to please - he might as well have put his own name on the top of the list.

Which is why Dan's demise is No Surprise.

But it always is a surprise when someone who has been very valuable, even though stumbling recently, is cut off in that impersonal, out-of-the-office-in-15-minutes goose step way that they walked into Dan's office just before his annual year-end all-department meeting and . . .

And . . .

We never saw him again.

We were in the conference room, waiting for Dan to arrive. The room was set with the food that Dan had bought for us, his annual year-end Salute To Us semi-party for those of not taking the week off. Suddenly the new Vice President walked in the door. He was supposed to be on vacation until the first of the new year. Instead he told us about Dan's "settlement termination" and about the Company's "new visions".

And that ... is the end ... of Dan the Hyper-Active Boss Man.