what’s the most astounding first impression you’ve seen a new hire make?

by Alison Green on March 24, 2022

Most people try to make a good impression when they start a new job. Others … do not or, perhaps, cannot. Think, for example, of the new hire who was already badmouthing the business on Twitter, the employee plotting a coup on her second day, and the new hire who brought their mom to orientation…

It’s time to talk about the most astounding first impression you’ve seen made by a new coworker. Please share your stories in the comment section.

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  1. Lab Boss*

    Cheating by using a summer camp story:

    We had a guy apply for a staff job. His very first day he was helping clean up brush along the edge of a mountain biking course. One of the other staff said “when you’re done with that axe, I need it,” and the new guy proceeded to say “OK” and THROW THE AXE AT HIM. It went within a yard of his torso. New guy’s first day was his last day. He protested that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he just didn’t think about the risk, and was told “Look, we know you didn’t mean it, but you’re so stupid you’re dangerous.”

    1. Order of the Banana*

      All the hairs on my arm went up at this story. This is extremely wild and I can’t imagine anyone trying to bargain for their job after nearly bisecting a coworker.

      1. EPLawyer*

        Which yeah, if you didn’t think about the risk, you can’t be trusted. Not the job saver you think it is.

      3. Cait*

        “You’re so stupid you’re dangerous.” I hope that’s what was written on his pink slip. Holy moly!

      4. Marzipan Shepherdess*

        Well of course he didn’t think about the risk! After all, what could possibly be “risky” about throwing a metal tool with an edge sharp enough to cut through wood AT somebody?!

      5. Winston*

        Yeah, “It’s not that I want to kill coworkers. It’s just that I’m not capable of not killing coworkers.”

    4. OtterB*

      And that’s just with fellow staff! He hadn’t even started interacting with campers yet! This is not someone you can trust with safety! This story brings out all the exclamation points for me!!!!

      1. Collarbone High*

        My cabin at camp one summer was an A-frame, and on the first night the teenage counselors had the idea to scare the campers on the second floor by sneaking up the back stairs and knocking on the window. A counselor rapped the glass and it shattered. Her hand went straight through and a vein got sliced. Trauma all around!

      2. Sibilant Susurrus*

        I’m glad you stopped at four exclamation points, give would leave me concerned for your sanity. “Five exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind.” – Pterry Pratchett.

      1. Anon for This*

        Scissors are safer to throw because they don’t tend to flip end over end like an axe does. If the recipient is ready to catch them.

    7. InvisibleDragon*

      That’s literally a Ukrainian joke: “Vasya, catch the axe! … Speak up, did you get it?”
      But yeah, someone with that lack of common sense should not be allowed anywhere near children or even adults in a position responsible for their safety.

    8. ChemistryChick*

      My eyebrows went up into my hair line while reading this. Holy mother of pearl, what an idiot.

      I used to work in a lab with a guy who was also so stupid he was dangerous. Not a new hire, which actually makes what the guy did worse. He decided he wanted to hydrate a large amount of calcium oxide all at once in a plastic drum. For those who don’t know, hydrating calcium oxide generates a lot of heat, which is why you’re supposed to do it slowly. Predictably, the scale of the reaction generated a large amount of heat and he melted a hole in the bottom of the drum. Which he then PROCEEDED TO PLUG WITH HIS FINGER. By the time I got to work, the situation was under control but holy crap. Dude was fired not long after.

        1. ChemistryChick*

          He did not. No injury that I’m aware of but there was definitely the potential for it.

      2. Pants*

        Now my eyebrows are in my hairline!!!

        I don’t think there’s enough popcorn in my house for this post and all the comments. Starting with yours! (and I hate at least 10 to 12 bags of popcorn and a whole bag of kernals)

      3. Lab Boss*

        Full. Body. Cringe.

        And that’s coming from someone who’s instinctively grabbed a piece of sensitive equipment out of 120 degree water (barehanded) and snatched a boiling-over agar flask off the heat source (barehanded).

        1. JSPA*

          Years of high-heat experience (hobbies and cooking) means I generally bare-hand items from the 55 degree (C) water bath. I notice people who’re not used to it tend to cringe. As for the agar, just point the mouth of the flask away from everyone and everything.

        2. Vio*

          Instincts can be a pain… I once happened to be barefoot while doing some ironing and knocked the iron off the board… my instinct was to put my foot out to stop it damaging the floor. it didn’t damage the floor, but it did damage my foot and result in a few visits to the burn ward

      4. Seeking Second Childhood*

        I read this to my high school sophomore who interrupted horrified saying “No! No you don’t do that!” at the point where you identified the reaction. And at plastic drum, they continued straight into “that’s going to melt!”
        The kid with one year of freshman chemistry class knew better.

    9. Kellbell*

      Reading this felt like watching those opening scenes of 9-1-1 or Station 19. Those moments where you know someone is about to do something dumb enough to get the paramedics to show up because that’s what the show is about, but you’re not sure exactly how gruesome it’s about to get.

      Also as a camp manager myself about to head into the seasonal hiring spree this story gives me ANXIETY. Thankfully I manage a day camp in NYC and so axes will NOT be a part of the equation.

    10. Dunno, I usually just read AAM...*

      Years ago I had some work done on a tree in my garden, and the tree surgeon brought a new employee with him. Both climbed the tree, the new guy carrying a chainsaw; the tree surgeon asked for the chainsaw and his mate threw it to him. WHILE IT WAS SWITCHED ON. Amazingly no-one was hurt, but that was the end of new guy’s new job right there.

      1. allathian*

        Ugh. Power tools really should have “dead man” switches so that you need to hold it, with both hands where appropriate (chainsaw), or it’ll switch off/idle.

        1. Harvey 6 3.5*

          They usually do. My chainsaw requires me to hold two different parts down (so both hands are needed).

    11. Dunno, I usually just read AAM...*

      Years ago I had some work done on a tree in my garden, and the tree surgeon brought a new employee with him. Both climbed the tree, the new guy carrying a chainsaw; the tree surgeon asked for the chainsaw and new guy threw it to him. WHILE IT WAS SWITCHED ON. Amazingly no-one was hurt, but that was the end of new guy’s new job right there.

        3. WFH with Cat*

          I went cross-eyed reading it the first time so I thought the second time was just me … lol!

      2. SeluciaMD*

        A chainsaw. A CHAINSAW. A CHAINSAW????

        I have no words. None. With that kind of judgement how is that guy still breathing???

    12. 867-5309*

      I knew where there was going as soon as I read, “when you’re done with that axe, I need it,” and almost had to read the rest with my hands over my eyes.

    13. Observer*

      He protested that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he just didn’t think about the risk, and was told “Look, we know you didn’t mean it, but you’re so stupid you’re dangerous.”

      Yeesh! That excuse is even worse than actually throwing the thing!

      I’m glad that someone told him straight out that his stupidity is dangerous.

    14. Suzie SW*

      This just reminded me of a coworker at an after school program when we were teenagers. It probably wasn’t a first impression, but my only memory of him that stuck. We were waiting for school to get out and he had grabbed matches from a science experiment kit we were planning to use with the kids. He was lighting match after match and found it really funny that I would flinch every time he struck a match on the box in my direction.

      Just as I was begging him to stop and he was explaining why I shouldn’t be such a baby, he struck a match that broke and flew right into my hair. I lost a lot of hair that day.

      4. Pyjamas*

        Yikes! Two weeks ago at dinner time, my cat jumped on table, waved his fluffy tail over a lighted candle, then jumped OFF table with his tail on fire. I ran after him, fearing the worst, but he managed to extinguish the flames himself by shaking his tail violently. And though I got a handful of charred ashes when I ran my hand over his tail, his fur is so thick that his skin wasn’t burned. But his tail looks pretty scraggly!

        2. Onomatopoetic*

          Yes, the floofy tailed cat is one of the main reasons we never ever burn candles. Poor kitty, I’m glad to hear there was no big damage done.

    15. DrRat*

      I’m flashing back to the scene in Teen Wolf where Argent is explaining to Scott what a hemicorporectomy is.

      “I didn’t think about the risk” is a great way to explain that you will be killing as many campers as possible but that none of it will be intentional.

    16. Choggy*

      The guy who joined our support team and kept nodding off during my training of him (in the afternoon). Come to find out, he did his pre-employment medical that included a drug test right before he started and it was discovered (later) he had drugs in his system. He was fired because of said drugs as my company has a no tolerance policy and was well within the 90 day evaluation period for new hires, and he even argued that what he did was just like alcohol and should not be penalized for it. Um, dude, you were getting high at lunch, and coming back stoned! What a waste, on so many levels!

    17. Marthooh*

      “It’s not like I’m some kind of axe murderer–I’m just criminally negligent!”

    19. babysharkdoodoo*

      I have a story about myself. I was in training for my first job out of college (accounting-adjacent) and my boss was going over the last year’s budget with me to explain the budgeting process. For some reason I decided to start asking pointed questions about the areas of the budget where we went over or under budget. To my boss. Who developed and managed the budget. I did not need this information, and she tried to shut me down a few times by explaining the need to be flexible, but I wanted to seem smart so I didn’t take the hint, and kept questioning her.

      Luckily that boss was fantastic and didn’t hold it against me. We’re still in touch and she is one of my best references

  2. Fluffy Fish*

    The guy who wore a “Straight Outta F#&ks” t-shirt. The curse word was not censored not that it would matter.

    We’re not a casual office and even if we were….no.

    1. Exasperated Trainer*

      Reminds me of the time I moved in to a very nice new apartment on Easter Sunday and the building manager, who had come to show me around and give me my keys, was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Jesus in front of a big marijuana leaf with the words “He Is Risen / Too High To Die” underneath.

      1. Forrest Rhodes*

        At one apartment, I received a moving-in-day gift from my new landlord: a thumb-sized joint (of home-grown, I learned later) taped to my front door. He was probably the most relaxed property manager I’ve ever known …
        No, it wasn’t in this century; yes, it was in San Francisco; but no, I am sorry to say, the landlord wasn’t Anna Madrigal.

        2. Heffalump*

          I moved into an apartment at 275 Grattan Street (corner Stanyan) in the Haight-Ashbury ca. 1976. The experience was pretty much like every other moving-in experience I’ve had and unlike your experience!

          1. Forrest Rhodes*

            Hi, Heffalump. We’re definitely talking the same time period; I was a few years earlier and on Potrero Hill. It was a great (i.e., interesting, challenging, emotional, and downright fun) time to be living in The City.

          2. Squeakrad*

            We live so close to there now it’s funny! And yeah that would be exactly what it was like!

        4. jilly bean*

          When you said “it wasn’t in this century”, my low caffeinated brain short-circuited in confusion for about thirty seconds.

          1. Forrest Rhodes*

            You’re not alone, jilly. The kids in my family love to remind me, “Oh, Forrest, you can’t do that [adventure/whatever] in this century!” and it startles me every time.
            Me and Ernest Shackleton, from another time … sigh …

        5. 30 Years in the Biz*

          Love the Tales of the City reference! Followed the series in the SF Chronicle when I was little.

          1. Forrest Rhodes*

            Ditto, 30 Years. I too read Maupin’s columns in the Chron; today, I have the first six Tales books on the shelf and re-read them regularly. Every re-read still brings both laughter and tears, and I think, “Yep, yep, what it was.” Extraordinary times.

      3. Ally McBeal*

        Okay, but as a Catholic and a stoner I now REALLY need that shirt. Easter is less than a month away!

        1. Nest*

          How quickly did he get escorted out? I like to imagine that he was just shocked by this turn of events.

          1. Fluffy Fish*

            This was the last straw in a series of we’ll call it…new employee entitlement. This shirt was directed at me. Because of things like as a senior employee when I found out he took sensitive plans off-site to be reviewed by someone (who turned out to be his mom), that a lot of our plans were not for public consumption and he should really check before doing that. Among other things.

            I believe it was the next day but only because his manager wasn’t in the office that day.

            It was really funny because he knew he f*&ked up (pun intended) when people were like uh that’s a choice. He made up some lie that he forgot he had it on, he meant to change before work, blah blah and wore his jacket the rest of the day.

            I do think he was truly shocked he was let go, but only because he was truly enamored with what he thought he knew. Last I knew he set up his own “consulting” business to consult on the field he was fired from the only job he ever briefly held in that field. So if nothing else, he is consistent.

            1. Anonym*

              “Enamored with what he thought he knew” is a perfect description of something I’ve encountered (ahem, dated) many times.

            2. Artemesia*

              Sounds right. I was always astounded at the number of undergraduates who had decided they wanted to be ‘business consultants’ having never worked at all as well as the number who though a nifty career would be ‘motivational speaker.’

              1. Lady Pomona*

                For a spectacular example of exactly that, check out AAM’s “No one will hire me to be their visionary” column from a few years back (you can find it via the AAM site search box.) When you read it, please remember that the LW in THAT letter hadn’t even graduated from college and was ALREADY frustrated that no company would hire him to think lovely thoughts and tell them what to do! (The letter is a total hoot, and Alison’s answer is far more patient than mine would’ve been!)

              2. Caroline Bowman*

                My best are ”life coaches” (always online course-certified) who are maybe mid-twenties, if that.

                I mean, no.

      2. Lab Boss*

        Exactly, what was FluffyFish expecting him to do? Pretend that he had f*cks he didn’t have? :D

    3. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I had a similar one where a new hire wore a shirt with the founding fathers playing beer pong her first day of work at the front desk of an American history museum

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          I honestly think she thought we’d find it funny! Stuffy academics in leadership did not.

          1. Sorrischian*

            That’s a real ‘know your audience’ one – and definitely not for wearing on your first day on the job.

            I love when museums (of pretty much all types) are willing to be a little irreverent so as a museum guest I would have been asking if they sold that shirt in the gift shop, but I can see where it would not go over well with a lot of people.

      3. Le Sigh*

        I really am enjoying the image in my head of her trying to decide what to wear on her first day, and thinking “Oh, this is so perfect! It’ll show how much I like history.”

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        This is very true! He did not hesitate to show us who he was, for which we are grateful. I have no doubt it saved us a lot of future pain.

          1. Fluffy Fish*

            You know this is so true and I believe more people could avoid bad employees if they took tis to heart. If your *new* employee who is presumably on their best behavior is giving off bad vibes or is a problem to start? Get rid of them. They can be some other companies fixer upper.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        I can 100% assure that if you google it, it will come up for purchase! Because I often google it to show people exactly what they were wearing lol

    7. Yay, I’m a Llama again!*

      I had a guy join a training zoom session with a t-shirt on that spelt out very NSFW word using words in the phonetic alphabet. Couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Glad I only had to see him once, terrible first impression

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        Wouldn’t you just like to crawl inside these peoples minds and watch the thought process on these decisions? I’d love to know how they thought acting a fool was going to play out.

        1. She of Many Hats*

          No no no! Those brains are either so grossly slimy that you’re permanently besmirched or so disordered you get injured climbing over the debris. Though debating how they got out of the gene pool can be entertaining.

        2. CatPrance*

          I have an idiot friend who would think that wearing that shirt to a new job was The Funniest Thing EVAH — and I have to clarify that no “thought process” would be taking place when the decision was made. He’d never get past the bit about “wouldn’t it be a scream if I wore — “

    8. Jack Straw from Wichita*

      That’s worse than the guy who wore a mask AND shirt with the Playboy bunny logo to his first interview. Even though I appreciated his attempt to coordinate, he did not get a second.

    9. Quiet Liberal*

      At my old job, one new employee had a “pacifier” hanging from her rear view mirror. The part to be sucked was shaped like a piece of male anatomy. People walked in from the parking lot wondering whose car it was. She had many other issues and didn’t last long, but it was pretty gross.

      1. Meeeeeeeee*

        I feel like that’s too far and prudish. People can have what they want on and in their cars.

        1. Mami21*

          Nope, I would definitely re-consider someone’s maturity and judgment in bringing something like that to a workplace, even the parking lot. A normal pacifier hung up as a car decoration would be somewhat weird but an x-rated one is super bizarre.

          1. YoYoMama*

            Remember the guy with the ‘Fat girls can’t jump’ window decal?
            Absolutely a reason to question judgement.

        2. Quiet Liberal*

          I have to agree with you, meeeeeeee, but her car was parked right next to the customer/employee entrance. The decoration was also neon yellow…so, hard to miss.

        3. LittleMarshmallow*

          Ehhhh… I mean if you’re on company property they can usually regulate what might be seen by others. If you were in like a public parking garage then maybe not. We had a guy at my previous location that had a window painting on his truck of a very scantily clad woman in a sexual pose. No one really liked walking past soft core porn in the parking lot so that person was told by management to park across the street and not in the employee parking lot if they didn’t have another vehicle option but that the preference was to use a different car if possible. I think he opted to drive a different car.

        4. Another ADDer*

          If it’s in the car and out of sight (or at least out of sight unless you’re right up against the car looking in) that’s one thing. That, yes, is nobody’s business. If it’s where casual passersby can see it, that’s another. That’s public, and needs to be tasteful. Anything hanging from the mirror can be expected to be seen.

    10. LKW*

      Not nearly as egregious but a guy who wore a “one tequila, two tequila, three tequila… floor” t-shirt under his button down to the client’s office. The rule at the time was that men were expected to wear a button down and with the standard under-tee. He had “run out”. His manager instructed him to leave the client site immediately, go to Target buy new tees, change, come back and clarified that it was on his own time. This was close to 20 years ago so no teleworking whatsoever.

      1. Huttj*

        See, I could see if he had at least made the effort to turn the t-shirt inside out to be less visible. That’d fit with the “oh crud miscounted laundry” excuse.

    11. So they all cheap ass rolled over and one fell out*

      My attended court in a shirt that said “I don’t give a rat’s a*&” (not censored) with an accompanying illustration. It made the local paper.

      1. BatManDan*

        “My…” what? You left out a key word that may, or may not, make the story better!

    12. LittleMarshmallow*

      I have a shirt that says “schnitzel happens” that I definitely wear to work. Granted… I’ve been with my company for almost 15 years and we are casual. Oh… and it makes my coworkers laugh every time I wear it.

      1. Shira Von Doom*

        I wear all kinds of tees to my current job (a fave is “Lurk, Laugh, Loathe” with skeletons around the words)…but I played it safe until I got a sense of what my bosses were comfortable with.

        Turns out they’re comfortable with a lot, but we’re also all pretty much on the same page in terms of “witchy stuff and swears are okay, haterade and anything gross is NOT OKAY”

        1. TeaCoziesRUs*

          Heh… I wrote an Ask A Mortician merch shirt that says, “The Middle Ages Were Magic,” to my theology class that was covering Thomas Aquinas last spring. Sadly, no one got the joke other than me.

  3. joeglow*

    At my last job, there was a man who, within the first two weeks of starting told one of our colleagues who was just trying to be friendly “the only people who study psychology in college are people who try to manipulate others.”

    He was fired within the first 30 days. One of the things I’ll never forget about him was that he is the only person I’ve ever worked with that had a song ringtone – the song was “Sweet But Psycho.” Sounds about right.

    2. Lyngend (Canada)*

      I know someone who says that. And umm. If she were open to change and therapy at all, could definitely benefit from it.

        1. UKDancer*

          Yes I knew a psychologist socially who said that (ex-boyfriend of a friend). He was not entirely joking and was also one of the most manipulative and untrustworthy people I ever met. I was so glad when my friend saw sense and dumped him.

    3. philmar*

      In his defense, that’s a fun pop song that got a lot of air time a few years ago. it has made my spotify wrapped before.

    4. Meow*

      I have a minor in psychology (completely unrelated to and uncommon in the field I work in, so you would never know), I’d crack up if someone said that to me.

    5. JB (not in Houston)*

      This wasn’t a new employee situation, but I once had a coworker tell me that she didn’t understand the point of studying history, in response to my saying I had been a history major. I don’t think she *meant* to insult me.

      When I told her that we could all learn from history because it has a tendency to repeat itself, she scoffed and said “that’s impossible” because “they didn’t have the same technology back then.” After my brain finally accepted that she was serious, I explained to my fully adult coworker that I didn’t mean that the exact same events were recurring over and over like some kind of historical Groundhog Day situation, just that people/societies tend to be the same throughout time and thus tend to engage in the same kinds of behavior repeatedly. I don’t think she believed me.

      1. Television*

        I can empathize with her because if you come from an environment where history is often very whitewashed and boring, it can seem like studying history is a waste of time.

      2. Too many birds*

        Ok that’s amazing.

        Even farther from the prompt, but: when I was a PhD student, I taught a unit on the early history of women’s suffrage for the required sophomore history methods class. I had a student say to me, with a straight face, thay he didn’t really enjoy this unit because women’s history was such a “marginal” topic. To me. A woman. Who studied women’s history. And who was fucking grading him.

  4. Prospect Gone Bad*

    Someone joined my team fresh out of school. A few months into it he said he was going to teach himself to code to figure out a problem that was pretty complicated. I was sort of like “yeah, OK, cool” and figured he’d take months to do it, never do it, or it was just the start of a longer learning process.

    I was wrong.

    Somehow he self-taught a coding language in a week and googled all of the glitches and hitches that would’ve stopped most senior people in their tracks.

