Jim is a 5 star wanker.

Many moons ago, I was relieved of a job that I still miss to this day. It was a typical stressful sales role, but I was good at it and it suited me. Half of my team had my back and the other half wanted me gone, so…unfortunately that role didn't work out.

Jim had at least 50% to do with my exit in regards to damaging my reputation. He left the company while I was there, but blamed it on me as a poor leader and bla bla bla. I helped this guy make a lot of money and even made sure he hit quota on one occasion by getting a standup coworker to give him a sale for the team. Sure, I was far from perfect but I was his ally for real. I was pretty sure he lied to upper management about some details but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. It was a sweet job while it lasted.

At the time I pivoted, and pivoted again...and I am in a good place today. That took several years and has frankly been a rough ride given where I was. Ironically, Jim tried to return to his old job at some point after my departure and they almost rehired him, until a background check uncovered that he had (recently) been convicted of shoplifting at a big box store. He made around 100k yearly. Karma's a funny one.

ANYWAY.

Out of the blue, Jim reached out to me recently and wanted to reconnect on LinkedIn. I was shocked, to say the least. I replied with, “You MUST be kidding me. Get a clue dude! Seriously!!!!” and left in all those exclamation points for emphasis. His baffling answer came fairly quickly: “haha...hope your [sic] doing well Ryan." I did not reply. He tried again a few hours later with, "I would never kid you buddy (double beer emoji)" I did not respond to this either, though I have a few choice replies I’d like to throw out there (side note, he’s an insult to the double beer emoji):

Jim, still blaming others for your shortfalls? If you insist on contacting me, you ignorant miserable douche, please show my mom some respect and use the correct you’re. Haha, I was going to offer you a job but will first need an update on your shoplifting habit. Jim, f*ck off and quit giving salespeople a bad name.

Jim, congrats…you're officially Douche Approved (no council needed on this one)