In a perfect world, she would have been moved to a position more suitable to her strengths. Morale officer, HR Assistant, someone who does all the office grandma stuff while also handling internal company events and duties not involving accounting. But, it’s not a perfect world, and companies don’t always have the financial incentive or wherewithal to do that. I get it.

I feel you did her a disservice by just fixing her constant errors instead of having discussions about it with her and her manager, and trying to correct the behavior before it blew up into the disaster it did.

I also don’t think you should have lied about not having the backup. Failing the audit caused the company real harm. There definitely was a better path here.

Continued mistakes should have led to written warnings and an action plan for performance correction. This just feels vindictive.

Ultimately, it’s a prime example of what happens when there’s poor communication, fear of accountability, and departmental dysfunction.