    He realized he had a huge talent for it and eventually left to be more data focused.

    1. Sara*

      The crazy bad impressions are fun, but I’m glad to see there’s a positive story mixed in here!

    7. Zephy*

      This story has similar energy to the tweet about the guy who got hired at a software company of some kind after being an end user for a while, fixed an annoying years-old bug in said software, and then immediately quit.

  5. Josie*

    I was the trainer on our team. On his first day, one new hire told me he didn’t think women should be in a position above men or tell men what to do. I am a woman. His manager was a woman. The manager above her was a woman. Most of our team members were women. Everyone with whom he had interviewed was a woman! He had never expressed this view of women in any of the interviews.

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      So even if he hadn’t been bigoted, he showed a massive lack of critical thinking by not realizing this wouldn’t be a good workplace for him.

      1. Wisteria*

        He probably figured he would quickly rise to the top, and all those women would be reporting to him.

        1. Double A*

          It reminds me of that Onion article, “Man finally put in charge of struggling Feminism movement.”

          1. Jake*

            Honestly, I prefer people just say it so I at least know and can react accordingly.

            It’s worse when you find out a respected coworker turns out to be a bigot after years of working together than it is to fire somebody right away.

            1. ferrina*

              Truth. Someone I was close to held these views and never admitted it. It was only after years of “mistakes” and “forgetting” and “misunderstandings” that the pattern emerged and painted a very clear picture of his value.

            2. mreasy*

              It’s much better that they do, for sure. I just wonder about their self-preservation instinct. I guess maybe they assume everyone will agree with their terrible idea?

              1. Working Hypothesis*

                Usually, yes; that’s exactly what they believe. Also that “real women” — as distinguished from those horrible feminist types — will WANT to have a man tell them what to do (and the feminists don’t count anyways).

          3. Heffalump*

            If they think it’s OK to believe it, it makes sense that they’d think it’s OK to say it.

            1. Jora Malli*

              Some of them also think everybody else secretly believes it to, and so they are doing us all a favor by saying what everyone is thinking.

              1. Splendid Colors*

                As a white person in apartment buildings with a large plurality of POC, other white people assume I agree with all their racist bull**** about the other tenants. Wrong! (though sometimes I have other reasons to dislike the same tenants, it isn’t because I assume they do X because they are Y color; it’s because I can smell the smoke from X and it gives me a migraine.)

                1. SallyForth*

                  I visited a 4th cousin in England who lives in council flats. He complained about all the “Africans” in the building who arrive in London and go on the dole. He literally migrated to London from South Africa, couldn’t get a job, and went on the dole.

          4. Wintermute*

            you know what they say about fanatics– they can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject.

        2. TaraGreen89*

          Well I mean technically i was the new co-worker/prospective hire but in my final interview before starting as a personal assistant to my interviewer my interviewer took the opportunity to tell me she was allergic to most commercial scented products and began what i can best describe as an interrogation of my choices in personal hygiene products. After determining the brand of shampoo i used was unsatisfactory she gave me an opened half empty bottle of her recommended brand that i was supposed to use from that point on. Then, to make a final determination on whether or not i was appropriately unscented she requested the opportunity to sniff my clothing, hair, and armpits.

            1. TaraGreen89*

              I was very new to the workforce and a little bit in shock re: her request. My coat was hanging on a hook by the door and I just sort of waved it in her general direction. Went with a very strangled but polite “no thank you” when she asked to sniff my hair and armpits though.

              Weirdly enough she did offer me the job. I took it (which I regretted in very short order) but only worked for her for 2 months until I found another job.

      1. Josie*

        He lasted longer than I would have let him last if it were my choice. He left after a few months, telling everyone he had been offered a great job opportunity. Turns out that he and a friend of his were buying wrecked cars, insuring them, then staging wrecks to collect the insurance money on them. The great opportunity was Insurance Fraud!!

        1. Neurodivergentsaurus Rex*

          I laughed way too hard at “The great opportunity was Insurance Fraud!!” What a gem.

          1. Somebody Call A Lawyer*

            Me too! I’ve gotten through 1/10 of the stories and I’ve already literally LOLed three times.

          1. As per Elaine*

            I feel like he must’ve been? Like, you might be able to get away with it once, MAYBE twice (and maybe not that — I’m honestly not sure what sort of checks insurance companies do on car history), but by the third and fourth time it’s a pattern and SOMEBODY is going to start digging.

            1. One of the Spreadsheet Horde*

              Insurers do check by VIN to see if another claim has been filed with any insurance company for similar damage. If there was a prior claim with similar damage, we’d require proof that the earlier damage was fixed. But if the prior owners sold it off without filing, it wouldn’t be in the system.

            2. Wintermute*

              I don’t work on that side of the industry but I have (I was very bored) done some of our fraud training decks.

              There are a LOT of giveaways, it’s very hard to avoid any kind of red flag if your accidents are not legitimate. Obviously I can’t give away too much inside baseball but trust me, they’re watching. The red flags can be on your account from when you signed up based on things the agent saw or heard or how you conducted yourself. The red flags can be on the vehicle itself. The red flag could be on your policy and how you’re using it.

              And above and beyond all of that there’s a fundamental problem: You don’t want to die. Your compatriots don’t want to die either. That means you aren’t going to cause a real high-speed accident on a freeway. But you also want an actual payout, not a bumper repair that’s barely above deductible. That means you need to get “creative” and try to stage things. You will probably not succeed at this. The cops are well-trained in what to look for, so are insurance adjusters, and once again, red flags abound– all of the what, who, where, when and how could be a red flag.

              And of course even if you successfully get a policy and stage a crash you need to convert that to profit somehow. This is not easy because insurance isn’t in the habit of writing out blank checks. The most successful fraud rings operate with the cooperation of corrupt, complicit repair shops and doctors. Their actions raise their own red flags and limit your potential profit. Basically you’re exchanging a significant risk of prison for minimal profits in most cases.

              Obviously large, organized fraud rings which have corrupted people throughout the system and are, for lack of a better term “vertically integrated”– they have corrupt auto mechanics, corrupt doctors, specialists at crashing cars in survivable ways, maybe even people inside the insurance industry corrupted– have more success and are a major problem. But “opportunistic fraud” is the subject of a lot of investigation as well.

              These yahoos basically were trying to be an organized fraud ring without the brains or personnel for it, and I would wager they stood little chance.

            2. Le Sigh*

              There was a Law and Order episode about this. Wonder if this was the inspiration.

              Though to be fair, there is a Law and Order episode about almost everything.

              1. Phony Genius*

                And there’s a Law & Order episode that every actor in NYC has been in. Every part-time actor I know has been in at least one (if you count playing a cadaver).

                1. Yvette*

                  They were known for that. Dick Wolf (L&O) producer supposedly once said something along the lines of “If you read the actor’s credits in a Broadway play and they don’t have a L&O credit either they aren’t very good or they just got off the bus”.

    3. Xavier Desmond*

      Ah yes, the person who is on their best behaviour during the interview process and as soon as they start the job think they can behave how they like with zero consequences. I’ve definitely known people who are like that.

      1. Le Sigh*

        Kind of like the guy who joined a team on the other side of my office and seemed totally normal, until I talked to him. He asked if I had a boyfriend, I said I did, and then he got really serious and told me that “he better marry you” and something about honorable men and doing right by young women? I was young and a little weirded out so I just turned to the person on my other side.

        He went on to do several other weird and creepy things until he was fired after he went on a drug binge and broke down the glass doors of a nearby building at 3am.

    6. irene adler*

      Yeah, had one of these myself.
      He was a temp lab tech- so we had the option to lose him at any time.

      And, he had the option of asking to be reassigned. But he didn’t. Instead, he kvetched-often- to the lab co-workers about how Company was failing to recognize his greatness by moving him to a position where he would be supervising me. After all, I was only a woman. And women do not belong in management-everybody knows that. He really chaffed at having to carry out my instructions. Would lecture me on every task I assigned- why it was not necessary to perform, how we ought to be performing said task, suggested that I ought to carry out the assignment instead of him, etc.

      Funny thing: he lasted less than 2 months. During this time lots of little items – calculators, kitchen silverware, the good pens, my wallet, a couple of jackets, personal coffee cups – disappeared. Never experienced that before or since.

      Management granted me permission to terminate the temp contract. He showed up the following week to express his shock that we’d done this to him. Demanded to know the reason why we did this.

      A few weeks later we were contacted as a reference for this guy. My comment: only let male managers supervise him.

      1. Empty nest mom*

        I work in labs too. Interviewed a guy who refused to make eye contact with me or the supervisor, both women. But talked non stop to the manager, a man. He was very annoyed when we asked questions, directed all answers the manager, and made comments about moving up. That was a hard no on his application. He would have been a nightmare to work with. The manager didn’t even realize it was happening! I pointed it out when the applicant left and he was like wow. I see that now. At least the manager was willing to listen and learn.

        1. Bagpuss*

          I had one like that. I (woman) and a (male) were interviewing. The candidate had been given our names when the interview was set up (so plenty of time to check out our website and see who we were) and we both introduced ourselves with our roles as well as names, so he knew we were both senior.
          He didn’t speak to me at all – even when he responded to my questions he directed the answers to my colleague.
          He was not offered the job

        2. Jora Malli*

          I was on an interview panel years back where one of the questions on our list was something like “tell us about a time you collaborated with your coworkers to improve your team’s work.”

          One man decided to tell a story about how he noticed that the women at his level in the department weren’t doing a process by the method that he preferred. He explained to them why his method was much better, but they said they would keep doing it their way. So he went to their shared supervisor and explained that he believed the women on the team were doing this process inefficiently and wouldn’t listen to his reasons for why the process should be changed. The supervisor and her manager both took the women’s side. So not only did he out himself as a mansplainer, he also answered a question about collaboration with a story of how he failed to get his coworkers to collaborate with him.

          Reader: I did not hire him.

    7. Fluffy Fish*

      We had a guy interview who expressed his very sexist ideas in the interview. The man was way to comfortable assuming the men interviewing him would agree.

      My very astute boss knew that while we would enjoy to ability to eat him alive, that it really was best just not to hire him.

      1. Middle Aged Lady*

        An interviewee said, at the hiring committee meeting, that he would do well because he was very technical and our field was full of middle aged humanities majors. The hiring committee was mostly middle aged humanities majors. He did not get an offer.

    8. Christina*

      I was seven months pregnant and a guy who worked for me asked if he could have my job when I “stayed home with the baby” – when I replied I’d be gone six weeks for maternity leave and then returning, I got a lecture on how important it was for women to stay home with kids. He then asked for a 50% raise, saying that was market (it was market – for someone far more qualified than he was in a different aspect of the field) and said he could get that somewhere else. I said we couldn’t pay him that, but if he could get that somewhere else, he should certainly take it because I didn’t want to hold him back.

      It was a contracting firm and he was placed and the client was ok with him (I suspect lots of guys at the client), so he didn’t get fired – until he hit the bench. We didn’t look too hard for another client for him. He didn’t find a job at his requested salary before that time.

      1. a tester, not a developer*

        I had a guy say that he could do my job during my (one year) mat leave because “All you do is go to meetings and tell people what to do”. He was not offered the role, and was gone when I got back.

        1. Sparkles McFadden*

          When I left OldDepartment for NewDepartment the direct report who sapped most of my management time asked me to recommend him for my old job. When I explained why I would not do that, he said exactly what your guy did and added “…and you know who to call when there’s a problem, so give me that list.” In my case, the boss DID hire the guy (despite my explanation as to why that was a bad idea) saying “I think he’ll rise to the challenge.” He didn’t. The boss had to fire him within the year.

    9. Namedafteru*

      Been there. We had an intern tell you a he did not take direction well from women. It was an issue because he was interning at a TV station on sports productions were I, am woman, was the director. He lasted one game.

      1. KRM*

        Always fascinating to me that someone would say that, as if your reply would be “Oh, of course we will accommodate you by having only men speak to you! Thank you for speaking up!” instead of “Well you best learn, child”.

    10. Elizabeth West*

      This reminds me of the time at OldExjob when my first manager there (a woman) interviewed a man for something (I forget what) and she said he rolled his eyes when she came out of her office to greet him. He was contemptuous throughout the interview too. Needless to say, he did not get the job.

    11. 1-800-BrownCow*

      Huh, new hire must have learned to keep his mouth shut during interviews as he sounds like the guy who interviewed with my team at my last company. He said nothing to the manager (woman) or I, but the rest of the team (all men) during his interview, he told each of them that his 5-year goal was to overthrow our manager and take her position because no woman is going to tell him what to do. We, of course, did not hire him.

    12. Annisele*

      I met somebody a bit like this, except that there are far fewer women in the story.

      I was working a a very male dominated industry, in a company that was even more male dominated than usual. In my division of around fifty people, there was me (around 22F at the time), one woman in her early sixties, and then everybody else was male. It was the kind of place where the women were outnumbered by the Davids.

      One morning my boss took me aside and explained that we had a new starter that day, but the person who usually did inductions was stuck in traffic. Would I mind showing new guy around, pointing out the toilets and fire exits, and then talking to him about my work until induction guy arrived? That didn’t sound difficult, but I failed miserably.

      I did the absolute best I could, but I didn’t manage to persuade new guy to even respond to my questions – he wouldn’t speak to me, and he certainly wouldn’t follow me anywhere. I wondered if maybe some kind of disability was in play, but I’d just seen him talk to my boss while walking across the office. He’d clearly been able to listen, walk and talk three minutes ago, and if he’d suddenly lost those abilities he’d have been freaking out rather than sitting there carefully ignoring me. So I went back to my boss and asked would my boss please deal with the induction; I couldn’t manage.

      I thought it was odd that my boss showed no curiosity as to why I couldn’t manage such a simple task, but he just went straight over to new guy. New guy then complained loudly that I’d been rude – and when pressed to explain, said that I’d spoken to him as though I thought I was his peer (he was much older than me, but he’d been hired to do the same job). Then he demanded to see my boss’s boss – and on being introduced, complained that my boss didn’t take his complaint about me seriously, and that my boss had insulted him by suggesting a young woman had anything to teach him. Then he tried to complain to my great grandboss, but we never worked out what about because great grandboss fired him. He was in the building less than two hours, but great grandboss very generously said he’d be paid for a half day.

      It turned out that when my boss had announced that new guy was joining our team, four separate people approached him to ask did he realise new guy had a reputation for being a raging misogynist. My boss had not known that, and hadn’t seen any evidence of it during the various interviews (all carried out by men). So he arranged for the person who usually does inductions to be “stuck in traffic”, so that he’d have an excuse to ask the youngest woman he could find to interact with new guy (he did later apologise to me for that).

      My boss learned that it’s important to check references! Apparently new guy was technically brilliant, but utterly unable to work with anybody he thought was beneath him. And he thought a *lot* of people were beneath him.

      1. Dina*

        I’m sorry, but that fucked up for your boss to put you in that situation with no warning…

    13. Dina*

      Once I got a job because the previous frontrunner told the interviewer (and hiring manager) that women don’t have a mind for engineering… not realising that she is, in fact, a qualified mechanical engineer…

    14. Suzie SW*

      This is far more mild of an offense than that, but it definitely raised a few eyebrows…when hiring for a position in a female-dominated field, I received an application with a cover letter (from a man) that began “Dear Sirs.” The entire hiring team was made up of women. We were all less than impressed.

      1. Laura Petrie*

        I was the hiring manager for a position on my team. All correspondence had stated my role as team manager and I was also listed on the job description.

        On the day of the interviews, one of the panel (a woman also from my team) was unwell, so I had to ask someone from another team (a man) to step in at last minute.

        Candidate walks into the room, shakes hands with the man then sits down, ignoring me and the other woman on the panel. The candidate was also female! Even when I introduced myself as the manager and took a lead on the interview, she directed all her answers to the man.

        She was astounded she did not get the job.

    15. Becky C*

      At least he hid it through the interviewing process. I was involved in hiring for the graduate scheme for one of the big 4 accountancy firms. We’d have actors come in and role play two meetings with the candidates while we sat in the corner taking notes.

      After the first interview round my male colleague came round to me looking shell shocked – one of the male candidates had said to him “I hope I can interview with a male next, I work much better with men, women are too irritating”. Safe to say we stopped his interview process at that point!

    16. Barry*

      Don’t understand this mindset at all. I am a man nearing the end of my working life, and looking back realise that my experience of having woman managers has generally been much better than my experience with male managers.

  6. Popinki*

    During her training period, a new secretary was a model worker. The first day she was on her own, she let out a floor-shaking belch, looked up at our boss, who had just wandered in, and very loudly said “EXCUSE YOU!”

    The boss just kind of wandered back out again, which of course she took as tacit approval to keep on acting like a character from South Park.

    1. The OG Sleepless*

      I heard a thunderous belch from the general area of a couple of large dogs in our animal hospital, and assuming it was one of them, I cheerfully called out “EXCUSE YOU!”

      It was one of our (younger, male) vet nurses. Oops. Sorry.

    2. Американка (Amerikanka)*

      My supervisor who is a librarian also belches from time to time. He has a public workspace too….

    3. Popinki*

      It wasn’t the belch itself, because gas happens, but she made no attempt to stifle it and she also giggled and kept telling everyone over and over about how she burped and blamed it on Boss like it was the funniest thing ever, and all her other “qualities” that came out once she wasn’t being shadowed. She swears like a sailor in front of the bosses and customers (I’ve got a potty mouth Howard Sterm would be ashamed of but I pick my audience… definitely not at work!), blatantly sucks up to people and badmouths them behind their backs, minds everyone’s business but her own, wears the same dirty clothes every day, and smells like BO.

      And yes, I am so far over the BEC horizon with her it’s not even funny ;)

    4. Tullina*

      My old manager was amazing. He never held back his knowledge and taught me how to do his job. He lived by the mantra that to be a great manager you have to share knowledge.

      When he left he recommended me for his position and it was easy for me to slide right into it without training.

      3 years later I leave the company and habe been at new job for about a year. We need managers at my level so I recommended my old manager. Win win right? I know how great he is and he flies through the hiring process.

      Everything is great for about 3 weeks and then he shows up drunk. Not a little drunk. But 6 martinis for breakfast drunk. I’m off when this goes down but he was fired on the spot and they wouldn’t allow him to drive back home. One of my coworkers drew the short straw and had to drive him home.

      He spent the 45 minute drive complaining about his ex, this job, his last job, all the jobs. The kicker, after a few stops to throw up, he asks to stop at the liquor store to buy a 12 pack since he doesn’t have his car.

      And that was the last time I recommended anyone for a job.

      1. Melanie Cavill*

        That’s actually kind of sad! I hope he found some steady ground and happiness since then.

      4. Mauvaise Pomme*

        Poor guy! Sounds like that may have been his rock bottom. I hope he was able to get help.

    5. pagooey*

      I had an office mate years ago who really loved the Taco Tuesday cafeteria special (or something similar)…but it didn’t love him back. We sat back-to-back in a tiny room where, once a week, his digestive system loudly protested his spicy lunch from both ends. He politely excused himself for every rumble, but half of them I would have preferred to go unmentioned and unacknowledged, if you catch my drift. And his…drifts.

      Later he threw a screaming fit at our boss over something, stormed out, and was told not to bother returning. As far as I know he didn’t, but while the screaming was happening down the hall I took the scissors and anything else sharp out of his desk and hid them in mine. :-\

  7. Wisteria*

    The most astounding first impression that I made as a new hire was … learning my way around the building. It was a building with an unusual shape, but the layout was really logical (to my mind). There were some elevators that you could orient yourself to, and if you remembered that the windows go on the outside walls, you could always figure out how to get from one end to the other by keeping the offices/rooms with windows on your left (or right). Apparently, I was the fastest new hire to figure it out. VPs praised me for it.

    I should add, this was an engineering company, presumably filled with people with good analytical and spatial reasoning skills. O.o

    1. Just me, The OG*

      That sounds like the main engineering building at my university. What is it with engineers and weird buildings?

      1. Kacihall*

        They don’t waste brain power engineering for themselves. My university has a great Civil engineering program. The campus was poorly thought out and had a wind tunnel effect down a main street created by a couple poorly placed buildings.

        1. WHOOOOSH!*

          Auburn University has this, but I’m pretty sure their wind tunnel effect at the engineering campus was intentional. Either way, hold onto your papers, hat, and skirt when walking between buildings!

      2. many bells down*

        My sister went to CSUCI, which is on the grounds of a former infamous mental institution. One of the buildings is apparently notorious for getting people lost, and the story is that it was deliberately designed that way to keep patients housed there from escaping.

        2. Wisteria*

          See: Stata Center on the MIT campus. The people who design and build the building are not the people who use the building.

          1. Fanny Price*

            I used to say that Stata Center looked like someone accidentally sat on the architectural model and they said, “Welp, I guess that’s how they want us to build it.”

          2. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

            I never heard of the Stata Center so I googled. And omg, just looking at pictures of it made me feel vertiginous. I can’t even imagine having to spend any amount of time there.

            It’s…fascinating to look at and disturbing at the same time. O.o

            1. DJ Abbott*

              It looks like it was hit by a bomb. Can’t imagine why anyone would think it’s a good idea to build a building that looks like it’s been bombed!

