Dionne Mack-Harvin resigned last week as head of the Brooklyn Public Library because of the very public and embarrassing way she handled the firing of 13 employees last year.

As if it isn’t bad enough to be fired, the actual firings were featured in a Washington Post article about Mack-Harvin.

Lets just say, axed employees feel mighty vindicated by Mack-Harvin’s decision

It’s like Up in the Air on its head. Here’s an excerpt from an article in the Daily News:

Shhh! There’s a scandal in the stacks at the Brooklyn Public Library.

The head of the sprawling system abruptly quit last week after a plan to lay off 13 employees backfired and ended in a very public embarrassment.

Insiders said the firing fiasco was the last strike against Dionne Mack-Harvin, a well-liked career librarian who took over the shaky system three years ago.

“The board was not happy with her,” a source said.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Mack-Harvin took the post with great fanfare and a fabulous back story – the African-American daughter of a sharecropper who loved books and rose to her dream job.

Her predecessor had left under a cloud, and staffers hoped Mack-Harvin would provide a fresh start. She hit a few bumps over the past few years, but none would prove as fatal as a decision she made last August.

After taking a 5% cut to her $80 million budget, Mack-Harvin hired corporate downsizing experts to fire 13 employees.

The Manhattan-based firm, the Five O’Clock Club, was being profiled at the time by a Washington Post reporter, who was allowed to witness the library bloodbath – and chronicled it in painful detail.

“And now, the first layoff victim,” read the front-page story.

“It is a middle-aged woman … with her head bowed and a distant stare in her eyes. She is fund-raiser with less than three years’ experience,” it continues.