After filling out his brutally honest exit interview questionnaire, 58-year-old Michael Stuban sent it to all 2000 employees at the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.
The mid-level manager had worked there for 35 years and actually enjoyed most of them, but said the last five years were “terrible”.
“I really didn't want to retire yet,” he wrote. “I like my job. The first 30 years were great but the last five years are terrible. (10 years as a toll collector, during which I served a few years as a union officer, 25 years in management).”
Indeed, Stuban decided to take the moment to write a brutally frank assessment of his colleagues and bosses, and how they functioned inside the state-run agency.
“Giving us classes where we are being told we are not political. That’s bulls-,” he wrote.
“Jobs/Promotions are filled by the politicians, it’s who you know, not what you know. Positions created for people who are not qualified.”
Stuban complained that relatives of powerful people got hired regardless of their qualifications.
“They hire a lot of people that are dumb as rocks,” he said.
During an interview with the
Philadelphia Daily News, Stuban seemed to have no regrets about his actions.
“When they asked for an honest exit interview, I gave them one,” he told the newspaper. “I sent it minutes before I officially retired.”
However, the Chairman of the commission, Sean Logan, answered back with his own reply-all.
“Mr Stuban ... I don’t believe we ever met, and after reading your Exit Questionnaire, I am grateful that we didn’t.”
Moreover, Logan told
PennLive that the message was the first time he'd been made aware of Stuban's frustration and said he didn't agree with the means of delivery.
“I thought it was a very disingenuous way to communicate your issues,” Logan said.
“If he really wanted to be constructive with his criticisms and suggestions, there's a whole other way to do it.”
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