              1. Kuddel Daddeldu*

                It’s a safety feature. Any would-be bomber takes one look, thinks “oh, someone already did that” and goes away.

              2. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

                The thing is (as I learned when I googlec), it was designed by Frank Gehry, a very famous architect who is known for his freaky looking, oddly shaped buildings.

                If you ever have some time to kill and want to look at some “interesting” pictures, google Frank Gehry. You may feel like you’re on an acid trip, but you will not be bored!

          3. Shakti*

            Literally the building I thought of instantly! What a nightmare to navigate as well as work in

        3. BeenThereHatedThat*

          LOL I’m an engineer. Over a decade in construction. People used to ask me the difference between architects and engineers. I’d say, “The architect wants to make it pretty. The engineer makes it work.”

      5. Meow*

        My grandpa was an electrical engineer and he designed the farmhouse my grandparents lived in, and it was a very… unique house, and the heating was terrible.

        My dad always quipped that engineers think they’re smart enough to build anything even though architectural engineering is it’s own skillset.

        1. KoiFeeder*

          In a similar vein, my family lives in a house designed by a landscaper who didn’t think architecture would be that difficult.

          It is, at least, functional and doesn’t have ground wires connected to the ceiling screws. On the other hand, there was a door that didn’t seal properly so fishing spiders kept getting into one of the toilets. YMMV on which one you’d prefer.

          (Also a snake showed up in my dollhouse at once point, but he was pretty polite. I didn’t mind him at all.)

            1. KoiFeeder*

              That’s where I fall on the subject, but a surprising amount of people think that a black rat snake (utterly harmless) is some sort of levitating death tentacle.

              1. quill*

                I’m in more danger than most because I want to cuddle them. At which point I probably deserve a bite if I’m too obnoxious.

                1. KoiFeeder*

                  Yeah, this guy wouldn’t have stood for being picked up and cuddled, but he understood that I used the dollhouse too and tolerated me sticking my hand in there as long as I didn’t grab him. Which I didn’t. So we got along well.

                  The dollhouse was over a heating vent, so he used it as his little basking spot slash hide. Very comfortable for him, and he didn’t mind cohabitating with plastic dinosaurs.

          2. JayemGriffin*

            Are they the kind of spiders that will work for their room and board by eating fruit flies and moths, or are they the FREELOADING JERK KIND that just SCARE THE HECK OUT OF YOU and don’t CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING TO THE HOUSEHOLD?

            :coughs pointedly, looks at ceiling:

            1. KoiFeeder*

              Dark fishing spiders- they don’t even live in the house most of the time! For some reason, around April-June, they were determined to break into the house and perform bizarre toilet rituals. And then they’d leave again. But while most of the small ones would scatter and flee for their lives when you opened the lid and they were in there, the big one that claimed the water in the toilet would get mad at you for interrupting. Full-on threat display.

              To this day I do not have a single clue what was going on with All Of That.

        2. Ro*

          Can confirm. My dad is an electronics engineer, and as a result has designed and built his own house, “fixed” my old car so well it broke down every time I visited him, and has strong opinions on my landscape design. I love him to bits but he’s a stereotypical engineer in every way.

      6. Nanani*

        It’s like evil overlords and convoluted dungeon castles.
        Ease of use comes second to confounding those meddling adventurers.

      7. Off My Lawn, You Must Get*

        Eh, this was the Communications building at my university. They said it was weird to “foster communication” as in “people asking for directions.”

      8. Becky*

        The weirdest building at my university was the performing arts building–it had four auditoriums and the entire rest of the structure was built around the auditoriums, which makes sense to a certain point, but left for a very confusing building that you couldn’t get to certain places on the same floor without going outside around the building to a different entrance and up a staircase to find it. It was infamous.

        There was another building on campus (that has since been demolished) was tiny but made no sense–there were three exterior doors and they all led to different sections of the building that didn’t connect in the interior. So go in the wrong door…you won’t ever find the classroom you are looking for. After getting to the building 10 minutes early, I was ten minutes late to class on the first day because I didn’t know which entrance to use.

      9. Night Heron*

        Heh. When I went to the University of Arizona, the fancy new Engineering building had an ugly fence around it and covering over the entrance. Why? They soon discovered after its unveiling that occasionally when someone shut a classroom door, a window would pop out and fall to the ground. Good times.

        1. Cheerfully Polite Grey Rock*

          That takes “when one door closes, another one (or window!) opens” to a whole new level!

        1. quill*

          We had a courtyard, so… this was technically true.

          But the courtyard doors couldn’t be opened from within the courtyard. Which shortcutters learned the hard way.

        2. Le Sigh*

          Same. I went to a college with a lot of buildings that were constructed in the 18th and 19th centuries, and then added onto over the years. Which resulted in some very interesting building layouts, including windows on inside walls. A professor in one of these building use to give 5 points on the next quiz if you could find his office on the first try.

        3. Ama*

          An infamous story in my family is how my aunt walked into a PTA meeting about a brand new middle school building that was about to break ground (the previous one had been destroyed in a tornado so they were rushing to get one up before fall), looked at the blueprints and said “shouldn’t a middle school have bathrooms?” There were some …adjustments to the plans after that.

          The kicker is her oldest son ended up becoming an architect who designs, among other things, school buildings. She routinely reminds him not to forget the bathrooms.

    3. Dasein9*

      Oh, I took a while to learn a weird building once. But I looked like I got it during the interview day because the custodian was kind to me. (The building was supposed to be shaped like a strand of DNA, but was badly done so you had to use stairs or an elevator to get from one end to the other of the same floor.)

        1. Le Sigh*

          My school ended up demolishing a building that was very old and had incredibly narrow hallways that I’m fairly sure could not accommodate wheelchairs. It had been updated over the years but it wasn’t in good shape, and I feel like at some point someone must have said said, “forget it, start over with a new one.” Which was the right call.

          1. Zephy*

            My alma mater got around ADA requirements by being ~historical~. Two buildings on campus are not accessible above the first floor, and they just keep filing historical-site exemptions with the city for them, I guess. I don’t know how long they’ll need to pay that fine or whatever it is before they will have spent more on that than it would cost to retrofit an elevator in either of the iconic 3-story buildings.

            1. Le Sigh*

              Ooof. Yeah, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn my alma mater did something like that along the way.

            2. Rob aka Mediancat*

              My alma mater’s one of the oldest in the US; my freshman through early sophomore years they did some construction on the oldest building on campus (about 300 years old at the time). There was a massive battle between the local historical preservation folks (who have a tremendous amount of legal authority) and the disability commission. The latter insisted that an elevator be added to the inside of the building and threatened legal action if one wasn’t built, while the historical society threatened a lawsuit if the college dared add an elevator and “ruin” the historic interior.

              They settled on a compromise that pleased no one — neither of the two groups above nor the people who actually had to use the building.

              1. DesertRose*

                You’re not an alum of the College of Charleston, are you? That sounds like Charleston (re historical preservation people), and the College is always fighting them about one thing or another. :D

                (I am an alumna of the College myself.)

                1. Rob aka Mediancat*

                  Nope; I’m an alumnus of St. John’s college in Annapolis. I’m not surprised this kind of thing happened in more than one place, though.

      2. Spreadsheet Enthusiast*

        Any chance that was the life sciences building at UGA? That’s the first building I thought of when I saw this thread.

    4. Jam Today*

      “this was an engineering company,”

      I worked for a company filled with MIT grads whose ineptness resulted in building management taking away our toaster and toaster oven because they didn’t know that both cheese and saran wrap have thermoplastic qualities and if you put a two slices of bread and a slice of cheese in a vertical toaster, or a plastic-wrapped slice of pizza in a toaster oven, either the cheese or the plastic wrap will eventually touch the heating element and cause a fire or possibly toxic fumes.

      1. quill*

        I mean, one of the guys I know who studied engineering once meticulously mapped out a grid-perfect maze for our haunted house, forgetting that the walls, which would have to be framed in 2×4’s, had actual width. So every time we joined two wall frames into a corner… the measurement was off by several inches.

        We discovered his error approximately halfway through building. The fire marshall made us add two more exits.

        1. OlympiasEpiriot*

          And this is why, as a construction geotech engineer, I am really in favor of having people enter engineering school from either a technical high school or with demonstrable hand work skills. I would rather educate a knitter who can adjust a pattern in calculus than get someone who took all the AP classes and never held a hammer.

          Fight me.

          1. quill*

            This is also a guy who attempted to get us to measure in thirds of an inch because it was “more accurate” and yes, somehow he has an engineering degree.

            After I was assigned to reality check his math for building set for literal years I have to wonder why, aside from sexism, he was supposedly “so smart” and “so good at math” when he literally had to have someone babysit his designs. (Yet the one babysitting this process was “okay at math.”)

            1. coffee*

              Since you mention inches – was this an alteration to the imperial system, or was he shunning the metric system? Not sure which would be weirder.

              1. quill*

                We were given a few yardsticks to do this specific measurement with. So even though he wanted us to use thirds of an inch, a third of sixteen, the traditional divisor for inches, is… not five, and not five and a half, and it added up.

          2. Grandiose spacecat*

            As i knitter who um as yes done that, as well was using the same principles to calculate yarn per stitch and weight to see if i was gonna run out of yarn… the math was definitely super extra but was kinda fun to do, and yes, i was going to run out, so i added a coordinate color scrap bit that i had and it worked out!

            I also didn’t enter engineering schools with any sort of technical skill, but am very good at following explicit instructions. My eng school experience was we need more lab instruction, not just lab and class time where there were very little skill overlap.

            (I mean i guess i can use a hammer and power tools and mostly not hurt myself) and my soldering was pretty good even though I’d never done it before, probably because some of those handicraft “home ec” skills crossed over. (You’ll have better luck trying to find a skill i havent tried instead of listening the ones i have done… i think casting metal and stained glass and bobbin lace are about all that i have tried) I guess power tools follow the same rule a a sewing machine. Listen to what the machine wants. If it’s making a weird noise, something isn’t right and it’s probably your fault.

            I’ll say coding and knitting patterns are kinda similar and it’s not just me who says so! The history of textiles and first computers is an interesting one!

          4. StoneColdJaneAusten*

            I know someone who could sew her own clothes and made that a part of her application to engineering school. She’s a very well-paid engineer now.

          5. Just Another Cog*

            Since you mention knitters and calculus: I once used area under the curve to calculate how many stitches were left in my pattern and thus whether I had enough yarn left.
            Knitting successfully has a lot of overlap with engineering, though you want to make sure they’ve made more than just scarves,..
            And I won’t start on how much my early woodworking beside my grandpa helped my math skills later…

      3. AriOliver*

        I worked for a local government with police, fire, parks, public service, and administration all in one building.

        Who kept setting off the fire alarm trying to make lunch?

        The fire department. Every time.

    5. Doctors Whom*

      I was certain this would be about the Pentagon.

      All the hallway doors for most offices are closed a lot. But if you can find the food court, it overlooks the interior courtyard. So then you can travel from floor to floor on elevators stairs closest to the center, stay in the center until you find the spoke you need, and use that spoke to travel outward.

      If the weather is good it can be easier & faster to just go to the ground floor, go outside, walk across the courtyard, and then go back up to an upper floor and out to an outer ring.

      1. Susan Ivanova*

        Apple Park, if you listen to Jony Ive’s press puffery, is a space designed to encourage collaboration and where you can walk without distractions.

        Apple, as everyone knows, is a company that is very serious about secrecy.

        The reality of Apple Park is that you can only walk without being distracted by a locked door on the first floor. Everywhere else, you often find yourself needing to go downstairs because the section you have access to is blocked by one you don’t.

        So the only person who could walk without distractions is Jony Ive.

        1. Usagi*

          I may or may not have worked for Apple in my past, and may or may not have experience with this.

          On one of my first days there, I may or may not have had problems finding my way around, and may or may not have ended up in a conference room, where the designs on the presentation may or may not have looked like a yet-to-be-released iPhone. I decidedly did not work with the iPhone.

          I was just looking for a bathroom!

          1. Susan Ivanova*

            I love the way the big numbers that tell you which section you’re in are only visible when going one direction.

            The bathrooms, alas, are only in the wedge dividers. Heaven help you if you work in the middle of a wedge and urgently need to go – you’re ~1/16 of a mile away from one.

    6. Asenath*

      I once worked in a surprisingly complicated building for its size. I think the original plan was actually fairly rational, but over the years interior walls were moved around and then moved again; people got annoyed at others taking shortcuts through their areas, and if they could swing it, would get access doors locked, meaning going the long way around, and hoping that the walls along that route hadn’t been moved since last time you were down that way. Signage, where it existed, wasn’t always updated. Then they added on some additional buildings with their own quirks and problems with access. I never knew anyone who could find any of the offices I worked in on the first shot (the somewhat more easily found locations were reserved for access by the public, although it wasn’t that uncommon to find baffled members of the public wandering around all over the place). When we were expecting someone new – say for interviews – we’d put up signs and email instructions, being very careful to specify which entrance to use, and also to provide a phone number for use in case they got lost. It was far easier to send someone (usually me) out to find someone who called and said “I’m lost, but the nearest offices says XYZ on the door” than it was to give directions, especially once they’d gotten away from the special signs we put up.

      1. Azure Jane Lunatic*

        On one particular (modern!) tech campus, the buildings had their street numbers on the outside (on one corner) but did not have any indication of *which building* in the campus naming scheme they were. Nor did they have any sort of labeling about which door was which. Unfortunately, the main four buildings were basically flipped versions of the same architectural design. After about the tenth time I was interrupted to ask directions, I printed out the largest version I could of the online site map, pinned it to the outside of my cube, and added a you-are-here sticker. My team moved areas after a while, and the last time I was in that building I saw those maps were still up. (They eventually did put tasteful signage on the windows over the entrances, but only after I thought to put in a Facilities request.)

        People eventually learned where they were in relation to everything else, but it was hell on delivery people. The main reason we knew the architects had just kind of flipped the building design was because in addition to the mirrored outlines, the bathroom placement was also flipped, and you had to remember which building you were in to know whether the gendered bathrooms were on the east or west side of the building’s mid-line. It was basically a rite of passage to get the wrong bathroom or have a near-miss.

      2. MM*

        The building at my university I spend most time in was once a big, fancy, flagship department store. It still has that basic structure, but what was clearly once a central atrium became the elevator bank. (They kept the glass roof in the middle of the very top floor, at least, so if you go up to the cafeteria it’s pretty nice.) I have no idea what went into deciding how to plan out interior walls etc. to fill in the remaining space, since presumably when it was shop-floor it was pretty open, but the result is ASTOUNDING. The classrooms and offices are in a sort of…Greek-key ring around the elevators? There’s like a “ring-road” corridor circling the elevators, and then lots of squiggly bits off of that, or sometimes instead of a squiggly-bit it’s a whole sort of boxed-off department with a bunch of offices in it. I know in the abstract the building is a big, simple quadrilateral, but from the inside it would be impossible even to guess what its shape is. There are almost no windows at all. The room numbers not only start over when you complete a lap (obviously), but it’s hard to even track them as you walk along because they continue up one side of a squiggly bit and back down the other to the main ring. Everything is extremely nondescript colorwise.

        It is navigational hell. I had juuust about learned my way around the places I went consistently, and then pandemic, and I didn’t go in there for two years. I’m now there more or less biweekly (i.e., not frequently enough to relearn quickly), AND a lot of the posters and personal touches people had on their office doors are gone, so fewer landmarks. Getting around in there is like a very boring dream. If anybody’s read Diana Wynne Jones’ book Deep Secret, I always think about how the characters keep having to go around too many corners to get to the elevators in the convention hotel. It’s EXACTLY like that.

        1. RobareOwl*

          Oh, you also went to CUNY Graduate Center! I still sometimes complain about how hard it is to navigate, and I graduated in 2010…

    7. Elizabeth West*

      Our building at Exjob was a restricted-access rabbit warren with cutoffs everywhere. You literally had to escort visitors or they would never find their way back, lol. I worked there for four years and there were rooms on my FLOOR I never saw into the entire time I was there.

      And we had such an issue with people piggybacking their way past the badge readers by asking someone to hold the door that I used it in Tunerville to get a character into a secure facility. For anyone who thinks that doesn’t happen, it absolutely does.

      1. Me (I think)*

        We keep getting reminders not to let people do that coming into our building. Still happens constantly.

    8. Free Meerkats*

      On the USS Enterprise when I was on it, there was one office that every new ship’s company sailor who came on board had to check in with. I think it was the Public Affairs Office, it’s been 30+ years. It was in probably the most remote, difficult to find compartment on largest ship in the Navy at that time. And every compartment on a Navy ship has a compartment number that tells you where it is; even with that number, you couldn’t find it without directions that involved ladders (stairs) to two different levels to get to it.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        I had to read that first sentence three times before I could stop seeing Star Trek.

    9. TootsNYC*

      One of my jobs, the building wasn’t that hard to figure out, but a brief geographic/geometric overview was part of the orientation I gave each new freelancer.

    10. GoryDetails*

      Heh! Made me think of the Mill in Maynard, MA, one of the sites of Digital Equipment Corporation. It was an old repurposed fabric mill, with buildings stuck together with walkways such that one end was on the 3rd floor of one building and, say, the 5th floor of the next one, without any change in elevation. Steam tunnels below water level, floors still oozing lanolin, all sorts of fun disconnects across the various buildings… Those were the days!

      2. pagooey*

        One of the buildings on my college campus was a huge, multistory Gothic brick pile built into the side of a steep granite hill. Depending on which direction you entered the building, you might come in on the basement level, the first, or the second floor. So not all the stairwells went all the way between all the floors either. One of my professors held office hours in a kind of turret. When the Problematic Author Magic School book series came out, with the moving staircases and secret passages, I thought about that building a lot.

      3. Anonymouse*

        Hey, I used to live there! Not in the Mill, obviously, but literally just down the street. I loved walking around the complex and its nice, scenic water feature, and I always wondered what the interior looked like.

    11. Bronze Betty*

      This reminds me of a building I used to work in, the headquarters of a very large corporation (that no longer exists, alas). The central core of the building was surrounded on all sides by “pods,” identified by various letters of the alphabet. I think I was in W, on the lower (basement) floor. You had to go through each pod to get to the next, and the next, and so on. No straight-through hallways anywhere. Our ID badges contained a schematic of the building on the back, I guess to assist. My first day of work I was led to my department, so that was fine. My second day I spent the first 10 minutes or so going in circles trying to find my department. After I passed one department several times, a kind soul noticed that I was lost and confused and led me to my pod. It was maddening and a thoroughly stupid design that apparently several someones thought was cool, I guess.

    13. BongoFury*

      I was always surprised by the amount of engineers I found wandering up/down stairwells in my building trying to find access to the second floor. The big sign on the second floor access door “NO ACCESS TO 2ND FLR” wasn’t…flashing? neon? big enough?

    14. ArtK*

      Sounds like a building at my last job. It was a collection of towers connected by bridging corridors. No matter what you did, you were always 90 degrees off from where you thought you were. At least the towers were color coded so there was some help orienting yourself. I worked remotely so was only in the office a few times a year and each time had to relearn the paths to get where I wanted to go.

  8. Albeira Dawn*

    Student chapter of a professional society, we were holding elections for the first-year representative in the first week of the first semester. We, the older students, and the first-years were all meeting each other for the first time. One candidate spent the entirety of his 60-second speech time talking about how much better at everything he was than the other candidates. No examples, no proof, basically just “Wakeen? I’m better than him. Carina? Better than her.” the whole time. Not as a joke, he was completely serious.
    He did not get elected and is still thought of in the chapter as “that weird condescending guy”.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      Was he the Rhyme-nocerous? I’m imagining the Flight of the Conchords episode where they diss actual rappers. And they are not very good.

      1. My dear Wormwood*

        Sometimes when I freestyle, I…lose confidence.

        And that’s why I write everything down.

  9. Anonymous Koala*

    One of our interns asked his supervisor for a ride home (10 miles away) on his first day. He seemed to think it was no big deal. That was a pretty cringe worthy exchange.
    But for me the most memorable new hire was the intern I hired who was SUPER eager for the job and asked lots of questions. I didn’t think it would be a problem when I interviewed him – I ask lots of questions too, and interns are there to learn. But then on his first day, he questioned everything. Not just normal questions like “why do we do X procedure” but questions like “why are the pens kept there? Why do you hold ABC instrument at that angle? Why won’t you let me turn this bucket full of expensive samples upside down to get the one I want from the bottom?” (Yes, that was a real thing that happened). My supervisor insisted I give him a 3 month trial. It was…not fun.

    1. Fizzyfuzzy*

      When I worked as a manager at a hospitality outsourcing company ( think handling events and catering for universities/museums) we had a woman moved from another account to mine. The incredibly incompetent and toxic director claimed she was being moved to take over the basic computer work that we all had to do that was incredibly easy but time consuming, to free up time for managers to focus on actual management. Think work like typing “ranch dressing” and “chicken” onto paper and printing them out, only hundreds of those a day. Of course her first day was a Saturday when I was a manager on duty. She literally could not operate a computer at all. Like could not turn it on, couldn’t type, didn’t know how to hit print. She also caused massive issues by being adversarial to the staff.
      Turns out our director had been told by the client at this previous person’s site to get her out asap, and because our director was again, the most incompetent and toxic person I’ve ever met, and handled it in such a way that it opened the company up for a law suit if they fired her so they had to move her.
      She lasted about 6 months before getting moved to ANOTHER account where I think she eventually flamed out. I handled her by sending her offsite for coffee any time I was manager on duty because she loved doing that and it kept her from making things actively worse.

