Being in charge makes you responsible for anything that transpires among your peers. Therefore, only the most reliable people are sought after to ensure trust can be established on the job. While there’s certainly a job for everyone out there, not everyone is meant to take on the same occupation. Sometimes this revelation happens far too late, leaving stressed-out managers with their hands tied. Here, bosses share the time they encountered the most unqualified worker and what became of them.
Company Policy
“A few years back I made some changes to our employee manual. I put a couple of copies in the break room for everyone to read if they wanted. The next day, a guy from the shipping department who had worked there for over ten years walked into the main office. Without saying a word, he marched over and punched another guy square in the jaw. The employee had been having a feud with the guy for years.
Of course, the punch totally caught the other employee off guard. He was knocked out of his chair, hitting his head hard on the floor. The shipping department employee then walked out of the office and went back to doing his job like nothing happened.
I ended up calling the police who then gave him a citation. Once they were finished, I told him to grab everything and leave the building immediately. Amazingly, the shipping department employee got extremely upset and asked, ‘But what about the employee manual?!’
Apparently, he had been reading the new employee manual and got confused about the part that said if there was a problem with an employee, they would be verbally reprimanded and suspended from work. Only if the problems persisted an employee would be fired.
The employee assumed he could punch the other guy in the face twice without being fired.”
Mind Your Business
“I used to manage a coffee shop.
After the morning rush, I would disappear into the office and tackle my duties as manager. It was a small shop so there would only be one other employee manning the counter. If another rush started, that employee simply called me from the back to help out.
One morning my boss called me on my cellphone and said he had been trying to get a hold of our location for the past twenty minutes. Confused, I peek my head out the door and saw a crowd of people waiting in line. I then saw my employee on the store’s phone laughing and not making a single drink.
After I got her off the phone and we helped the customers, a regular, pulled me aside. From the look on her face, I could tell she had a complaint. In a hushed voice, the regular informed me that my employee had been talking on the phone, with her friend, about the ‘hanky panky’ she had with her boyfriend the night before.
Needless to say, I sent the employee straight home. I made sure to put in the paperwork to have her fired the same day.
Her defense? ‘That old hag shouldn’t have been eavesdropping on my conversation.’
No Smoking Please
“One time I had a guy come in for an interview at the aircraft hangar I managed. When I asked him his name, the young guy answered with ‘Jaaazzzzz,’ in a seriously drawn-out tone. I looked at his application and saw that it said ‘William’ on it. So I said, ‘Alright William, here’s how-‘
The guy cut me off by blurting, ‘Nah, man. It’s Jaaaazzzzz.’
After that, I decided to make a mental note to just not address him by his name.
We put the new guy to work fixing brake cylinders. About 5 minutes later, I smelled cigarette smoke. I turned around and there he was smoking directly in front of a sign that said, ‘No Smoking.’ When I told the new guy to put it out, he just casually dropped it on the hangar floor and stomped it out with his shoe. Stunned, I asked him why he did that.
‘You said to put it out,’ the new guy rolled his eyes.
About a half hour later, the owner of the company called me into her office.
‘Who is that smoking in the hangar?’ the owner asked.
I explained the earlier situation and apologize, but then I smell it again. I looked in our tool room and found the new guy smoking. Frustrated, I instruct him to put it out and clock out for a break. The new guy dropped the cigarette on the shop floor, stomps it out, then walked to the office and clocked out.
My boss stopped him before he left to tell him not to smoke in the hangar.
Ignoring her, he lights a new cigarette and walks right out.
I ended up following him outside and firing him right there.”
Man-Child
“I once hired a salesman that was just utterly ridiculous. The guy did well in his interview and seemed like he knew his stuff. But after about two weeks, he hadn’t made as much as a single sale. I often caught him using his computer to look up ‘voodoo’ to help him sell.
One day I sat him down to talk to him about his poor performance. To my surprise, the dude got completely livid about it. I finally told him that the meeting didn’t mean he was getting fired, he just had to make some sales. My reassurance only got him to get him to calm down slightly.
After another week went by, I caught the new guy smoking weed outside the office at the end of a workday. I couldn’t really do much about it because he had a medical marijuana card and he was already off the clock. Nonetheless, I made it very clear that if he came to work under the influence or if I caught him smoking on company grounds, there would be a problem.
After another week went by, the new guy failed to meet his quota again. I called him into my office and went over his performance as respectfully as I could. When I announced he had to be dismissed, he became completely irate about it like the last time. Over his shouting, I tried to offer him a freelance position with the company. In reality, I only offered this opportunity simply out of fear that the guy was going to come back the next day with a weapon.
Enraged, the new guy snatched up his things and left my office. He screamed from the top of his lungs that I’m just a ‘little loser,’ and slammed my door. I walked over to the office he shared with two other people to make sure he didn’t try to steal or damage anything as he was leaving.
The dude then proceeded to try and ‘give us work’ for the next few months. We continually told him that we weren’t interested. He even threatened to send all his ‘work’ to one of our competing companies, which I thought would be hilarious since he had signed a non-compete with us, but he had never given us any actual work the entire time he was around.”