I go back and forth on Rhule keeping Mickey.
On one hand he would be a great asset in recruiting and could act like a bridge to the new regime if all parties are on board.
On the other, there could be a segment of the team that starts talking shit on Rhule and clamors for Mickey at the first sign of adversity.
Though a totally different line of work, I thought I’d share this overly long story because it’s something that happened to me and is a first hand example of what I fear could happen if Rhule is strong-armed into keeping Mickey.
A couple years after I got out of school, I landed my what I thought was my dream job at an animal surgery center doing high stakes surgeries, basically as the right hand man to one of the most renowned vets (if that’s a thing haha) in Colorado. I’ll call him “Dr. Jones.” I did quite well to be honest and my success rate was higher than any vet there including Dr. Jones. A little over a year in, Dr. Jones had a stroke and as he recovered, I took over as head surgeon and basically ran the show. There were some things I didn’t love and I changed a few things in his absence, mainly some training procedures, but a couple other things as well like how many techs were to be present during certain surgeries and their roles. In my opinion things ran a lot better when I was in charge. In his 18 month absence, we had the lowest mortality rate of any similar clinic in the nation, we won some regional and national awards, and were selected to perform surgeries on some “famous” dogs including Bretagne, who was the last surviving 9/11 rescue dog. I look back and am very proud of those accomplishments because if I hadn’t made the changes I did, there’s a great chance Bretagne would have been euthanized at age 8 and some other dog would have been given the title of “last surviving 9/11 rescue dog.”
Anyways, things were going great but when Dr. Jones returned, he was a hair more cynical and stubborn than before. Not to mention he was missing so much fine-motor function that it literally became dangerous for him to perform even the most basic surgeries. Nonetheless, he changed everything back to how it was before. Within a year, our mortality rates were worse than ever and the shine on our clinic began to wear off. This all pissed off most of the vets and techs and secretaries to the point there was a mass exodus, including myself. I got pissed one day, presented him with my numbers versus his numbers and told him if he doesn’t at least meet me halfway and recognize some of the good things I did in his absence, I was out. He held his ground and I walked out. Totally burned that bridge and unfortunately took half the clinic down with me. And to boot, he was the owner/operator and I was salaried, so I essentially made the guy $150,000 more than he normally would have made while he was recovering while I made my standard salary with no bonus. Ass hole still basically told me not to let the door hit me on the way out.
Part of me blames myself for not being more tactful in his absence. It was probably a bit unprofessional of me to make the changes I did without his approval to be honest. But the other part of me says fuck that, I had the place running to its full potential and everything I did was in the best interest of the patients.
So back to Mickey and Rhule. My worry is that half the team is going to gravitate towards Mickey if things aren’t going well. They are going to look to Mickey for answers when Mickey is not officially in the correct role to give them the answers.
If Mickey and Matt are on the same page and there is a clear and appropriate separation of powers, then it could work. But there’s also a chance it could massively blow up in Rhules face.