  10. Amy*

    We had a new hire and there was a work dinner with clients his first week.

    He got loudly drunk and started asking “okay.. so who’s f—king who at this table? I need to know the lay (ha ha) of the land.”

    At times, I’ve felt like my company was too slow dealing with extremely problematic employees. But they moved fairly quickly in this case.

    1. Hyacinth Bucket (Pronounced Bouquet!)*

      Oh. My. God.

      And this is why I’m glad my workplace never has alcohol at work events.

    2. JustKnope*

      My first time ever meeting my new boss, she was two weeks into the role and we were traveling for work. She proceeded to get *hammered* at dinner, told multiple wildly inappropriate stories involving underwear and nudity, and then dragged myself and one of our external vendors to another bar after dinner. She then managed to break a glass at the second bar after interrogating our vendor about how she felt the relationship between our companies was going. (Did I mention this was last month? It hasn’t gotten much better.)

      2. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

        get out! get out now! maybe you don’t even have to put this place on your resume!

    3. many bells down*

      That loud bang you just heard was my eyebrows hitting the ceiling they shot up so fast. WOOOOOWWWWW

    4. Caroline*

      Lol! On OldJob we had a new starter who got far too drunk at the Christmas party and kept asking one of the Directors when he was getting a pay rise so he could buy a car. He also used to disappear for hours – it later turned out he’d been sneaking into the attic where office supplies and random junk were stored, and playing his guitar. He didn’t last long after the party incident and the attic started being locked with only the office manager having a key.

    6. tiny moon*

      We hired a very experienced project manager who was immediately put on a software project that was about to go live. He traveled to the client site for the implementation, went out for drinks with them the night he arrived (which is common in our industry), and got hammered (which is not). That might have passed, but the next day was when the product went live—meaning hundreds of people using new software under pressure—and he called out sick due to his hangover. He didn’t last long after that.

  11. Американка (Amerikanka)*

    At my previous academic library job, one of my coworkers, when new to her position, wore Lolita dresses and sometime strappy tops. Our supervisor had to talk with her about workplace fashion norms. Fortunately, the co-worker heeded our supervisor’s advise and ended up being an excellent member of our team.

      3. Clisby*

        Right? I’ve don’t work in a library, but I have never figured out why they tend to be stiflingly hot in the winter and freezing in the summer. Seems like they could save on utility bills if they figured out that (A) people generally are dressed pretty warmly in the winter; and (B) people generally are dressed much more skimpily in the summer.

        1. Asenath*

          I know a library (as patron, not employee) where the cause of all those complaints about the heating/air conditioning was alleged to be “all those menopausal women”. You can imagine the reaction! I gather they have in fact found and fixed some (but not all) of the problems, and no one’s dared blamed them on the women (menopausal or not) in a very long time.

          1. Heather S*

            In the case of my school library, it really was caused by a menopausal woman. My aunt was the librarian and apparently suffered from solar-leval hot flashes. So the library and her classroom were always frigid. Complaints had no effect. We could put more clothes on that she could decently take off, so we just dressed for arctic weather when visiting those areas.

        2. librariananan*

          I know at least at my library we have very little control over the AC and heat. Both are either ON or OFF (we have steam heat, ask me about the time it malfunctioned and one side of the building was nearing 90 degrees). Layers are a survival strategy

          1. tessa*

            Yep! Also, my campus library building is very old but not a priority for repair by the university. SIGH.

    2. ShesABrickHouse*

      That reminds me of a student assistant who wore extremely low cut tops and short shorts or mini skirts, all extremely tight. One skirt actually had the word “juicy” printed across the butt. Her desk was in the main reception area. Being a student, and knowing that students are often strapped for cash, our department head (a women) went out and bought her a blazer to wear and gently told her how our office was expected to set an example for our students when it came to attire since they often shadowed or interned in their (conservative) field. It’s not like we expected her to show up in a suit and heels every day, just show (a lot) less skin. Nothing changed. Her work was excellent but we decided not to rehire her after the semester ended.

      1. Me (I think)*

        I have seen that skirt with the word across the butt worn by preteens. I’m no prude, but neither am I a pedophile. Ew.

      2. Phrogge*

        Sounds rather like one of (excellent) secretaries in my late husband’s office several decades ago. They were making book on when her plunging neckline would meet the rising hemline and she’d show up in a belt.

    3. AnotherLibrarian*

      I had a student employee who wore spike heels every day. I mentioned to her concerns about tripping and that we were on out feet a lot, but she assured me it would be fine. Shockingly it was. She never tripped, never complained, and never didn’t wear stilettos. I’m still sort of in awe, to be honest.

      1. JustaTech*

        I had a lab coworker who always wore serious heels, all day every day, in the lab, at her desk or heading out for lunch. It’s very unusual in most labs I’ve worked in, but it was clearly what she liked best and it never seemed to bother her.

        1. CatPrance*

          I know someone who always wears heels — usually very high stilettos — and she’s done it so long, she can’t NOT wear them. Her Achilles tendon has shortened over the years and she can’t wear flat shoes without pain.

        2. My dear Wormwood*

          It’s actively against the safety rules in our institute. Shoes must be closed in and flat to be allowed in the lab.

          1. JustaTech*

            All of hers were closed-toe (she would never have violated a safety reg), and honestly they were probably safer than the ballet flats I wore once. (Once because I ended up having to dig through the liquid nitrogen freezer with my boss and he accidentally spilled some LN2 on the floor that very nearly got inside my shoes.)

            Our lab is all tissue culture and no fun chemicals, so pretty safe on the “spilling things on your feet” department, aside from that one day with the liquid nitrogen.

      3. Popinki*

        The admin. assistant at my office wears at least 5″ heels every day and zips around the office like Usain Bolt. The one time she wore sneakers (moving boxes of records around) she couldn’t take two steps without tripping over her own feet.

        The funny part was that I never realized how short she is without her heels. With the shoes on she’s got an inch or so on me, and without them the top of her head comes up to my nose.

        1. Zephy*

          If you wear heels often enough the tendons in your feet can actually shorten and it’s uncomfortable to wear flat shoes – I had a suitemate in college who, after several weeks of near-constant sorority-related events that required her to be in heels, would walk around barefoot on her toes because it was more comfortable that way than on flat feet.

          There’s also something to be said for one’s center of balance in heels vs on flat feet, and if that’s how her body’s calibrated, no wonder she trips over herself in sneakers.

        2. Anonny NonErson*

          The funny part was that I never realized how short she is without her heels. With the shoes on she’s got an inch or so on me, and without them the top of her head comes up to my nose.

          When I started dating my husband I had a job that required I dress up a bit; so our first few dates I was in heels because I’d meet up with him after work. I’m 5’4″ without heels, so they added several inches, depending on the day.

          The first time I took off my shoes when he was around he went from Tall to HOW TALL ARE YOU when I took them off, and the memory still makes him laugh – apparently I was standing there staring up at him completely befuddled.

            1. nonprofit llama groomer*

              I am a fellow short person married to an extremely tall guy and can just imagine this happening.

      4. The Rafters*

        I work with someone who also always wears spike heels. She walks normally, not looking like she’s on stilts and can even run if she has to! Very impressive skill, to be honest.

      5. Ana Gram*

        I had an old supervisor who did the same. At least 5 inch stilettos every day. She was extremely professional in every other way and always wore suits and basically looked like a senator from the ankles up. But it didn’t slow her down at all! She ran up and down the stairs and moved boxes and did everything with far more grace than I’ve ever displayed in my flats. I really admired her and the stilettos were such a lovely quirk.

      6. Apostrophina*

        My mother worked with someone like this in the 1970s! It was a busy hospital, and Mom’s former coworker had been some sort of admin or coordinator for ages, which in those analog days involved walking all over the building all day long. By the time I met her, she was a little old lady—and still in spike heels.

      7. Jay*

        I worked with a cardiologist who wore stilettos in the hospital all the time. I heard rumors she found shoe covers that allowed her to wear them in the cath lab.

      8. Birdie*

        I understand that awe. I worked in an archive for awhile, and most of the research room techs were undergraduates there on work-study. One of them wore incredibly high heels every single day. The style of the shoes tended more toward club attire than office wear, but she followed the only actual shoe rule, which was closed toes. We spent almost the entire day on our feet! She never complained, never shied away from doing rounds or pushing around heavy carts stocked with records, and never stopped wearing them. It was amazing!

    4. Turtlewings*

      I have a close friend who loooves Lolita fashion. She spends a great deal more money and time on it than I have ever spent on… anything, really. She’s also 35 and still looks 12, which is NOT helped by the ruffly pink dresses. She wears “grown up” clothes as a favor to her husband when they go out together, so that he doesn’t get dirty looks (or worse) for kissing his wife.

        1. MHA*

          It’s a Japanese street fashion and has nooooothing to do with the book– the best explanations for the name that have trickled down from the folks that started the trend decades ago are that “lolita” sounded cute, classy, vintage and (to them) foreign, and since those are the core aesthetics of lolita fashion, it was what stuck over the other early names that fell out of favor like “Alice fashion” (as in Alice in Wonderland), “doll fashion,” etc.

          1. Duckles*

            Having never having heard of this, but reading your description, I can confidently say it doesn’t have nothing to do with the book…

            1. MHA*

              In the extremely abstracted sense that Lolita is about a little girl and little girls can be generally said to be cute? Sure. In the specific sense that most ignorant people accuse the fashion of, which is sexualizing little girls? No. I’ve participated in the fashion for coming on a decade and have met hundreds of fellow lolitas, and the people who coined the name are still alive and very clear about their influences (Rococo and Victorian fashion, not Russian novels). Not sure what standing you think you have to make assertions about a subculture you have admittedly zero knowledge of.

    5. Mostly Managing*

      I supervised someone at one point who regularly went clubbing after work, especially on Fridays.
      I had to explain to her that what she’d wear to the club was not appropriate in the office, and no I didn’t care that she was planning to just stay in the city centre she had to figure something out.

      I think she ended up changing in the washroom at the end of her workday, and leaving her work clothes in the office to take home the next day.

  12. Charlotte Lucas*

    A trainer who asked where the solitaire game was on her computer the first day. I pointed out that it’s not an appropriate question the first day of her new job. She was in her 50s and not new to the world of work.

    She did not improve upon further acquaintance.

    1. Web Crawler*

      That might not be an appropriate question for the first day of work, but I also wanna know this. I used to use solitaire to pay attention during meetings, but some computer updates disabled it. I’m still salty.

      1. Violetviola*

        If you enter the word “solitaire” into the Google search bar, you can play it in browser. They also have Pac-Man and minesweeper.

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          This was over 20 years ago. For an hourly position that required 6 weeks of intensive training. We were getting everyone signed on for the first time. Basically, it was asking to play a game in the middle of being shown how to do your actual job.

      3. Meow*

        When I was an intern I had a Linux machine for legitimate work purposes. Those occasions were rare though, so 99% of its use was solitaire, since Fedora came with it preinstalled and it wasn’t subject to our company’s software policy.

      5. Azure Jane Lunatic*

        In the early 2000s when I worked in the call center from heck, IT had “disabled” the games on the training computers, in that you could not open the games folder — but if you searched the windows help function, you could still access the games that way. We found out when some enterprising new hires were playing games throughout the training. This might or might not have been the same training class where two of them smashed in the driver’s side doors of my car.

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      Not in a training class for CSRs. When they are paid by the hour.

      Also, she was a trainee, I was the trainer. Typo

    3. Charlotte Lucas*

      The same day, she informed me that she was only 14 years to retirement & counting down the days.

      The following week, 9/11 happened. I had to announce what we knew to the class, & she asked me if it was a joke. (I was visibly shaken at this point.) When I asked why anyone would joke about that, she responded that she didn’t know my sense of humor.

      She eventually couldn’t hack it in the position I trained for. Her trainer for the new position told me, “I think she’s the Devil.”

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          She might have been the devil. Those are so only a few stories I could tell.

          We were in a hiring crunch & management decided that the solution was to “cast a wider net” & hire people who didn’t meet our normally low bar. Then set them loose on the Training Department. It… Did not go well.

          1. FlyingAce*

            Gotta love when they do that… I once had a new hire with zero typing skills, to the point that it took me five tries to get him to type the word “manual” in our intranet’s search box to look up the document we needed to read. Did I mention that the system we used had no GUI and instead required us to type in commands? He lasted less than a week in training.

    4. Susan Ivanova*

      Early 80s, Mom worked a desk job in US Customs, they’d all just gotten Windows computers. They all knew exactly enough about the computer to get to the program they needed to use, and nothing else. This was before computers at home were a thing – we were an outlier because I was a teenage Apple programmer.

      Someone discovered that Windows came with games! on a government computer! Oh the outrage! It must be removed at once! This was also before IT departments dealt with desktop computers, so the employees were told they had to get rid of software they didn’t even know how to find.

    5. Mother of Corgis*

      That reminds me of when my dad took me to work with him when I was little. I was convinced for years that his entire job was playing solitaire and minesweeper, because that was all I ever saw/recognized on his computer.

    6. Sasha*

      On day one of one of my favourite student summer jobs, my trainer showed me the copy of Civilisation on my new computer, and explained the screen was angled away from the door so I could minimise the window if somebody came in. A couple of weeks later, the head of the department brought a little portable tv in so we could all watch wimbledon.

      I was a hard worker so didn’t abuse it, but knowing my bosses were happy for me to enjoy myself when work was slow was honestly amazing.

  13. Exasperated Trainer*

    Two fresh-out-of-college new hires started at my office, where I was in charge of training for the department. One of them was perfectly nice, but the other seemed to think that the office was a big college dorm. She’d frequently be found sitting on the desk of the other new hire to chat, decorated her cubicle with inspirational quotes, clipped her fingernails at her desk, spent her lunch breaks sitting barefoot and crosslegged on one of the armchairs in the reception area (visible to not only any visitors to the office, but anybody getting off the elevator on our floor as this was right in front of the glass front doors), and had to be told not to use a candle warmer in her cubicle (which made the entire office smell like mulled wine).

    But the most outrageous thing of all was the time, in her first or second week, when she was at my desk for some training/shadowing and leaned back in her chair and PUT HER FEET UP ON MY DESK.

    1. Американка (Amerikanka)*

      Nope! I would be so upset to see someone’s feet in my personal space! I hope she gets better trained by management…..

      1. Exasperated Trainer*

        I was way too shocked in the moment and didn’t say anything, though I did bring up all her unprofessional behaviors to her manager so she at least stopped with the candle warmer and nail clipping. She always found new and exciting ways to be obnoxious and unprofessional though (like pulling poorly-recieved April Fool’s pranks multiple years in a row, refusing to perform one of her major job functions for months at a time and leaving the rest of us to pick up her slack, making our very sweet and beloved office manager cry over a petty issue that her manager had already told her to get over, etc.) but somehow she was still working there when I left that job several years later.

    2. Cheap Ass Rolex*

      Besides the issue of imposing scents on everybody else’s workplace, I’d also be upset that someone is making it smell like mulled wine when there isn’t actually mulled wine available!

    3. Theo*

      This immediately summoned to mind our very worst employee (who was fired for some incredibly egregious reasons a few days OUT of their 90-day period, because the rest of us hadn’t yet conferred on whether the issues were happening to everyone or just one of us… lesson learned) and the way he used to put his CHUCKS WEARING FEET up on the desk. This would already have been super out of touch, but he was the FRONT DESK ASSISTANT and clearly visible through a set of GLASS DOORS.

      Sorry for the caps locks but this guy enraged me. He hid employee mail. He hid customer email. It took me, no lie, two months to sort out all the problems he caused by simply hiding emails he didn’t want to deal with.

    4. MiloSpiral*

      Wow, feet on the desk! And sitting on a colleague’s desk! How big were these desks that she could sit on it without basically becoming someone’s computer??

      I don’t necessarily think decorating your cubicle with inspirational quotes is that big of a deal, though. People decorate their work spaces differently. Unless they are decorating with something overtly offensive, inappropriately off-color for work, or the decorations were overflowing into others’ space, it’s kind of a shrug moment for me.

  14. CatCat*

    The guy who, instead of doing any of the work he was shown how to do and assigned to do, logged into his work computer and read sports websites all day. Needless to say, he didn’t last through the week.

    1. Julia*

      This is so brazen that I bet this guy had some serious anxiety issues or something. Particularly if he was apparently motivated enough to get the job to apply and competent enough to get hired, and then just utterly torpedoed his new job in the first week.

        1. Julia*

          There’s a fine line between armchair dx and just not automatically assuming the worst of people

          1. allathian*

            Regardless of the reason, he wasn’t passing the minimum requirements of holding a job, actually attempting to do it. Even if it was caused by anxiety, there’s no reasonable accommodation the employer could make to let him keep the job. Firing him for failure to do his job was the only reasonable thing to do.

          2. Who is the asshole*

            I’m all for seeing people as people, including possible mental health issues, but a) it’s fine to just go with the most likely reason and b) we are asked per site rules not to armchair diagnose.

      2. BubbleTea*

        I’ve been medicated for anxiety for years, received government-funded work coaching for neurodivergence issues, and lost several jobs due to my mental health, and I have never been this brazenly lazy. We don’t have to bend over backwards to make allowances for appalling behaviour in the name of empathy.

  15. Blisskrieg*

    At the time, after initial vetting all candidates (who were selected to interview) came to corporate and went through the full chain of command up to and including the executive Vice President. The candidate used the entire half hour with her to direct the conversation toward beekeeping! No, our business has nothing to do with bees–at all.

    3. My So-Called Username*

      I can, unfortunately, relate to this one… I went through a few rounds of interviews, starting with a co-worker, then a manager, finally the director. Wowed the co-worker and manager with on-point questions and answers. Got to the director, who unfortunately was a dead ringer for my SIL (right in the middle of a family feud she had started). I could. not. get. over. it and my questions were so, so dumb. I couldn’t even articulate reasonable answers to her questions.

      Reader, I did not get that job.

  16. Bernice Clifton*

    I work at a commercial property management company and we have security guards on duty 24/7. We hired a guard to start on a Thursday at midnight who no-called no showed. He came into the office the next day with a friend, asked me for some Gatorade and told me he and his friend would be working together (that’s . . . not how it works).

    We told him to go the security desk and train in if he still wanted to work, and he agreed. He went to the desk and told the guard on duty he would be back in an hour because he had to “take care of something” and never came back. We called him and told him it wasn’t going to work out, so he called everyone in the company he could get a number for and told him we couldn’t fire him before he started.

      1. Web Crawler*

        See, that’s the key to his plan. If he never starts, he can never be hired *taps head dramatically*

    3. Squidhead works 3rd shift*

      I’m sure this was doomed anyway, but is it possible he was confused about when he was supposed to start work? Like, he was *supposed* to start 1 minute after Wednesday ended (0000 on Thursday, which most people think of as Wednesday night) but *he* thought he was supposed to start 1 minute after Thursday ended (0000 on Friday, which most people think of as Thursday night)? Either way, you don’t get free Gatorade!

      1. SnappinTerrapin*

        That is a common point of confusion in security scheduling. Different companies handle it differently, so there isn’t a magic answer where common sense prevails. There was a failure on the supervisor’s part and/or the hiring manager’s part.

        The gatorade isn’t necessarily unreasonable.

        Bringing his friend to work, on the other hand, just doesn’t make sense.

    4. Leg*

      I used to work with agency security guards and I remember two making the most incredible first impressions. Both happened on their first (and last) days.

      One was in my office, where a new guard arrived for a day shift and was sent into a CCTV monitoring room. Half an hour into the shift, my manager went in and discovered him, trousers hitched down to his knees, cradling the work phone between his ear and shoulder with his hands otherwise occupied, and a disreputable magazine open at the chat line advert section on the console in front of him.

      The other one was a guard from the same agency who was sent to do a shift sitting in a luxury car showroom overnight, and when his relief arrived in the morning, he stood up to reveal that he had somehow neglected to leave the chair to go to the toilet, and solid matter had soaked through his trousers onto the furniture.

      1. Despachito*

        I wonder whether the practice of hiring agency security guards is similar as here – they apparently set the bar VERY, VERY low to get the cheapest prices, and the people they hire (and the results) are often quite desperate.

        I feel sorry for the second guy from your example though, because it is so out of the line that he must have had some serious health problems.

  17. Peridot*

    I don’t remember how long it took our new employee to do this, but she’d come late/leave early until our manager confronted her with the login/logoff times from her computer.
    So in the morning, she’d come in, turn on her computer, and then leave to walk to the grocery store down the block and get breakfast. Which I know, because I was sitting next to her.

