An Open Letter to Mr. Smug

Mr. Smug,

I was appalled to learn about you selling the clinic, not because you decided to sell it, but because I had to learn about the sale from an anonymous message left on the answering machine at the clinic rather than directly from you. I cannot believe that you were willing to put all our livelihoods at risk without even letting us know.

Even more shocking was that you tried to cover it up when you called us, refusing to directly answer any questions. You must have thought you were doing a good job, but how dumb do you think I am? Evading the questions and changing the subject confirmed my suspicions about the situation and about you personally. You even tried to make me feel bad for you by whining "Why would anyone do that? Can't I just go on Vacation?" when confronted with news of the phone message. You didn't actually lie about it, which I suppose in your mind fits your "Christian" moral code but you were deliberately deceptive, which in my mind is at least as bad. I didn't particularly respect you before that phone call but I could at least maintain a professional relationship with you. At this point I would pretend not to know you if I saw you on the street.

All you needed to do was to tell us what was going on. You aren't happy? You want to sell the clinic? No big deal. You try to screw us all by selling it out from under us behind our backs? This is a big deal. It is despicable that you didn't have the common decency to let us know what was going on. We weren't all friends but there was no reason to put us through the three weeks of anguish we've gone through, waiting for someone to give us a straight answer. Oh, that's right. You didn't mean to cause that anguish because you didn't intend to give us any warning at all, did you? My mistake.

The years at the clinic under your ownership were mediocre at best. I thought things were going to get better after Brenda, the last evil owner sold it but the superficial improvements you made were at a great cost to staff morale and trust. Constant lack of communication as well as disregard for anyone else's needs were exemplary of your time at Kits massage. You want examples? The number of times we had to go without necessary supplies you couldn't be bothered to restock until we'd been out for several weeks were too numerous to count. Some of these supplies were expensive like fax film (or not, like dishwashing detergent) but we were paying for them through our rent! I don't know how you expected to run a business without having the essentials on hand. You also gave us a week's notice last summer when you were doing renovations to the clinic, insisted that you were going to get them done over a long weekend, then denied it when the next week came around and they weren't anywhere near complete. Instead of closing the clinic a few more days to get the work done, you made us all miserable by doing the renovations during the workday. There is nothing quite like giving massage therapy with the sound of compressors and nail guns on the opposite side of the wall and lungs full of drywall dust. Several people left after you showed your true colours during those renovations but I held on, hoping things were going to improve.

Of course the final cracks appeared shortly before you left on your vacation this year. You hired a Chinese Medicine Doctor and arranged for him to share my clinic room without a word to me. You didn't need my permission but it would have been better for me not to find out about the new roommate by seeing his diploma hanging on my wall and boxes of acupuncture needles on my shelf. Apparently others at the clinic knew about it but the trickle-down effect isn't always effective. Most businesses send memos.

Needless to say, I am not sorry that you are leaving. I was planning to leave this year before I even caught wind of your little plot because I couldn't deal with working with you anymore. There were a number of things keeping me at that clinic for the four years I was there but you managed to do a very thorough job of making even the biggest of them seem very small in comparison with the unpleasantness involved in interacting with you. I had been hoping to give you some feedback before I went to let you know exactly what kind of impact your actions had on people, i.e. You changed people who were willing to give their all to the clinic and make it great into people who didn't give a damn and were just trying to do their jobs individually without getting shafted. That change isn't a pretty one. Instead I write a letter trying to give you a glimpse of the damage you've single-handedly done to my faith in human nature.

I truly hope that the rumour about you returning to the East is true because I hope that I will never again have to interact with you on either a personal or professional level.

Sincerely,

Vertigogirl, RMT