HR called me into their office to talk about my co-worker on my management team. She was telling me she was doing a poor job due to some recent incidents and they were thinking of letting her go. They wanted my opinion as well as all the other senior managers on the team to get a better firsthand assessment of her. I knew this girl could work hard, but was having a lot of issues outside of work that were complicating things in her life. I knew how badly she needed this job on a financial level (literally creditors were calling us in the office asking to speak to her), and so I sat there and stuck up for her. I told the truth about the times she'd helped us and how she was good with doing presentations and her work with PR and that maybe we could talk to her about the work related issues and get her back on track.
Being senior management, HR took note of what I said, and allowed me to intervene and try to get her back on track. At first it seemed to be working. She was taking the job more seriously and doing what she needed to do until one major donor event we had. For context, it was a well known fact that you do not f--k with the donors. Donors were our bread and butter at the museum and when they said jump, you definitely said, how high because they could easily pull their funding just like that which meant less money for exhibits, less money for staff or new hires, less funding for outreach programs, you name it.
The donors wanted a very specific set up for their event. They gave us a literal map of what they wanted done and where they wanted employees during the event and how they wanted it to run. Nothing out of the ordinary as we got those type of memos all the time. Unfortunately the co-worker didn't follow the map. She set up the event in a haphazard way and was actually from what I heard from staff the next day, very rude to one of the donors. The absolute wrong donor. We got a message the next day that the donor was pulling all their funding because of the sloppiness of the event and my co-worker's attitude towards them.
When I went to open up my email and read all this and how understandably angry the CEO was, I also saw a note to meet with HR again. I walked over thinking they were going to talk about my employee again, but to my surprise, HR was talking to me about how I'd failed doing the event. They said that even though they knew my work ethic and all that, that what I'd done was completely unacceptable and they wanted to let me go because they'd now lost millions in funding. I was in complete shock, especially after hearing how "I'd treated these people with such disrespect." Odd though, because I didn't even work the donor event! I was at home watching tv, so how could I have done all that they'd said?
Turns out, the co-worker who's job I'd saved, told HR that I was the one that had worked the event. She detailed everything that had happened using my name and thrown me under the bus. I explained all this, but HR was confused as they'd just heard from the devil's mouth how it was me, and not her. Absolutely livid, I marched back to our main building and practically kicked open the door of my boss, slammed the door, and went off on him about the situation and the AM who was there too who was the co-workers friend. The AM proceeded to defend her friend which further drove me into a rage at that point because I was telling her, "she's trying to get me fired after I saved her job for something I wasn't even here for!!!"
Me being a very calm, low key person, now involved in an arguing match, caught a few eyes as the argument went nuclear and spilled out into the office corridor where other departments came out and some of the staff came to see what was happening. What bothered me at that point above me potentially losing my job was the AM continuing to defend the co-worker just because they were friends. My boss literally had to pull me outside to walk around the block. I felt extremely betrayed by the AM and in how I'd tried to help the co-worker and now I was about to lose my job for something I wasn't even there for. I was shaking with rage, but he gave me a professional pat on the shoulder and told me he'd handle it after agreeing profusely that none of this was my fault. My boss was really a genuine cool dude that talked me off that rage ledge. He sent me off to lunch to cool the f--- down (literally what he said), and when I got back, the co-worker was gone. He made sure to get her all the way out before I came back.
It took me a lot of time to recover from this betrayal from both parties involved. You think you know someone and their work ethic and who they are as people, which is why you put your neck out for them and when they go and do something like that, something that means you potentially can't pay a bill and you lose your health insurance, and you have to try and find a new job--and you fought to keep this persons job, it rocks you to your core. I felt like I couldn't trust anyone for a long time after that, but eventually you come back to yourself and realize hurt people hurt people. You start to work harder at identifying people who really care about you, and whom you can actually trust, and you realize that you shouldn't put everyone in that same box of people who will only hurt you because it's not true at all.
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