    2. soontoberetired*

      We hired someone new who came highly recommended. I told my boss after the first week he wasn’t going to work out – I gave him a simple assignment, explained it to him, told him to ask me any questions, and on the 3rd day I asked what progress he made, and he had done nothing. Not even re-read the assignment. My boss then assigned him to someone else. After that, he just kept disappearing during the day. found out someone else would come and log him out at the end of the day. It took forever to hire him for some bizarre reason, and on the day they had planned to do it, he didn’t show up at his desk. Eventually they got hold of him and said you are fired.

    3. EPLawyer*

      Sounds like a guy I once worked with. We took complaints from the public regarding a specific City Agency. So we had longer office hours than most city agencies so working people could still come in. We had 3 people taking the complaints. One came in at 8, the second came in at 9 and I got to come in at 10, but I stayed until 6. First person got to go home at 4, second at 5. It worked for us. EXCEPT, the first guy was SUPPOSED to take complaints and answer calls as the first one in. He wouldn’t take calls while he was eating breakfast in the office. We also took staggered lunches so someone was always available. If the other 2 were tied up and he decided it was time for lunch, he would not take calls (we did not have SET lunch times, just we got an hour a day). And heaven forbid if you got between the door and him at 4. He was out the door on the dot. He stopped taking calls at 3:45 so he wouldn’t be late leaving.

      Believe it or not he was the better of the two people we had hired for his position — the Spanish speaking complaint person.

    4. Momma Bear*

      Sounds like someone I worked with. We were both hired for a project that didn’t launch well and had to pivot to other work. The coworker was not happy. They would take super long lunches, arrive late, leave early, etc. We sat next to each other in cubicles so I was very aware of their schedule. Manager would aske where coworker was and I’d be honest that I hadn’t seen them since x time. Eventually Manager had a “shape up or ship out” conversation. I don’t know if they truly got better because I left, and then a few months later, the project folded.

  18. Triple Toe*

    New hire insisted on naming himself as the beneficiary on his life insurance policy “in case I’m around when it pays out”.

    5. knitcrazybooknut*

      I mean, he could be planning to fake his own death. But then he would need an alias to pick up the check? I’m so confused.

      1. Triple Toe*

        I explained to him several times – and finally gave up and submitted his form. I figured I’d let the carrier work it out with him. He was fired a few months later – and never got a payout on his policy.

          1. DataSci*

            Maaaybe he thought it was something that paid out at a given time? So like on his 80th birthday regardless of whether he was alive or not? If I squint I can see misunderstanding term life insurances as “You pay out until X age, then the beneficiary gets the money” rather than “You pay out until X age, if you die before that the beneficiary gets the money, otherwise not”. Basically thinking of it as a very-long-term investment rather than, you know, insurance?

              1. JSPA*

                My dad did this, back in the 80’s, I think–before they changed the small print. I don’t know how, exactly, but it was a tidy sum. (It’s not done by listing yourself on the policy, though.)

                1. nonprofit llama groomer*

                  With whole life policies you can borrow against the cash value. Maybe that’s what he did.

            2. KateM*

              I know there are dead-or-disabled type of insurances, meant mostly to insure that if something happens to the breadwinner of your family. Maybe that’s what he thought it meant?

            3. Pennyworth*

              My father had a policy that paid out when he died or got to 90, whichever came first. He lived to 96, so got the payout on his 90th birthday along with a letter saying he was, from the company’s point of view, now deemed to have died. He thought it was very funny and split the check amongst his grand kids.

    8. Parenthesis Dude*

      I mean, I have heard of people dying for half an hour and being brought back to life. And certainly there have been cases of people that were thought to be dead but weren’t actually dead. But I feel like life insurance wouldn’t pay out in those cases.

          1. KoiFeeder*

            It’s not really that exciting, honestly. I died a little. I was already in the hospital so they restarted my heart and got me breathing again. The bill goes to medical insurance, not life insurance.

    9. Nanani*

      Necromancer in training? Hopeful future zombie? Speed-reincarnation adept?
      The possibilities are endless.

    10. Gracely*

      Is he planning on being cryogenically frozen? Because that’s the only way I could see that working.

    11. Lucy P*

      Wow, that’s even better than our new hire who refused life insurance because he thought it was an incentive for his family to have him killed (it was only 25,000).

      1. COHikerGirl*

        I’d have concerns about this person if they think their family would be willing to have them killed for money.

        1. Susan Ivanova*

          Well, they might be right. If they ask that no information is to be given out to family, I’d believe them.

        2. CatPrance*

          I’d have concerns if his family would be willing to have him killed for SO LITTLE MONEY.

          It’s like someone who gets arrested for embezzling $1,372.86.

          I mean, good Lord! If you’re going to embezzle money, go for the jackpot! Make off with several million — not carfare.

      2. Margaretmary*

        Okaaay, I was joking that my mother had an incentive to kill me before I made my will (since she would get everything if I died intestate) but…it was a JOKE, not something I considered an actual possibility (or I wouldn’t have told her I was planning on making one!).

        1. FreakInTheExcelSheets*

          I have a similar joke with my sister – we’re each the other’s beneficiary so when we’re calling each other to set things up/renew/any situation where we need the other’s SSN, the request is along the lines of “I’m making changes to your motive if I die in suspicious circumstances”.

      4. A Wall*

        He’s got it all backwards. When I made my husband the beneficiary on my life insurance, I told him that now he can’t kill me because he’s the only one who would benefit by my death and would be the prime suspect. That’s the real galaxy-brain plan!

    12. Kuddel Daddeldu*

      Depends on the policy – some are death only, some pay out also in case of severe disability and/or at a certain age like a retirement fund. He obviously thought it to be the latter… or had viewed too many zombie flicks.

  19. Noel*

    I had a new hire who I was training to sanitize one of our lab spaces. In training we set up the lab to “test” how effective they are in cleaning using a product called “Glow Germ”, which lights up under black light. This helps us figure out if they are short cutting the sanitation process and all is revealed when we go over the space with the black light and the new hire present. In revealing the area of deficiency, I provided constructive feedback to the young lady that she needed to apply some “elbow grease” to remove the substance from the surface. She asked me where she could buy it.

    2. Dragonfly7*

      I can sympathize with this new hire! I encounter colloquialisms I’ve never heard before multiple times a year. The first as a teenager was my new manager asking me if I had any “rubbers.” I had never heard condoms called that before, let alone had anyone ask me for one. The most recent was “to give someone a pounding,” referring to friends and family each bringing a pound of sugar, flour, and other items someone might need when setting up their pantry in a new home.

          1. quill*

            The accidental shower of them at the interview made it less awkward than asking anyone else. (Also it could be for a microphone.)

        2. Bananagram*

          What country are you in? I’m from the US (SE) and I know a rather different definition of “giving someone a pounding”.
          Agreed, though, about condoms/rubbers, etc. To this day I’m terrified to ask someone for an eraser in a foreign language, just in case…

          1. Antilles*

            I’d assume it was punching someone out, because that’s how I’ve always heard it used.

          2. Wisteria*

            lol, it’s a phrase in use in the US. It originated from the quantities of all the stuff typically coming in pounds- lb of butter, 5 lb bag of flour, etc.

            1. WantonSeedStitch*

              I wonder if it’s a regionalism. I’ve never heard that expression, and I’m in New England. But it sounds like a delightful practice for a housewarming!

            2. 1-800-BrownCow*

              I’m from the US and have never heard pounding used in this way. It was be very region specific.

              1. GingerJ1*

                It’s southern, but it’s really old.

                When I was a kid, I remember my mom going to a pounding for a couple getting married, but I have never heard it since (probly was in the 60s).

                2. CatPrance*

                  When I heard the term in southern Virginia, years and years ago, it meant something entirely different to me. A sweet little old lady had remarked, with a reminiscent smile, “Yes, we gave the pastor and his wife a pounding when they first arrived — ”

                  Me: “You did WHAT??? To the PASTOR???”

                  “It’s sort of like a housewarming,” she went on in her sweet little fluting voice, and described it, and I got over my heart attack, and the evening ended nicely, but I don’t know if I’ll ever really forget the horrified panic of when I first heard her say that.

                3. VegetarianRaccoon*

                  You know what, I didn’t recognize it by name but after description it brings to mind something written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (author of The Yearling) about her time in rural Florida, back in the 30s I think, about being invited to a “pound party.” The idea was that everyone brought a pound of something to share as refreshments for the party (although the incident in question was apparently an excuse for a poor family to get more food without having to openly beg.)

            3. Amorette Allison*

              From Montana and 64 years old and never heard it. Maybe a southern regionalism. Around here it means something else entirely.

          3. Dragonfly7*

            I also knew it by that definition, Bananagram! This is in the southern US, and apparently an older meaning of that expression.

        3. Dragonfly7*

          She wanted to pull a prank on someone, and if they were handy, it would have been faster than running to the store so she could make water balloons.

      2. londonedit*

        Picture me, aged about 6 or 7, on a family holiday to the USA. We went to an amusement arcade where you won tickets that you could exchange for a prize. Having collected a few tickets, when it was time to go I went up to the kiosk to choose my prize, handed over my tickets, and said very politely ‘Could I have a rubber, please?’ The attendant’s eyebrows shot up to the roof and she said ‘You want a WHAT???’ Confused small me replied ‘…a rubber? Please? I have enough tickets…’. Luckily at that point my mum appeared and explained to the attendant that what I wanted was an ERASER (a word I’d never even heard – they’re called rubbers in British English! It is also a slang word for a condom but if you heard a primary-aged child asking for a rubber you’d assume they wanted to erase some pencil marks long before you assumed anything else).

        1. Ferret*

          Almost this exact scenario happened to me! Except it was at the Ellis Island gift shop. I still remember the horrified look the woman at the till gave my Dad before he clarified. I still have my collection of rubbers in a shoebox somewhere… they make quite good collectibles for a child, small & cheap and they sell them almost everywhere

        2. Asenath*

          When I was a small child, I went to a public toilet and couldn’t find a towel to dry my hands. I had a little money, so I put it in a machine that promised a sanitary napkin, thinking a napkin was as good as a towel. I pulled the contents partly out, and left the cubicle (which meant I was right in the main part of the store) waving it around and telling my mother indignantly that I tried to get a napkin and the machine gave me this weird thing! She hushed me, took it, and told me she’d explain later. She didn’t seem much upset by my lapse in cleanliness by not drying my hands.

        1. Scotlibrarian*

          Yep, rubber is for rubbing out pencil marks in the UK. The use of ‘rubber’for condom is known, but as an American slang term. In my office, I could ask any staff member for a rubber and they would know I meant an eraser and no-one would think it funny. UK and American slang is very different at times

          1. GingerJ1*

            It’s a southern thing….but very old.

            I remember when I was a kid, someone gave a pounding shower, but I’ve never heard it since then (probly the 60s).

      4. CaptainMouse*

        An ex-colleague of mine, US person and job, left to take a job in Scotland. On her first day the person showing her around the office asked if she needed any rubbers (erasers). Awkward but cross-culturally educational.

      5. Lady Luck*

        I’m in the US, and I once had a boss that was originally from the UK. One morning, she called me and told me she’d be in a little late because she was stopping to pick up some fags. I was…dumbfounded. And confused. And bothered.

        Luckily, my coworker saw my face and explained that she meant cigarettes.

        1. Fanny Price*

          I knew a similar story, except it was a high school teacher who told her student that she had seen them “out in the parking lot sucking on a fag” when they should have been in class.

      6. Happily Retired*

        I like to read mysteries from other countries, especially police procedurals. One book – I think it was Swedish or Norwegian, thus “Scan noir” – kept referring to the pot plant in the reception area of the police station. I finally figured out that the translator had used “pot” instead of “potted”, but I had the giggles throughout the book.

        Progressive countries, indeed!

        3. Dhaskoi*

          Presumably the translator was from the UK (or theoretically Australian). Pot plant is the typical term in British English – I didn’t hear potted plant until I was in my 20’s and I’ve always found it weirdly clunky.

    3. Kesnit*

      A few months ago, I got a lesson in regional terms…

      I grew up calling the side of the road the “berm.” One day in court, I was arguing to the judge and used that word. The judge stopped me and asked me to repeat what I said. Thinking he hadn’t heard me, I repeated the word. He then asked me what the berm is.

      I’m in my mid-40s and that was the first time I realized not everyone called the side of the road the berm.

        1. MsM*

          I wasn’t aware there was a word for it unless you’re specifically talking about a highway, in which case I’d call it the “shoulder.”

          1. Seawren*

            I’ve only heard berm used to describe a raised barrier made of dirt – like a dike, but holding back a slope instead of water.

            1. DataSci*

              Same. A berm is a raised barrier of some sort on the side of the road. Also used to describe the long piles of snow left by plows (which is why I wouldn’t say it has to be made of dirt per se, though without specific snow-related context that’s what I’d assume).

          2. Pointy's in the North Tower*

            I call the side of the road a shoulder as well. A berm to me is a mound of dirt used to stop stuff. As in, the giant dirt wall at the target end of a shooting range to stop bullets from going to the range. I’m in a gun-loving US state, so my usage could be regional.

        4. londonedit*

          This is literally the first time I’ve seen the word ‘berm’. I wouldn’t have had a clue what it meant. If there’s grass at the edge of the road then that’s the verge, if it’s a motorway with a hard shoulder then it’s the hard shoulder…otherwise it’s just the side of the road.

      2. kicking_k*

        In the UK it’s either the verge, or the hard shoulder if it’s paved and on a motorway.

        The berm is new to me. Perhaps I don’t much discuss the sides of roads with my US friends!

      3. Don P.*

        I’m in my 60s (from the NE corridor) and have never heard “berm” until this moment.

      4. Kimberly Sheehan*

        Grew up in a rural area NE US and we used berm all the time. I only live a couple hundred miles from where I grew up and no one uses or knows berm. Everyone says shoulder.

        1. No_woman_an_island*

          Same. I think it’s a more rural term. Shoulder is different than berm in that it’s wider. A berm is like 12 inches of space, in my neck of the woods.

          1. fhqwhgads*

            The side of the road might be a berm, but it’s not inherently a berm. I don’t think this is a rural term per se. A berm is just an area at the periphery of something where the ground level is higher. Could be a pile of dirt. Could be raised soil area with stuff planted all on it. For a not-roadway example, there is a berm around Disneyland. Meant to make it so if you’re in the park you can’t see outside the park. It’s high enough to obstruct the view from most angles. But if you’re in the park, it doesn’t look like there’s a giant wall of dirt. It’s just graded (and other stuff planted) to obstruct what they want obstructed.

      5. Nina*

        In New Zealand the berm is the strip of grass between either your front fence and the footpath (sidewalk) or between the footpath and the road. You put the bins on it on rubbish day. You have to mow it even though it belongs to the city council. You can get a special dispensation to grow veges in it but this is very rare. Some people park in them when they’re very wide.

        1. Chilipepper Attitude*

          We call the stip of land between the sidewalk and the street the swale in south Florida.
          I never heard that term till I moved here.
          I’m from NE and know berm as a small earthen wall – not the side of the road.

          2. Lizzo*

            In Cleveland, that strip of land between sidewalk and street is known as a “tree lawn”. There is an entire Wikipedia article that details the various names for it. Very entertaining.

          3. Cheerfully Polite Grey Rock*

            We call it the nature strip in Australia, or at least in my corner of it!

      6. JustSomeone*

        I’m with the judge! I’m American, and to me a berm is a little hill. I call the edge of the road the shoulder.

      7. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Your usage is the second definition.
        I got curious & looked it up in the dictionary — maybe it’s time for them to tag it archaic.
        I’ll leave this here for the benefit of some future reader who presses “show me a random article”.

    4. Dinwar*

      I had been on the job for 10 years, in charge of multiple teams, starting to manage projects on my own, and I got told to find a board spreader. Spent a solid ten minutes looking for one. Yeah…. I should have known better than that! What tipped me off was when they said “Hey, bring the headlight fluid too!” I think I literally face-palmed at that point.

    5. Alpacas Are Not Dairy Animals*

      Well thank goodness she asked instead of spending all day trying to find the elbow grease requisition forms in the documentation.

  20. Anon today*

    New hire’s second day, while observing a client meeting, interrupts to provide recommendations on how we could improve the business process we were reviewing with the client and basically redo 3 months of work. Managed to anger boss and kill client confidence before lunch.

    2. LPUK*

      Many years ago I was a retail buyer developing confectionery products with private label manufacturers . One of my Product development techs expressed an interest in seeing how the commercial side worked, so I said she could sit in on one of my negotiations. So I’d told the supplier what I wanted and how much I wanted to pay, he sucked his teeth and said we can’t do it for that because reasons, I riposted with your reasons aren’t relevant/making too much of them and similarl badinage and the product tech chipped in ‘ oh no, it really will cost him more if we want him to do that’. Not helpful in the middle of negotiation. So that was the last commercial meeting she attended.

      1. noradrenaline*

        TBH if you throw someone who is not used to this kind of song-and-dance into that kind of situation, it’s not their fault if they don’t realize that it’s lying time. I ran into something similar as an engineer sitting in on my first client meeting; in my field it’s important to be precise, realistic, and transparent with my communication, so imagine my surprise when my boss got mad at me for answering direct questions from the client honestly! (They asked about the maturity and adoption rate of a new feature I had been working on – I wasn’t aware that we were presenting it as super-polished and wildly popular.)

    3. Mauvaise Pomme*

      Oh nooo, not the gumption!

      Something similar happened to me a few years ago. A member of the internal communications team was shadowing a massive, complex technical project where our org was one of many partners, many of whom were industry heavy hitters, and we were very much a little fish in a big pond. The comms guy (incidentally, a very nice young man, but maybe with a tendency to be a tad over-confident, bless him) was making suggestions to us on how to cut to the chase of the goal of this multi-year initiative immediately, along the lines of “Why don’t you just [do X extremely simplistic thing that would violate industry regulations]?” He was very excited and pleased, thinking he was solving all our problems. Fortunately, he had the social graces to privately talk to just his own organizational team members, and none of this happened in the hearing of our partners. There was also the added dimension that all of us (the team representing our org, with the exception of him) were women, which made me feel a little funny about the whole thing…

  21. Американка (Amerikanka)*

    Also, something cringeworthy now: when I was new to the workforce I DAILY asked my coworkers for rides home (I did not have a car, worked nights, and did not live in the safest part of town). Although they were gracious about it, I am sure they were very glad when I saved up enough money to buy my own car.

    1. FM*

      I don’t think you need to cringe at that! You didn’t have a car. People are kind. It’s okay :)

    2. Rara Avis*

      A little before I started my current job (21 years ago), a colleague invited me to dinner and offered whatever help I needed to get going. A week later, I was on my way to work by train and bicycle — no car. I got a flat. I knew he lived between the train station and work, so I hoped he was serious about offering helped and called — (I had to work that day for training but he didn’t.). He got out of bed, took me to work, and got my bike tire fixed before bringing it back to me.

    3. LeftEye*

      Don’t be embarrassed! In my office it’s the norm to ask if anyone needs/wants a ride when you’re leaving- I wish everywhere was that way. Most of us take public transit to get there and it’s a kind thing to do when it gets darker out or when people are carrying supplies/equipment home. Most of the time the driver just drops everyone off at a train station that’s on their way home anyway- cuts down commute time without cutting too much into the driver’s time/gas.

  22. BoratVoiceMyWife*

    I once worked at a major news organization and our particular team worked early mornings, late nights, weekends and was severely understaffed. The hiring process to replace two departed full-timers took forever, but we finally backfilled one of the roles while I was out on vacation and the whole team was relieved to have the extra pair of hands,

    The new guy shows up on his first day, does all the usual onboarding stuff, doesn’t seem to be particularly savvy with the basic technological requirements of the role (i.e. using a computer), but whatever. As he leaves at the end of his first day, there’s inclement weather outside. He slips, falls and sustains a major injury that requires eight weeks of medical leave. When I got back to work and enquired about the schedule, specifically why the new guy was on it, I stared in utter disbelief when I was informed he had been hospitalized at the end of his first day and would be out for two months.

    1. Nat Romanov's Much-Needed Vacation*

      Many jobs don’t do medical leave until you’ve been onboard for… months.

      2. Nails*

        As the person was possibly injured on work property, it might have been easier than the lawsuit.

      3. Free Meerkats*

        Even if it was in the US, Workman’s Comp kicks in the moment you walk in the door.

        1. KateM*

          Even if it was in US, they could have thought that better a worker in hand, even if in hospital for two months.

  23. Murphy*

    We’re all remote. We have a guy who started a few months ago. Within the first two weeks of him being here, everyone giving him training noticed that he was on his phone during training. I don’t meant just a quick glance at the phone, I mean you could see his hands and the top of the phone at the bottom of the screen the whole time. A few times he was asked a question and went off mute and you could hear something in the background like he was watching a video. Supposedly our boss at the time talked to him but it hasn’t gotten much better. He’s just off camera more often.

    1. Oryx*

      I know it’s a long shot but part of me is wondering if this is my former coworker who left a few months ago…..

