Why was I fired?

In early summer 2010 Patrick Naef placed me in box 6 (high performer with potential - yes, even at my age!) and said how much he valued me and enjoyed working with me.  Just nine weeks later I walked into what I thought was going to be a regular one to one meeting and found him flanked by senior HR Managers and heard him tell me that he “. . . had to move me out of my job.”  This was a total shock to me as at no time had Patrick ever even hinted that there was such an issue.  There was never any warning (either verbal or in writing) nor was any aspect of the established company disciplinary or performance management process followed.  Subsequently, I was dismissed - unfairly.  The company has, in effect, acknowledged that I was unfairly dismissed by making two attempts to entice me (with financial incentives) to declare that I had resigned.  I did not pursue those offers.

Patrick Naef insists that he regularly told me that he had concerns about my performance.  He did not.  I have asked him repeatedly to provide evidence to support his claims.  He has failed to do so.  He has not even been able to identify times when he made any such verbal statements.  Those of you who have worked closely with Patrick will be aware of his ability, in times of dispute, to produce documents to support any statements he has made.  This process often takes just seconds!  Yet, many months on, he has yet to produce any evidence to support any of his claims about my performance.  He has no such evidence.

But it actually gets worse.  Below (in italics) is my termination letter (signed by Malini Johnson) . . .

I am writing to confirm what was discussed with you at our meeting today.


There has been a complete breakdown in the relationship between yourself and your Divisional Senior Vice President, which has been caused by your intentional refusal to obey his reasonable instructions, your insubordinate behaviour towards him while he sought to address your performance issues, and your continuing refusal to accept that there are any performance issues worth addressing, all of which has been undermining the smooth functioning of the Emirates Group IT Department and cannot continue.


Accordingly, as a result of the irreparable breakdown in working relationship with your line manager arising out of his loss of confidence in your ability to perform your duties to the standard expected of a Senior Vice President, it is with regret that I am writing to confirm that the decision has been taken to terminate your Contract of Employment.

(The rest of the letter was admin related.)

First of all the letter starts of with an inaccurate statement.  The topic of my so called ‘intentional refusal to obey his reasonable instructions’ was not discussed, nor had it ever been raised before.  At this termination meeting, the only statements made by Patrick about my performance were “. . . your customers are unhappy with you” and “DSVP’s have complained about you.”  But neither of these statements were backed up with any details, not even who was ‘unhappy’ or who had ‘complained’.

More fundamentally, the claims made in the letter are simply not true.  I challenge anyone who has ever worked with me, right back to my first job as a newspaper delivery boy when I was 13 years old, to cite any examples of me intentionally refusing to obey instructions.  One of my mottos at work has always been ‘do what you are told to do’.  Despite numerous requests, no-one in the company has been able to give me any examples of such so called ‘insubordination‘, yet the company has been happy to terminate my contract based on such misinformation.  During the ‘appeal’ process (more about that later) I gave specific examples of me carrying out Patrick Naef’s instructions with total (outward appearing) conviction, despite fundamentally disagreeing with him.  As part of a management team, I always take the view that, once differences are aired, a decision has to be made and fully supported.  The basic problem is that Patrick Naef is not comfortable with people airing differences to his opinions and sees it as ‘insubordination’.

The letter is nonsense and therefore I have rejected it.  I have not been properly dismissed and, by denying me my rightful benefits, the company is in breach of its contract with me.  I have adhered to every aspect of that contract, the company has not.

Since the letter above was given to me, I have not had the opportunity to discuss it with Patrick Naef.  Despite being my immediate line Manager, he has made no attempt to communicate with me in any way.  He has said just one single word to me - “Hi”, when our paths unexpectedly crossed when I went to EGHQ for visa cancellation, but he did not have it in him to stop and even ask how I was.

I guess that says as much about what he has done to me, as it does about the man himself.

About this blog

I have kept very quiet over the past months.  What happened to me was wrong, not only for my family and me, but for the organisation (EG-IT) for whom I have been, and remain, passionate about.  Despite it becoming increasingly clear that I was banging my head against walls in trying to get those in power to review their decision to terminate my contract, I was always reluctant to take any action that I felt would not have been in the best interests of the organisation.  I considered many options, but decided to keep a low profile and just communicate with those directly involved. 

But, as it is patently clear that no-one in my management chain, nor in HR, has had any desire to discover the truth, I have decided to set out here what actually happened to me and what the real issues are in EG-IT.  This will enable anyone who is interested to discover the truth.  Please pass on details of this blog to anyone who you think will be interested in it.  To avoid a deluge of information in one go, articles are set to be published every few weeks or so.  You can follow if you wish - your details will be hidden.

The blog will be open and honest.  If anyone has any problem with what I write, at their request I will publish their concerns without edit.  If anyone wants evidence to support what I have written, I will provide it.  I will not publish any comments made about my blog unless specifically asked to do so.  In covering past events, I will not breach any confidentiality, nor will I embarrass or name anyone, except . . .

I believe that anyone who has a ‘P’ in their job title should be publicly accountable for their actions and statements, particularly when (in my opinion) they are guilty of, at best, unprofessional behaviour through to, at worst, total dereliction of duty.  Regarding such people, I shall be totally open.

I will start with a summary of what actually happened to me and then, over the coming weeks and months, will cover areas such as my working relationship with Patrick Naef; why EG-IT’s structure, policies and priorities are never going to meet the needs of the group without a serious overhaul;  why I was escorted from office and banned from returning;  how the IT Executive operates;  how the HR department operates; etc.

Any feedback will be more than welcome.