  24. CreepyPaper*

    Years ago I worked a role that was temp to perm contract-wise and I started at the same time as a guy who was also on a temp to perm contract. By the end of our first day he had accused me of stealing the permanent job that was ‘his’ (no?) and demanded that the managers gave him a permanent role by the end of the week or he’d leave. Apparently the recruitment agency had gaslighted him by saying the role was permanent but he came through the same agency and recruiter as me and I was told clearly that it was three months temp with the option of permanent at the end.

    This was on a Monday. He didn’t show up for Tuesday or ever again and another lady started the following Monday and as far as I’m aware she still works there.

    1. NeutralJanet*

      Just curious, did he actually use the term “gaslighted”? I can imagine the recruitment agency lying to him or misleading him, though it sounds unlikely if they were clear to you, but I’m just going to go ahead and say…I am certain that they didn’t gaslight him. I thought the overuse/misuse of “gaslighting” was a recent trend, but interesting to hear that it was already going on years ago!

      1. CreepyPaper*

        Yes he did, this was in about 2004-ish. I remember I had to look up what it meant, I didn’t know.

      2. Veruca*

        I had to tell my teen just yesterday (when she accused me of gaslighting her) that gaslighting is when people deny facts and make you question your sanity. It does not mean grounding.

        1. Working Hypothesis*

          At least not unless the space in which you’re requiring the kid to stay has a *really* antiquated lighting system…

  25. Miss. Bianca*

    1 1/2 years ago I had a new coworker joined my team. We had the same position and title, but reported to different people and work on different accounts/projects. When she came on, I offboarded the account she was going to be working on and her manager said he would take on training her. Initially she asked me a ton of questions pertaining to her new account, which is normal and what I would expect.

    But after a few weeks she started coming to me with little issues she really should be going to her boss about. This included things such as who works on what (within our team), asking me to look at things before she sends her boss or other stakeholders and asking me if there are any of my tasks she can help me with. Every time I told her the appropriate amount of information, but also told her to check with her boss. He was supposed to be training her on all that, and it’s like she doesn’t want to communicate with him or ask him questions.

    Then we had a training session during her first week where she kept going on about how her account was a mess, asked me who managed another account within our team (she had past experience in those projects but it wasn’t her current responsibility) and that those accounts are run terribly, she doesn’t have much to do and she used to be a manager (and did what her boss currently does) at her previous job.

    So within her first month she gave the impression that she was entitled and lazy, and frankly it’s been hard for me to change that first impression of her.

    To the present day, I still find her lazy and entitled. About a year ago we had a merger, and her title changed to a lower position, but I don’t think she realizes it, or my clueless boss didn’t explain that to her.

  26. ThatGirl*

    Back in my copy desk days, we had a real rotating cast of characters (I think nearly the entire desk turned over in 2 years). Most of us were in our 20s and we skewed female, but one new person was an older man who’d previously worked at a different paper in the area. Our desk chief told us he aced his copy test so we were excited to have someone with all that knowledge and experience.

    He turned out to be slow as HELL. Took *hours* to put a simple page design together. Seemed mystified by the very common software. But that wasn’t the truly disconcerting part. The disconcerting part was that he was constantly muttering about his gun collection and got angry quickly. I had a friend at the paper he’d previously worked at, so I asked her if she knew the guy … and hoo boy did she. He’d been let go after failing to show up to work one day with no call — and it turned out he’d been in jail on domestic violence charges!

    There’s a LOT more to the story, but suffice to say he was also fired from our paper after a violent outburst, and a few years ago I decided to google him and discovered he’d been killed by his roommate in some sort of domestic dispute.

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      wow! I have copy desk stories too. Might have to tell some in the open thread tomorrow.

    2. The Smiling Pug*

      The ending to that story… I wasn’t expecting that. Murdered by his roommate?? Whoa…

      1. ThatGirl*

        Despite his apparent potential for violence, I *definitely* wasn’t expecting that when I googled him!

        2. A Wall*

          Right? Although I like to say that the best way to get shot is to pull a gun on someone else, so it does kinda track .

  27. Catabodua*

    New hire who came in as a replacement. It was a boring/manual data entry type job. There have always been two positions. One person left the company, one person who’s still there, and now new hire comes in.

    New hire caught up on 8 months of backlog by the end of their first week. We knew the other two were slow, but dammmmnnnn. The person who remained was given a new job, decided it wasn’t for them, and left. They never replaced her because new hire was so good.

    New hire stayed on for a few years while completing their bachelor’s degree. They never wanted a promotion or job change because the mindless / no stress data entry was just what they needed to survive (pay rent, eat) without adding to their workload for a challenging program.

    1. Generic Name*

      Aw man, I hope you gave them huge raises even if they didn’t want promotions. We’ve had some workers like that where you just know they will be on to bigger and better things quickly, but you cherish them wile they work with you.

      1. Catabodua*

        They just got regular COLA like everyone else. But also got tuition reimbursement. Theyseemed happy enough. They knew they were destined for much bigger things so I honestly don’t think they cared that much beyond it gave them health care and let them eat. I should probably try to find them on LinkedIn – they may be running a business by now.

        1. allathian*

          Yeah, in that situation, having a mindless/low stress data entry job with tuition reimbursement and healthcare was perfect for them.

    2. T. Boone Pickens*

      Ha, this is great! Talk about a real MacMillan Toys type situation. “Slow down! You’re making us all look bad!”

      1. Rob aka Mediancat*

        I got that in one of my jobs — it involved physically examining documents to make sure that certain ID numbers were on every 10-15th page or so and checking that other things were present.

        We were supposed to get 1000 pages a day and one day when I did 1500+ I was told by a coworker to slow down because it would make the rest of them look bad.

        on my final day, I did 2500 pages just to prove a point.

    3. Bagpuss*

      Sounds like the job my brother did when he first graduated- he was doing very technical stuff that interested him but paid little or nothing, in his own time, and wanted a job that allowed fairly flexible hours and wasn’t mentally demanding, to pay the bills!
      He was very good at it, and has since been able to move into a job where he does get to use the techy skills he honed back then

      1. BeachMum*

        I actually had a job like this. I was in college and was hired for the summer to help with the massive backlog of unfiled mortgage documents. In my first week I created a system (rather than walking back and forth filing one document at a time) so we were caught up by the end of the second week. Since they no longer needed to file clerks (the permanent person loved the new system, which was simply organizing a stack of documents in numerical order before going to file them) I was ‘promoted’ to being the collections clerk. It was a way more interesting job and I had a fun summer.

        1. Carmen527*

          I was working a temp job 20 years ago, and I was sent to an asphalt company the Wednesday before a Monday holiday to get them caught up on some data entry that had fallen behind months earlier when they had switched accounts payable software. I went on Wednesday, then called in sick on Thursday and Friday because I was, you know, actually sick. They assumed I was a flaky temp and were surprised I showed up on the Tuesday after the holiday. I ended up staying long after I had gotten them back up to speed (more quickly than they expected) – they kept me on so I could replace their AR person when she went out for heart surgery. Months after I left, they called and offered me a full-time position, but I could make more in my actual field (teaching) than I could there, and I had student loans to pay off. I might have taken the job had they met my salary requirements – they were lovely people to work with.

  28. What the what*

    Middle aged new guy programmer says on his first day, to me (late 20s female boss). “I’ve never had a female boss before, so this is going to take some getting used to!” Within a month, he was physically fighting with a coworker at a stop light down the street. Good grief.

    2. Antilles*

      Do you know how he got into a fight with a co-worker at the stop light? Because that sounds like an entertaining story all by itself.

      3. What the what*

        Him and another volatile programmer had been getting on each others nerves. They argued in the parking lot and one tried to leave, only to be confronted at a stop light down the street. Dude tried to open his car door and yank him out. They were both ended up getting fired pretty quickly after. This was a fairly unhealthy work environment, and my only experience with managing. Still have PTSD over this place.

    3. SnappinTerrapin*

      Where have these people been for the past 40-odd years?

      My first job out of college was with a police department, and my shift sergeant was a woman. I’m old enough to draw social security. I can’t fathom anyone working in private or public sector jobs who thinks there is “still” something odd about women in positions of authority.

      1. Pennyworth*

        One of my early jobs was in part of a government agency where the only man was the trainee. This was in the 1980s, so the gender mix was very uncommon. We called him our ‘token man’.

  29. mah*

    Manager hired someone from a conference without conducting any interviews. First day she walks up to the Administrative Assistant and asks for a list of who she gets to “boss around” (in those terms).

    (Then later, when a small local conference took place she introduced herself as the “Improved [name of former person in that position]” … to the person who used to be in that position and had left to a different local job which was a step up in terms of position.)

    Not great at reading a room.

      1. mah*

        She did not last through the probation period. There were some other things that happened as well, later on, like being wildly competitive that her master’s degree was better than her colleague’s master degree and trying to “boss around” people who weren’t even in her department.

        So unfortunately a bit of a yikes first impression not improving.

    2. Working Hypothesis*

      I know it’s a lot to expect of the administrative assistant who’s probably just trying to get through the day without pissing off the new manager who’s obviously a loon… but part of me really wishes they had responded with quiet dignity, “Oh, nobody, of course. We don’t do that here.”

    3. Legal Rugby*

      I just have to tell this:

      My wife and I used to work at the same University; when we got married, neither of us changed our name, so some folks didn’t realize we were married. (Given the number of meetings we were in together, there were some funny stories there.) I interviewed for the job the day after we got back from our honeymoon, and started three weeks after we got married.

      Six months after I started, my wife was asked to move to another position because she had been the interim director for that department, and they realized there was no better candidate. It was easier to back fill her other position – my wife had been the first person to be in that position and had created most of the programs the position ran; this had been while we were engaged so I knew A LOT about the position – outside of her boss, I probably knew what the job was better than anyone on campus.

      They hired a new person to fill her old job, and one day, after I did a presentation, I was standing outside a meeting talking to my wife’s old co-workers when a women I have never met before walked up and said “Hi! We haven’t met yet, but I’m the new version of Ms. Legal Rugby!” After a moment of slightly startled staring, I realized she was the new employee filling my wife’s old job. Once everyone there stopped laughing, I explained why I was the one person on campus for whom that had a whole different meaning.

      1. mah*

        Ahaha that’s even better! What a way to find out your spouse had suddenly changed…

        And on one hand I understand why people use this short-hand, it slots that person into a position which they may or may not know the title of, or which might be a similar title to others with a wildly different list of duties, on the other hand things like this happen. I’m not sure if new is better than improved, in any case.

        But oh man, this now reminds me of a time in peace corps where someone thought the person replacing the volunteer who had been their girlfriend was now their girlfriend….what a mess.

          1. mah*

            Okay, so not first impression but a wild ride of a story:

            Peace Corps Volunteers, if you’re not familiar, usually have a site placement, which is usually a small village they end up living in (varies somewhat by country and program). Where I did Peace Corps there was a rule that if the volunteer before you had any serious romantic entanglement with someone from the host country, that site didn’t get a volunteer for a few years after that. Turns out there was a very good reason for this.

            So, the first volunteer, lets call her Allie, was dating a dude, lets say Brian, in her site and they had gotten engaged. She didn’t tell Peace Corps. Her service ended so she headed back to the US, with the plans of getting some stuff settled on her side then Brian would join her in the US and they’d do the whole thing.

            The second volunteer shows up, Cindy, and before Allie leaves, she introduces her to Brian and explains that her site really needs a volunteer and that she and Brian are engaged but she didn’t tell Peace Corps and needs Cindy not to either. Cindy agrees because she wants to be helpful and wants everything to work out, and assumes this is one of Peace Corps’ silly rules and agrees. (And to be fair to Cindy and Allie there were a fair few silly rules, like ones where we couldn’t ride certain vehicles….even though we’d then be placed in locations where those vehicles were 100% the only way to get to and from the site….)

            Cindy’s language isn’t as good as Allie’s, which makes sense since she just started. Brian speaks English very well, however, and is being very helpful, showing her around, introducing her to people and so on. Culturally, men and women aren’t alone in this country, unless they’re related or married. And at first Cindy just notices Brian kind of…ignoring that? And being okay with being alone with her, which he shouldn’t be, and she tries to make sure it’s not happening but isn’t totally successful. She talks to some other volunteers who have been around longer and they help her with some language to make sure there’s more distance without being insulting…which she uses. And Brian tells her that it’s okay, because they’re engaged.

            Cindy says something to the effect of “….No, you’re engaged to Allie.” To which Brian says, “Yes, but Allie left and you are her replacement, so now we are engaged.”

            …Cindy told Allie and Peace Corps and got moved to a different site.

  30. The Wizard Rincewind*

    We had a new hire join our communications department and he was awful at it. No idea how he got so far as to be hired. He misunderstood basic aspects of email marketing and his copywriting was third-grade level, typos and all. It suddenly added so much work to my department because instead of receiving mostly-clean work that we could look over quickly, we had to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb fixing basic spelling errors, broken/incorrect links, etc. The kicker was that he never saved any of the changes we made, so weeklies contained the same spelling and link errors the next time around.

    He last two excruciating weeks before he walked off the job. His manager (rightfully) called him to the carpet for his shoddy work and he said “I don’t have to take this!” and left the building. Never came back.

    This man was in his 40s. I don’t comprehend how some people make it through life. My personal theory is that he lied copiously about his experience but as I’m not involved in hiring or personnel, I have no way or knowing. But good riddance.

    1. Texan in exile on her phone*

      The MarComm VP and I warned my boss about the horrible writing on the blog an applicant (for a writing job) linked to from her resume, but he hired her anyway. Three months later, he told me I had been correct to not want to hire her and he would send her to training.

      I said that training a 42 year old woman with a communications degree to be a better writer was impossible.

    2. Certaintroublemaker*

      Yiiikes. This is why we always do a small sample project as part of the interview process now. You just can’t tell from resume/verbal interviews.

  31. Albeira Dawn*

    Oh wait, I have a worse one from college.
    I was in charge of Student Council. Members of SC would be elected to sit on committees with faculty to provide a student voice.
    I and this one guy were elected to be on the Faculty-Student Senate; he had just joined SC in his senior year and had never been on a committee before. The Senate was known to be kind of a joke; action was rarely taken and when it was it was usually ignored. The main value for the Student Council was that all the faculty would gossip for 2 hours straight during these meetings, giving us a heads up on what was coming down the pipeline.
    Anyway. The faculty are complaining about the college’s new President exerting unprecedented powers, which were supposedly approved by the Board of Trustees. My colleague chimes in here “so we just ask her to show us the document saying she can do that, and then we’ll have her by the short and curlies!”
    My eyes have never been so wide. I’ve never seen faculty members’ eyes so wide. The meeting moved on, pretending it never happened.
    I had to go to a conference directly after this meeting, but I informed my fellow Council Heads, who sat him down that he can’t reference the President’s body, particularly her pubic hair, during any meeting, particularly one with faculty, particularly one where he’s representing other students. He apparently did not understand what was so wrong about what he said. He was still removed from all committee assignments.

        1. philmar*

          Dorothy Sayers uses the expression “by the short hairs” in a book (and the line is said by Sir Peter Wimsey) which confused me because I always assumed that phrase also referred to pubes, and it would be very out of character. I think I figured out that expression refers to the short hair on the back of your neck, so I wonder if it was corrupted and made more vulgar (short hairs > what other hairs are short?).

        2. CatPrance*

          “The short hairs” would be the hair at the back of one’s neck — which is why “and curlies” was added to make it clear that pubic hair was indicated in the more, umm, freewheeling expression.

      2. Junior Assistant Peon*

        Wouldn’t be the first time someone naively picked up and repeated an expression with a dirty meaning.

  32. Triple Toe*

    I was wearing slides that had a bit of fluff over the toes. New hire yelped when she saw them, bent down, AND PROCEEDED TO PET them. It was both horrifying and delightful (as I knew it would be a funny work story for years). It was 22 years ago and it’s still a top story.

    1. Popinki*

      (O_O)

      OMG this one is my favorite. Because I would so want to pet your fuzzy shoes, but I’d never in a million years actually do it.

      1. Triple Toe*

        Ha ha! There were 5 or 6 of us around when it happened. Eyes were pretty much popping out of heads!

      1. Trixie the Great and Pedantic*

        You thought that too, huh? I was getting some very hobbity mental images. Not that it’s work appropriate either way.

  33. Birdie*

    The new head of office admin, who we had been very up front with about what the job duties were, told me with contempt dripping from every word, “I don’t do administrative stuff. I handle strategy.” Um, okay. I work in fundraising, so stop trying to have me do you office admin stuff?

    It’s been 16 very long months, but tomorrow is my last day. Huzzah!

  34. Anon for This*

    Can I share my own mildly cringeworthy first impression?

    I was fresh out of college in the first week of my first grown-up job. Someone from the editorial team sent me text to paste into the company web site. I did so, but I changed an apostrophe based on an obscure language rule that a professor had taught me.

    The head of the editorial team came over to my desk, nicely asking me to change it. I explained to her the common misconceptions about this punctuation and suggested that we reconsider.

    Yes, I actually said that. To someone who had been a professional editor for twenty years, and managing a team of editors for ten. To someone who literally wrote the company style manual.

    She was nice about it and told me again to change it. Thank goodness I did because it never came up again, but I certainly never forgot the lesson.

    1. Anon for This*

      Years later, our team hired a young web developer into an entry-level role. He’d never had a real professional job before, but he had a very polished personal web site and was confident about his skills.

      Too confident, as it turned out. He spent the first few days being assigned small changes to make, only to complain loudly about how bad the code was, specifically calling it “[R-word]ed” repeatedly. I told him that, one, he didn’t know enough to judge the code and why it was written like that (such as us taking over that particular web site as-is from a disorganized freelancer), and two, he shouldn’t use that offensive word.

      He kept it up. At one point he figured out how to do an unusual thing in the code all by himself, and leapt up in his cubicle, triumphantly declaring, “Yes! There is a genius in the midst of all this [R-word]ation!”

      I gave his remote boss a heads up about this matter-of-factly, then I went out to pick up a sandwich. On the way back in, I passed the new guy carrying out his things in a box. It was day four.

      I didn’t expect him to be fired — I saw him merely as especially green and in need of coaching about professional behavior — but in hindsight I think the boss had the right instinct. I hope the kid got himself sorted out in the years since.

      1. Momma Bear*

        It may have been his response to the boss’ concerns that got him fired. Doesn’t sound like he was very self-aware.

      2. Susan Ivanova*

        We hired a very experienced developer – at least, he’d worked at a lot of places and could tell good stories. And they really did seem to add up because he’d worked at some of the same places some of us had, knew the same people, etc.

        First code review goes out. Our house style for one language (ObjC) is idiosyncratic, because it was adapted from the style for a different language by people with no familiarity with ObjC norms. Nevertheless, it’s the house style, and having one means you can concentrate on the code instead of being distracted by odd layout.

        He argued about it. His trivial change took a week to get accepted. We should’ve seen the signs.

        1. Azure Jane Lunatic*

          Was this the same fellow with the extremely notable email address? Whose quarterly workload you finished in a fairly caffeinated morning or two?

          (For those who were not there: think Peter Oop having the address poop@example.com )

          1. Susan Ivanova*

            Yep! One morning, about a dozen bug fixes, and every one of them (not that I knew at the time) was on a carefully curated list for his PIP: he needed to do one of them *per day*.

      3. Bern Notice*

        I recently found an old work notepad in which I had recorded some issues with a junior employee for our remote manager. He had asked me to document some of the issues we were having w/this employee’s work because he wasn’t around for the day-to-day stuff. One of my notes says “using words like ‘[R-word]ed’ and ‘useless’ during an internal training class on our product – not good”. Good times…

      2. Anon for This*

        When a person whose name ends in S has possession of something, how should it be punctuated, with an apostrophe-S or with a mere apostrophe? Should it be “Tom Hanks’s new movie” or “Tom Hanks’ new movie?”

        I was taught the mere apostrophe in grade school, like (I gather) many American schoolchildren. But the professor insisted that the mere apostrophe was the correct way to write it in British English, and the apostrophe-S was the correct way in American English. He said that American kids are often taught the mere apostrophe as a shortcut, since plural nouns are punctuated that way (“film studios’ new movies”) and underfunded grade schools struggle to cover all of the nuances of the proper way to write everything. He spent half of the class that day explaining the history of the two methods of punctuation and why they differed, the details of which I’ve long forgotten, but it sure sounded persuasive.

        The thing is, since I took that class almost 25 years ago, I have yet to encounter anyone else who has heard of this British/American distinction when I ask them. At best, people know that you can write it either way according to different rules: AP style says mere apostrophe, Chicago style says apostrophe-S, Merriam-Webster says either, Strunk & White say it depends. Nobody knows of the origin of the split, or why one way might be truly correct.

        Since I code for a living, I follow the professor’s instruction unless a boss tells me to do otherwise, because it’s a lot easier to type “$name’s new movie” than it is to determine the last letter of $name and punctuate conditionally.

        1. it's me*

          Haha, I use just the apostrophe because it scans better but I’ve read that it’s only proper to do that with “Jesus.”

          1. Susan Ivanova*

            My brother’s name is James, and when I was in school I was taught that was one of the only-apostrophe names. There might have been some rule covering which names it applied to, but that was the only one I cared about :)

        2. mlem*

          I was delighted to see that WaPo used apostrophe-s for “Mark Meadows’s wife” in a headline. Just-apostrophe is supposed to mean the possessive of a plural! (I have also seen the “historical exception for Jesus, Moses, and [name I’ve forgotten]”, which simply seems silly.)

        3. Shhh*

          I learned that too and do what you do (include the apostrophe-S unless told to do otherwise). Incidentally, my own last name ends in S so I think that’s why it’s stuck with me.

        4. GingerJ1*

          I learned that the rule is different depending on whether it’s a one-syllable name ending in S or a two-syllable name. (Like James’ vs. Jonas’s, or was it James’s vs. Jonas’?)

          I NEVER remember which is which; my plan has always been either 1) Look it up if I have to use it or 2) better yet, try to construct the sentence in a way that does not require that name to be a possessive.

          (And I have been a professional editor and journalist, as it happens.)

        5. fhqwhgads*

          Ha. Yeah, my understanding is this isn’t a British English/American English thing. It’s a “do what your style guide says” thing – unless you’re a prescriptivist.

        6. OnlyByALaneFancyThat*

          I was taught it depends on the number of “s”es in a row. If a word ends in “ss” and is possessive and the next word starts with “s”, use a single apostrophe (so “the princess’ slipper” instead of “the princess’s slipper” but “the princess’s pocket” and “the iris’s silken petal”).

        1. Magc*

          I read somewhere that it depends on how the possessive version of the word / name is pronounced, e.g., James’ shoes (if one doesn’t pronounce it “Jameses”), but Chris’s shoes (if one does say “Chrises”).

          Which means it’s effectively however one wants, but I appreciate it when anything in written English looks vaguely like the spoken version sounds.

  35. Wishful thinking*

    We had a guy, “Dave”, start a new role in the company – think coming from blue collar to white collar work. His new manager, “Fergus” was organising a photoshoot during Dave’s first week and forwarded him an email chain about the photoshoot letting him know that he wanted Dave to manage the event on the day.

    Well. Dave immediately replied to everyone, including the third party organising the photoshoot and our CEO (many levels above him) outlining why he thought it was a huge waste of time and all the things he thought we were doing wrong in the photoshoot and the event it was for.

    Went down like a lead balloon with the CEO and Fergus’s boss. He didn’t last too long after that.

  36. Generic Name*

    I had one coworker who was hired to be a subject matter expert. I later learned that he didn’t blow the interviewers away (including my boss, who had the final say) but she decided to hire him rather than re-post the job and wait for a better candidate. She also did not check his references. My (now former, thank goodness) boss was actually not great at hiring. Anyway, we are having a team meeting on my coworker’s first day. During the meeting, we are all introducing ourselves to the new team member, telling him a little about our specific roles within the team. He asks everyone their educational background and about their work history. We’re all kind of looking at each other, but answering his questions. Boss says nothing. Mercifully, one coworker makes a joke about feeling like we’re in an interview for our own jobs, and the questioning stops. I have A LOT of other stories about that guy, and he was eventually fired. It turns out not only was he not a subject matter expert, he couldn’t even do tasks in the field independently without a lot of supervision and re-work. But I think he coasted a good long while on his good looks and charisma (while also deflecting questioning by being an arrogant jerk).

  37. Lowbrow*

    My new coworker showed up on her first day at our drab engineering company dressed from head to toe in pink: Dress, shoes, hat, umbrella, handbag. She also brought her lapdog (wearing a pink collar) as well as her husband to care for the dog while she was working.

      1. Retro*

        Elle Woods would never! She’d at most bring a dog bed for her dog to sleep in and get straight to work. Most likely, arrange a dog sitter.

    6. Resident Catholicville, USA*

      She dressed all in pink and had a Lapdog and a LapHusband. I think I might love her. If that were my office, I’d just get coffee, popcorn, and enjoy the antics.

    7. Dark Macadamia*

      Aside from the dog and husband (please tell me he was also wearing pink) this is amazing. Good for her!

      1. Lowbrow*

        He wasn’t…at that time. Their pregnancy announcement pictures however were them and their dog all in pink and white.

    9. Bluzcluz*

      Was the husband lurking in the background while she worked? What an odd thing to occur.

    11. Quinalla*

      This is amazing! I’d wnat to keep the person on for a while just to see if she did anything else spectacular :)

      1. Anonymouse*

        You are ignoring the important issue here.
        Did the husband look after the dog or did the dog look after the husband?

      2. Lowbrow*

        She’s an engineer. During her first year she also changed the color scheme of one of our management reports to different shades of pink. Our project director got really grumpy when he saw it and requested that she change it to more normal colors, “like brown!”.

    14. Trixie the Great and Pedantic*

      “My new coworker showed up on her first day at our drab engineering company dressed from head to toe in pink: Dress, shoes, hat, umbrella, handbag…”

      okay, this is cool, I like the flair…

      “She also brought her lapdog (wearing a pink collar) …”

      oookay, that’s a choice, but maybe this company is pet-friendly…

      “…as well as her husband to care for the dog while she was working.”

      Trixie.exe has stopped responding.

    15. Dhaskoi*

      Serious question – was she good at her job? Because if so, who cares?

      (except for the husband bit, that’s a failure t0 grasp professional norms).

  38. Chinook*

    When we hired a new rep for a call center I used to manage, she spent the better part of her first week pushing her awful jewelry MLM to everyone in the office. She didn’t understand what she was doing wrong (despite being shown in our handbook that sales of any kind (think: Girl Scout Cookies or fundraisers not sponsored by the company) we’re not allowed.

    It might not have been so bad, but she was terribly pushy, saying things like “I know for a fact everyone here can afford $5!”, and had told another new hire during orientation that she mainly got this job to obtain a “new customer base”. She refused to stop harassing others with her toxic pyramid scheme (many who would be ON the phone with a customer. She would tell them to put them on hold briefly so she could give them the newest catalogue). Thankfully she left before being shown the door, probably because she realized she wasn’t going to make a dime in this office.

    3. machinedreams*

      I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than my roommate’s one friend who was doing a jewelry MLM — sounds like it might be the same one — and once went to my FB, my other roommate’s FB, and proceeded to try friending EVERYONE ON OUR FRIENDS LISTS to get more of a customer base (without the one roommate having any idea whatsoever). I think between the two of us we had at least a dozen people go “So yeah, that was weird.”

      Roommate and friend did not talk for over a year.

      1. MsM*

        Worse, I think. Hassling everyone who’s even vaguely in your social media orbit is a pretty common tactic with these things. Applying the “be your own boss” attitude to your day job? That’s a whole other level.

    4. Dhaskoi*

      >“I know for a fact everyone here can afford $5!”

      The phrasing here really makes my jaw drop – like giving her money is some kind of charitable donation.

  39. Neurodivergentsaurus Rex*

    There was the new grad hired for a position that was mostly data entry, who remarked incredulously to his trainer on his second day – “This is really boring – I went to college to do this??” Welcome to the working world, bud, it sucks! He ended up getting fired for consistently putting more hours on his timesheet than he was approved to work, while completing maybe an hour’s work per day, before his probation period was up.

    There was also the young woman who, in her first month, logged into the morning Teams meeting, with her camera on, while clearly at the salon getting her hair done. We work with sensitive information. She didn’t make it out of her probation period either.

  40. KofSharp*

    I was fairly new at my current company (like a month in) but I’d learned how to use some of the fidgety tools well enough to write process documents and teach others and got to take the even newer hire into the field to get some measurements.
    This dude decided he was going to “explain” not only how to use the tools he’d never touched/seen before in his life to me, but also all of his political views and how he was right and I was wrong (all I had said was “This isn’t an appropriate conversation for this setting.”) He then roped a civilian who was walking by into the “conversation” until I managed to SOMEHOW point out we had 4 more locations to go and an hour left that day.
    He was shuffled off my team after about a year after “not meshing with the rest of the team.”

  41. Blue*

    Had one guy start at a counter service restaurant where I worked right out of college. He was maybe 20 years older than the mostly early-20s front staff. He was told to “shadow” me and shadow me he did. If he was more than 3ft. from me in the next 8 hours, it was for moments at best.

    Day 2, he leaned over my shoulder from behind me to make whispered comments in my ear about some female student customers.

    I told him to back the fudge off and reported it to the owner. He was fired Day 3.

    Given his very detailed timeline of his employment and sacking submitted to the unemployment office (down to the minute) as well as bragging about keeping employee house benefits from the last job he was fired from, this seems to have been a very deliberate first impression/plan.

    1. Blue2 (same as above, not other blue)*

      Day 1 topics included:
      -how his previous employer screwed him over
      -how he screwed them over
      -how many times he had been laid off
      -repeatedly asking where I lived
      -asking where I was going if I was more than 2ft. away
      -how awesome he was at food service

      And I found out on Day 3 I was the second complaint. Before the comments on female students physical appearance, he had apparently said something insulting to the shift manager about her appearance.

        1. Blue2 (same as above, not other blue)*

          He was definitely memorable. And I may have crossed the street/driven around the block if I happened to see him around town before I moved away.

  42. Jester*

    There was someone who didn’t even last a full day. A new hirer was walked around the office to make introductions around lunchtime and was gone before the end of the day. They recorded some of my coworkers talking (without their knowledge of the two people having the conversation, so illegal in that state) and accused them of talking about the new hirer using slurs. The new hirer might have been nonbinary (they weren’t around long enough for me to learn their pronouns) so I understand why they could be sensitive, but no one, even people who listened to the illegal recording, had heard a slur of any kind. It was an open office so there was zero privacy. The new hirer freaked out and had to be escorted to the elevators.

  43. FTO Chuckles*

    Former law enforcement officer here. We hired a new guy, 30s, former Air Force. Nice guy who seemed to have potential. During the second day we were going over proper frisk/searching techniques and our supervisor was playing the suspect. We showed new guy how to properly conduct a search of the legs, around the ankles and what not. It’s new guy’s turn to conduct the search, and instead of leaning down to pat down around the ankle like we showed him, he picked up the supervisors ankle and raised it up to his waist level to search it – supervisor went down right on his face like a ton of bricks..

    There was plenty of PT to go around for all the laughing. New guy did not last much longer.

    1. Environmental Compliance*

      I’m so sorry for how much I chuckled at that mental image. In what world would the guy think that was the right way to do that????!

      1. JustaTech*

        Maybe he’d lasted worked as a farrier (blacksmith who puts shoes on horses)? That’s the exact motion if you want to look at a horse’s hoof.

        Obviously it does not work for bipeds.

      2. Ally McBeal*

        There’s a Navy guy out there somewhere sitting on his hands and biting his lip, restraining himself from making a joke about the intelligence level of Air Force grunts. (My family has a couple Air Force members and I’ve always enjoyed the inter-branch ribbing.)

    3. CSI*

      We had a recruit party so hard after graduating the academy that he showed up still drunk to his swearing-in ceremony the next day. Drove himself there in full dress uniform with the loaded gun on his belt. He did not get a badge that day or ever.

  44. Anon for this*

    I used to work for a specialty retail company that would do periodic training classes for our district managers at our corporate headquarters. One new guy had been hired just in time to start training with the next cohort; it was literally his first day with the company. After the first day of training, all the trainers and trainees would go out to dinner as a team building thing. Mr. New Guy got really drunk at the dinner and groped the waitress. I’ve never seen anyone fired so fast, before or since.

  45. Kjolis*

    An employee on his first day left me with the impression that he felt he was above others. When he was looking at his cubicle, he said, “I wonder where I could hang my diplomas.” While academic accomplishments are definitely something to be proud of, it wasn’t the culture of our workplace to hang our diplomas in our offices, much less in our cubicles! (I couldn’t even tell you where mine are). Later after he went to HR orientation, he discovered that another new hire in orientation was receiving 5 fewer days of PTO than he was. He later said to me, “I guess I get more PTO because I have 2 Master’s.” I told him, no, it has nothing to do with education level; it’s because he was exempt, and the other new employee was non-exempt and could make overtime. (There’s an argument to be made here as to whether that’s a fair PTO practice or not, but that’s for another thread.)
    He really wanted to make sure everyone knew he had advanced degrees – despite the fact that at least one of them was required for the job, so yes, anyone who cared would already know!

    2. KateM*

      We were planning an exhibition of our hobby art group and our teacher mentioned that we could each put down a couple of lines abuot ourselves, maybe also education or so. For everyone but the New Joiner it was clear that we were talking about where did we learn to do art, and her two business masters that she exitedly started to blab about were totally irrelevant (and counted less than someone having graduated an art branch of high school).

  46. Wildcat*

    I mean if you’ve worked food service and NOT had a coworker show up high their first day, you’re pretty lucky.

    1. Elizabeth West*

      At OldExjob one time, we were assigned a FedEx Ground guy who would show up high—when he showed up.

    2. rubble*

      most of the new hires I worked with were 15 and we were in a “good” neighbourhood, none of them acted high and I wouldn’t expect someone that young to be able to hide it!

  47. Jane Bingley*

    Years ago I was hired to intern at a local politician’s office. They typically hired a high school student, but the pay was great and I was a university student looking for political experience, so they brought me on.

    The intern’s job was to organize a big summer event – bouncy castles, local VIPs, a barbecue, and so on. The event was at the end of August and I started in May. I had it organized in a week. It really didn’t take that long to contact all the vendors, book the space, and so on. When you say “Hi, I’m calling from [political bigwig’s office], people jump at the chance to work with you.

    They had no idea how to fill the rest of my time, so for my second week I put together a binder with all the details for future interns. After that, her assistant trained me on helping with her tasks and I spent the rest of the summer reorganizing the politician’s email correspondence, working with our city and federal counterparts on cross-jurisdictional issues, and ordering stuff for the upcoming campaign.

    I definitely made a strong first impression, and I learned how much I like keeping things organized and working behind the scenes. These days I’m an executive assistant.

  48. Too Many Dogs*

    Years ago I worked in the cataloging department of a library. No public there at all, ever, just staff. Our New Hire had been at work about 2 hours when she asked, “Where are the men?” “uh, what men?” we replied. “MEN! I took this job so I could meet MEN!” She marched to her desk, gathered up her belongings, and stormed out, never to return.

    1. Albeira Dawn*

      I’m obsessed with people like this. I want to peek into their brain and see every step of their thought process.

    2. Order of the Banana*

      I know this is unrealistic, but man, I wonder how long you could string her along for. “Oh no, you don’t meet the Men until you’ve passed your probationary period.” “The Men are very, very busy. You’d have to be here for a short window from 2:20 to 2:35 on Tuesday to see them.” “We keep the Men corralled on the third floor. That’s where they can do the least damage.”

      1. Forrest Rhodes*

        Maybe unrealistic, but definitely hilarious. I’m still laughing out loud at the third suggestion.

      2. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

        “You mean you can’t see them? Hey Ed! Janelle here can’t see the men! Do you think she has the same thing that happened to that other clerk we had? Wait, let me look at your arms. OK, the spots aren’t showing yet. How’s your breathing? Poor thing, I think they let her out for half a day on Thursdays, but it was a very sad situation …”

    4. OrigCassandra*

      Given the long-time demographics of US librarianship (for those who don’t know: heavily skewed white and female), this New Hire failed basic research skills. I surely do hope she did not have the MLS, and if she did, I am sideeyeing wherever she went very hard right now.

      1. ZSD*

        I think she thought she’d be working with the public, i.e., patrons, some of whom would be men.

        1. Pointy's in the North Tower*

          Catalogers don’t usually work with the public, which is made pretty clear during the MLIS coursework.

        2. Seeking Second Childhood*

          Media overloaded youth looking for Giles from Buffy and the cast of The Librarians? Victim of a strange long-lasting prank?

        3. Youth Librarian*

          I work with the public and, even if I was into guys I… don’t think I’ve ever met any that I’d want a relationship with (that weren’t married and bringing their little kids to the library).

      2. Loredena*

        I’m always amused that a group of friends I know became friends working together at the library. All men. Only one with his MLS though. I’m pretty sure from conversations over the years that they are vastly outnumbered at their own library

    6. Damn it, Hardison!*

      As a graduate of library school many years ago, and a former cataloger, I am aghast and amused!

    9. FisherCat*

      I had a colleague like this. After a few days of weird, man-centric, not office appropriate comments and attempts to get me to join (e.g. “oOoOOh who here do you think is the best looking? I would definitely go for Wakeen!”) I shut it down cold.

      She proceeded to tell others I was rude and unfriendly and didn’t want her to be happy. Shrug.

      1. japonicauk*

        I once met, at a professional networking event, a woman who informed me ‘Sorry, I am sure you are very nice, but I am here to meet men’

  49. OtterB*

    My first day on a new job a good many years ago, it was very foggy when I left home to drive to work but clear near the office. I left my lights on in the days when they didn’t turn off automatically, so when the work day was over I had a dead battery. My coworkers were very gracious about helping with a jump start and I worked there 7 years so it came out okay, but it was not the first impression I wanted to make.

    1. Grandious spacecat*

      I had to jump my manager’s car once! I was working as a barista (having just finished my BSEE but not finding a job in my field) and the manager and i were closing. Thankfully the store had a policy to never have a person close alone, buddy system style. She’d just gotten a new car and didn’t have very far to drive, and it was the middle of minnesota winter. All conditions which lead to a very dead battery very quickly. Thankfully she had cables, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember how to jump a car. However, i was able to figure what needed to happen to not have sparks and bad electrical stuff happen. I forgot to connect one of the grounds to the car chassis, but at least i knew not to connect red to power first! Probably the most use I’ve gotten out of my BSEE (I do computer/software engineering now which has almost nothing to do with the electrical part of my undergrad)

    2. Annie*

      I got a flat on my first day of work once. Completely flat, like, blew the tire and the rim was on the ground flat. I didn’t have a spare but did have a donut, and work was close, so I figured I could get to work for my first day on it and then immediately go to the shop. After jacking up the car and doing the swap… I discovered my donut was flat.

      My boss was thankfully completely fine with me calling him and (what’s the sad or embarrassed version of enthusiastically) apologizing that I’d be forty minutes late.

    3. Neurodivergentsaurus Rex*

      I also used to have a social-work-adjacent job where I did a lot of home visits, and I locked my keys inside my car at a new client’s house and had to awkwardly hang out after the meeting was finished and wait for AAA. That was worse than the flat tire.

    4. Successful in spite of…*

      At my first job interview out of college my car broke down in the parking lot and I had to leave it. Also to use the phone in reception because this was pre-everyone having cell phones. So I had my interview and then was sitting there in reception waiting for my dad to come get me from line 45 min away. Then I started the job later that week and arranged for a tow. And now I have a successful 20 year career in that field. So who knows, I guess?

    5. Youth Librarian*

      I locked my keys in my car my first week while taking paperwork to City Hall. I heard the secretary call the police “hey the new children’s librarian locked her keys in the car, can you come over and get it open for her?” (I would like to say that was just a first impression but… it is not the only time I have locked my keys in the car. I have a feeling I’m mostly known for that over at the station, but they’re too nice to bring it up…

  50. LifeBeforeCorona*

    We hired a person who had been running her own personal chef business and she did have a lot of skills. However, on her day in the restaurant, we got very busy, very fast. Everyone was working flat out and she disappeared. She was found in the break room having a meal that she made for herself while working the line and reading a book. Her excuse was that she always took a break at that time.

    1. AnotherLibrarian*

      Yeah, I had a coworker who did not last long like this. No matter the situation, she just left at 12:15, exactly to take her lunch. Never mind that we needed coverage and that people needed to stagger their lunches. Needless to say, this turned into remarkable drama when my boss tried to reign it in.

  51. LadyA*

    We had a guy a few years ago who just wouldn’t answer the questions we asked. He kept giving meandering responses that touched on, but didn’t answer what we wanted. At a certain point, after he danced around one answer, the person re-phrased and said “we use software x, how familiar are you with that, and do you have any other experience with similar programs? If so, name them.”
    Somehow he still didn’t answer that in a way that was at all satisfactory. Then, when he didn’t get the job, he called our director and demanded to know why since his interview had gone (his words) “perfectly”.

    1. LadyA*

      And I mis-answered the question prompt, but probably because this bizarre interaction is way too burned into my brain!

    2. LadyA*

      I was working in tv news production, and our new hire showed up with a MASSIVE ring of keys on his belt, and also a full 32 ounce nalgene bottle of water on the other side of his belt. We were training him on how to operate the cameras during a live newscast, and his keys were making a huge racket as he moved around, and then water bottle would also make a sloshing sound (and must have been very heavy–surprised his pants stayed up). We told him where he could set his stuff so he could move around more easily, but he insisted on keeping it on his person the entire time.
      I think the meterologist yelled at him about how distracting the noise was before he realized it was a real issue, and not just a helpful suggestion.

    3. Purple Cat*

      Laughing at your follow-up comment because I was sitting here wondering “And they hired him anyway? And what happened his first day?!”

      1. LadyA*

        If we weren’t so chronically understaffed, it might have been mildly interesting to see what other “quirks” he had. However, I’m glad I didn’t have to find out.

  52. StateWorker*

    This happened yesterday, just started a new job and was meeting with a different team to learn about what they do. One of them said something about a program “pulling out” to which I replied, “pun intended?” We work in sexual health but man I’m still cringing!

    2. Purple Cat*

      haha, and now I’ll be frantically scrolling to see if we read your coworker posting their version of this story :)
      At least it was applicable to the general concept of what you work on.

    3. Been There*

      Sometimes when I’m nervous, stuff just pops out of my mouth. I can totally see something like this happening to me. The few times this has happened in a professional environment, I immediately respond with “omg I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that I’m just a bit nervous today and it popped out”. But yeah, major cringe.

    4. Corporate Lawyer*

      LOL! That reminds me of a friend of mine who started working in HR after getting her Master’s in Public Health. Early in my friend’s first HR job, her boss suggested that she give a presentation to employees on STD, and my friend responded that she could certainly do that, but it seemed like a pretty inappropriate topic for the workplace. She later realized that the boss was talking about the company’s Short-Term Disability program, not Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

      1. Certaintroublemaker*

        I work in a place that immediately makes acronyms out of everything, but I just can’t do it when we’re talking about sending out Save the Date notices.

        1. Not Felix Unger*

          I have a co-worker who documents sending Follow Up notes in the CRM as sending “F/U” notes. My inner 12-year-old laughs every time he sees that.

    5. Annie O*

      That’s awesomely hilarious!!! I hope your new coworkers have senses of humor and this job is a great experience for you.

    6. The Rafters*

      If you work where I do in State, the comment was probably far less inappropriate than you think!

  53. LondonLady*

    In a previous role, I managed a team within a consultancy firm, specialising in PR and comms primarily in the property development sector – very much a world of sharp people in sharp suits. One of our new joiners – who had been hired for my team by our company owner (very much the hands on boss of his family firm) without involving me in any way – turned up on his first day wearing long hair, denims, boots and a big buckle belt etc, and demonstrated his love of folk singing at our first team meeting: he turned out to be brilliant at his job (and to own at least one suit) but it was certainly a disconcerting debut.

  54. Standing Desk Jockey*

    We had a brand new civil engineering grad start with our company that specialized in highway engineering. During the course of his first week at the office, our division head invited him to sit in and observe a meeting with representatives of the state’s Turnpike Commission to discuss a new project. Within the first five minutes of the meeting he loudly informed the entire group that he didn’t agree with toll roads and felt the one in our state was far too expensive for the quality of the roadway. Further, he started offering suggestions for what could be done to improve the road, including offering slot machines at rests stops to raise revenue and providing discounts to people under 25. Needless to say he didn’t last.

  55. Zellie*

    A new co-worker was hired to manage a group of staff people in my department. The week she started, while being indoctrinated into the cult of her manager (who was not the same as mine), she showed up at work and never introduced herself to the people she was hired to manage or anyone else for that matter. This included going into the kitchen in the morning, putting her lunch in the fridge, getting water and saying nothing to the staff sitting at the table in the kitchen. She just came to work and basically ignored everyone. Mind you, her manager should have taken her around, but since she didn’t, I was gobsmacked that she didn’t do this on her own when her manager wasn’t there. This was an incredibly dysfunctional and toxic place and I suspect she was told not to by her manager, but have never been able to confirm that. Eventually, her manager did get around to introducing her, but it was not a good start.

    1. DisneyChannelThis*

      But why didn’t the people sitting there just introduce themselves? “Oh hey are you the new hire, I’m george from accounting…”

      Sounds like a very awkward workplace!

      1. catsamillion*

        This is also my question. In this situation I am totally the person that says “hey, this is so awkward! Welcome, I’m sorry no one has introduced you yet. I’m ____.”

        1. Zellie*

          I can’t remember if they did or not. It was toxic and the person hired had NO industry knowledge to manage people with 30 plus years of experience. Plus, her manager was just terrible and they had already been dumped all over, so they weren’t exactly in a happy place to start. Not to mention being taken off-guard just a tad.

          I agree. We could all have introduced ourselves, but it was just so out of the realm of normal, I’ll admit we stumbled a bit.

        2. Wisteria*

          I really feel like there is greater onus on existing people to introduce themselves. Sure, a new hire can make up for their boss not making introductions by doing it themselves, but it’s a very small burden for an existing person to introduce themself to one (or a few) new hires and a very large burden for a new hire to introduce themself to several existing people who are completely new to them. I go so far as to introduce myself to the new person and also offer to introduce them to anyone who they haven’t met yet.

      2. Apocalypse Queen*

        I worked at Zellie’s workplace but a different dept. It’s in academia. That group had already been treated badly by the higher ups, so they did not know what to expect from the new manager. The group is normally very friendly; I am still in contact with the some of the group who remain and a few who retired to preserve their sanity. That manager is still at the workplace and has even run off more people.

        I moved to another state to work again in academia. I just came back from a coffee hour meeting; I was introduced to everyone in the workplace and chatted with people that I had seen only through Zoom. Nothing like this welcome happened at the previous workplace.

  56. Not That Kind of Lawyer*

    I was training my replacement. We went over the usual – what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. For every task her response was, “Oh no!” or “That’s too much.” Even for the simplest tasks like confirming dates (which is done by computer and eye-balled for accuracy). At the time, I thought she was joking around or just overwhelmed on her first day.
    Six months later, my old boss asks me to come back – with a raise. I wasn’t happy at my new job and jumped at the offer. Turns out, Newbie was fired for poor performance. She turned in work that was inaccurate, or outright false; had not done many time-sensitive tasks, resulting in penalties for my boss; and would just leave saying she had permission when she really didn’t. When I came back, people I had only interacted with through email or phone were saying how much they missed me. I heard Newbie’s response to being fired was a comment about not knowing what she could have scewed up so badly to warrant termination.

  57. sacados*

    Not sure if this was particularly *astounding* but my first full-time adult job was an editorial assistant at a small weekly magazine. Was there for a couple of years and then helped to interview my replacement after I gave notice. The person they selected wasn’t my first choice, but I assumed she would be fine…. I left massive documents outlining ALL of the editorial assistant duties, and was even able to have a couple of blocks training her in person.
    The first week or so after I left I was getting multiple calls and emails from her and from my former boss (ed-in-chief) asking about where various photos were located, if we’d gotten them in from PR department… All stuff I had either directly trained or left detailed notes on.
    Well, fast-forward another week or so and apparently she just totally blew them off — not coming in until 3pm when she said she’d come in at 11am, just going totally incommunicado with no notice … and so eventually they had to admit it wasn’t working out and let her go.
    So I get a panicked email from my former boss asking if there’s any way I can come in part-time for the bare minimum hours it would take to get the magazine to the printer’s on time. (That day, I’d had a voicemail from the girl asking me to call her because she wanted some “advice” about some “issues” she was having with the magazine … I don’t think I ever called her back.)
    The job I left that magazine for was a “night shift” translation job where I was working from 1 – 10pm, so for a month or so I was doing double-duty, two or three days a week I would go into the magazine offices for a few hours in the morning then it was about a 20 minute walk from there to my new job’s office. So effectively I was working from about 10am-1opm.
    Incidentally, the person they ended up hiring in that role was the one that had been my pick from the first-round interviews to begin with ….

    2. kitryan*

      I also had a similar scenario with my replacement – I was not at all surprised as I had predicted (and told my boss) that they would not be a good fit. I’d trained him for iirc about a week on the record keeping and documentation elements at the start of the season, for pay, as a favor to my (now former) boss. We went over everything, there was documentation. I got a call about 2 months later, asking me to come in and basically fix our employee pay budget tracking, since the replacement had been logging the group of staff that started work at the beginning of the season but not begun logging the pay of the group of staff that started their work one month in, which was in the second tab of the spreadsheet, (as there was a separate budget for this work).
      Since it had been a month before this error was caught, they needed me to take a day and go back to document that missed month and then to re-train the replacement in what I’d already reviewed with him 2 months ago. I have no idea why he’d not realize (or remember, since I’d certainly told him) that he had to track that second batch of employees, if he’d been tracking the first group already – and to not even ask about it!
      Only the most obvious way in which he was a poor fit for that particular job, which required a great deal of observation and initiative. To the boss’s credit, there was never the slightest hint that I wouldn’t be paid for the training either initially or the second time.

  58. Kate Kate*

    I met New Guy about a week after he started due to a family emergency. He introduced himself to me as “The New Guy”. I was like…ok. He wore so much cologne I could smell it across the room. He lied about his age to seem younger to fit in with the crowd. I just…had a bad taste about him and he ended up leaving after four months.

    1. LemonLyman*

      I need to know how bad he was lying about his age. Was this saying he’s 41 when he’s really 44 or saying he’s 35 when he’s really 55? Sounds like he was trying to be one of the “cool guys”.

  59. LlamaLibrarian*

    2 examples:

    First, I was a trainer at a financial services organization, where on their first day all employees had to sign documentation asserting background data and all licensure was accurate and truthful. Initial training session on day one, we passed out this paperwork (along with benefits, employee handbook, etc etc) and explained the purpose. One employee sidles over to me at break and asks “if you’ve already started the job, do you think the organization might still verify employee work experience and college degrees?” I confirmed that such verification could happen, especially if something came up in the above documentation. He thanked me, grabbed his backpack, and left. And never returned.

    Second, same job, had a new employee (right out of college) who was hired to perform mid-level financial advice via the phone. His coursework was impressive, and his role- playing practice was fantastic. Our final training involved side-by-side calls, wherein he would conduct the call and the trainer would listen in. First call went fine, if perhaps a little short (didn’t go beyond the exact question) but I attributed it to nerves. Second call, the person had a large amount of funds in one account, and he wondered if he should split it up. The rep said (incorrectly) that he wouldn’t recommend it. The customer seemed surprised, and asked for clarification. The rep said “NEVER MIND THEN” and HUNG UP ON THE CLIENT! I was in absolute shock – but when I asked what they’ll had just happened, the rep said “I’m the expert, he was rude to question me. I don’t need to put up with that shit” Needless to say, he didn’t make it out of training.

    1. ecnaseener*

      Ahhh yes the fresh-out-of-undergrad “expert.” Reminds me of that “I don’t respect my manager’s degree” letter.

      1. NormalizeBrownies*

        I love the idea of asking if you would be checking your school records, as though asking wasn’t a red flag unto itself

  60. catsamillion*

    New night editor at small daily newspaper. Daytime car accident occurs where one driver hit many parked cars against a city byway. Turns out driver was having a diabetic shock incident. Front page headline next day reads, in HUGE caps not reflective of the paper’s style the facts of the story: “DRIVER PLAYS PINBALL”

    Fired within 30 days. Just did NOT have the sense to hack it. There are so many more of these I could share.

      2. catsamillion*

        ok, one more. We also appeared on Fark.com (it was 2009-ish) for an embarrassing, ridiculous front-page photo of a police officer pulling over another car and a caption to the tune of “an unknown police officer makes a traffic stop on X road. The outcome of the stop was unknown.” Four column photo on A1. We were getting trolled for MONTHS

    2. sub rosa for this*

      Ohhh yeah. Reminds me of the guy who submitted a light-entertainment story (for an industry publication) with the headline “Oprah Weighs Decision.”

      Needless to say, that did not make it past Editorial. (I was Editorial.)

      1. Metadata minion*

        Wait, what’s wrong with that? Is there a double-entendre I’m not picking up on?

        1. ArtsyGirl*

          Oprah is famous for yoyo dieting and has been very public about her continued struggle with weight loss. She actually owns as stake in Weight Watchers

          1. Metadata minion*

            Ah, ok. I knew that and yet “weighs decision” is such a normal phrase to describe that sort of contemplation that I hadn’t even connected the two. I would probably be a terrible marketing person.

          2. sub rosa for this*

            Yep, this. It was definitely done in a snarky way (this was a business insider publication, not read by the public) and it was a time when making fat jokes at Oprah’s expense was unfortunately really popular.

            Editorial spent a LOT of time combing through article submissions for double-entendres and inappropriateness… and the younger, fresh-out-of-college writers spent a lot of time trying to slip them past us.

    3. Hats Are Great*

      This is 25 years ago now. I was brand new in an editorial role, so this was my first real shitshow. We had a new reporter who’d come from a smaller, but well-regarded, publication. Her first story was a city council meeting — usually extremely run-of-the-mill stuff, you could send high-school interns to cover them (there was a paper agenda, nothing very surprising ever happened, small-town politicians always gave pro-forma quotes after the meeting, you basically just had to correctly summarize, “Four councilmen voted in favor of the pizzaria’s liquor permit, with two against, and one abstention.”). But at this meeting, shit hit the fan and people started accusing each other of corruption and embezzlement, there was shouting, it made the regional TV news, and she blew us all away with her story, because she CHASED DOWN the mayor and one of the councilpeople to get great quotes — way better than the TV or radio reporters got. Everyone was extremely impressed …

      until we got a call at 8:30 a.m. from the mayor who’d just read the story, and who had never talked to our reporter, never said any of the quotes attributed to him — none of it. I had been up until around 4 a.m. dealing with a crisis in the lifestyles feature, and at 8:35 my phone starts ringing off the hook and the front desk says, “EIC wants the whole ed board here, now.” Raced across town; by the time I got to the office, every single person quoted in the article had called to complain and the paper was in full-on crisis mode. I had no responsibility for news at the time (I ran lifestyles and sometimes covered sports when the editor was on vacation), but I was on the phone all morning with various local politicians I’d never spoken to before.

      Some of the details are fuzzy now — I thiiiiiink the story was about a sewer or water main construction project and questions of misused funds (but I only clearly remember it was about a buried utility, so I suppose it could have been cable or gas or who knows). I think it was eventually established that she didn’t even GO to the meeting — she literally watched the 11 p.m. TV coverage and wrote her story based off that (so the major facts checked out), and just made up all the additional quotes she wanted. It wasn’t common to call politicians at midnight to double-check their quotes in routine overnight coverage of meetings.

      Anyway, about half an hour after I got there, she waltzed in with a smug look of triumph, ready to receive her accolades for her blockbuster story — and got fired on the spot in front of the entire newsroom, by an EIC who was so furious I thought he might have a stroke.

      The cynical punchline that will make reporters laugh bitterly is, 25 years later? She works in PR.

      1. Me (I think)*

        “The cynical punchline that will make reporters laugh bitterly is, 25 years later? She works in PR.”

        Hahahahahahahahaha.

        Shorter hours, better pay. I should know, I made news > PR move 25 years ago. Still miss the news biz.

  61. Not My Story*

    I’m going to share my husband’s bad first impression story. He had worked at a particular company for a few years. One coworker and manager had moved on (separately) to new company. A bit down the line, a job opened up that DH would be an excellent fit for. He was interviewed and hired. Before he started at this new job, husband and I decided to go visit family, an 8 hour drive away. In the Midwest. In February. Well, we weren’t watching the weather particularly closely on our drive home and a blizzard came up. We had to stop for the night (a nightmare and other story in and of itself), and poor husband had to call in on his first day of work because we were stuck at a rest stop in Iowa. Luckily, manager knew him from previous job, but still. Not a good look.

    1. Kimme*

      Not nearly as high stakes, but same thing happened to me a week within an internship starting! It felt awful to have to do that!

      1. KateM*

        I don’t know if it counts but at first day of a two-week crash course, we had to install software on our (personal) computers. My first computer died from it two hours in, on two next computers I managed to install but then it turned out they were too old to run this software, I succeeded at last with the fourth one long after everyone else had finished their day. Somewhere in the middle of all this school called me to come and get my kid who had developed high temperature, and continued to be sick at home through all the course. Oh and the younger one had fallen sick the weekend before. My only hope was that as it was during pandemic and everyone learnt from home, maybe it wasn’t THAT noticable.
        And I hope this won’t get chosen for a highlight because I’m still trying to make a good impression on those people.

    2. Reluctant Manager*

      That happened to me. Blizzard in Kansas! I was relocating for the job, so it wasn’t like I just skipped out.

    3. ScruffyInternHerder*

      Similar, Midwest, March. I wasn’t even visiting family hours away, just a freak snowstorm made the roads non-passable. As in, County Sheriff closed the freeway. On my first day of work at new job. Good times!

  62. CatMouse*

    Third shift, first week on the floor, new guy was watching a coworkers chat with a customer trying to purchase domains. Issues with payment methods were the problem. While it was happening the new hire (and the long time employee on the chat) went to another company and registered the domains for themself.

      1. JSPA*

        I can imagine it being done as a form of protest, depending on the ideologies involved; or as a form of D.I.Y. consumer protection, if they understood the client to be a scammer or extortionist in their own right (but not with enough details to be able to refuse service). Not condoning (nor condemning), only pointing out that money isn’t the only value that drives people.

  63. T-Rex*

    Oh man…I work in the restaurant industry so I have many. But the biggest is probably a new server I (very, very briefly) worked with. Part of new server training included a shift where you were the food runner (to help you learn the menu and the table numbers).

    So this new hire shows up for her shift and starts running food on a busy night…except, she’s trashed. So drunk that she could barely hold a tray. She spilled multiple plates of food, to the point where servers were going back to run their own food to ensure she didn’t touch it.

    The managers brought her into the office to talk to her…and she promptly peed her pants while sitting in the office chair. Obviously they sent her home, but she couldn’t drive. She, however, insisted she was fine and headed out, keys in hand, to her car. The chef followed her and (thank god) talked her into to letting him arrange a ride home for her. She left (as a passenger) and that was the last we ever saw of her.

    1. Anima*

      Oooh, this is so bad, and I know why because I was that coworker in a sense in one of my student jobs.
      My best friend had her hen night the day before and everyone bowed out (not nice of them) except me. So the two of us went, got tipsy and had fun. As we went back to the car with the designated driver in it, we found a champagne bottle under one of the seats. Everything went downhill from there, I remember a traffic jam, too. We laughed our heads off in the backseat.
      I did not laugh anymore the next morning. I was still drunk when I got up, at least I took a shower, but breakfast was out of the question. On I went to my first day as a student worker selling bakery items and coffee to other students.
      The supervisor, who was also a student, asked me if I felt able to work (I said yes), handed me a bottle of water – and trained me. I got sober through the day. The smell of the food made me gag. I went straight home after my shift and slept.
      Somehow my supervisor thought it was hilarious (I told her about the hen night) and I was allowed back. Worked there for a year.
      I never, ever drank again when the next day was a workday. At all.

      1. Sammie*

        I was in a similar situation once, but I was in your coworker’s shoes. I showed up to the job I was working as a teenager, a run of the mill retail position, to find my immediate supervisor immediately coming up to me and telling me that he was still drunk from the night before and to not let (Store Manager) know.

        I was not as smart enough as your coworker to help and get him a bottle of water, but he managed to get through that day, and was still working there when I left, several years later.

  64. DANGER: Gumption Ahead*

    A new hire made a joking rhyme out of the name of every single person she met on her first day including the boss of all bosses. Think elementary school “Amanda-ba-Banda”, “Jeff-a-Weff”, “Erica-America”, etc.. To this day I’m not sure if it was a mneumonic way to remember names, but she used them her entire tenure, including with outside stakeholders and clients until she was pulled off of any outward facing duties (only about 5% of her time so not too hard to shift someone else’s small backroom tasks to her). Otherwise a decent worker, very skilled in some areas and I learned a lot from her, but holy hell was it annoying.

  65. Ann O'Nemity*

    My old company hired a new Director. Steve interviewed professionally and had good references. His background check showed a DUI, which the hiring manager chose to ignore. On his first day, Steve showed up in a half-buttoned shirt that revealed a mat of curly black chest hair and several gold chains. (Image search for hairy disco chest for reference!!!) We kindly asked him to button up multiple times, but those tricky buttons just kept coming undone. I guess the chest hair would not be tamed.

  66. Ace in the Hole*

    I had a job where we did a lot of one-day events. Not like, entertainment events… these were events designed so residents in remote areas could access essential services. Because they were typically long, hard workdays with no convenient way to go offsite for lunch, management was really good about providing lunch for all the workers.

    We hired a new extra-help worker. The first morning he was already making a bad impression… just being generally inattentive, whiny, and not putting in much effort. Lunch time rolls around. He was scheduled to take the second break of the day – second out of four, so still relatively early! Well, apparently that was too much for him because this guy starts ASKING CUSTOMERS FOR FOOD, saying that he was starving. This wasn’t a miscommunication or anything: he’d been told his break was in 30 minutes, he’d been told there were sandwiches and other food waiting for him, he’d even filled out an order form for his sandwich at the beginning of the shift. Even setting aside how inappropriate it is to beg for food from customers, it was also a safety hazard to handle food in our event workspace – we were handling hazardous materials that could contaminate the food.

    Boss was furious but we were stuck with the dude for the rest of the day until we got back to civilization. I think he told the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar to go sit by the truck for the rest of the workday. That was the last event he worked at.

    1. NotBatman*

      I laughed so hard at this. I’ve definitely worked with the “I’m so hungry I’m gonna DIE” student employee before, but never had anything like this happen.

    2. The Doctor Is Here*

      I’ve had the (sorta) opposite happen with an employee who was diabetic, needed to eat around a certain time, and did not want to rock the boat when their lunch time was announced. Several days of them getting extremely woozy, we got the story out of them, they took lunch on time, but jeez, not one of us would have put up a fuss about it if they’d just asked!

  67. Cranky Trucker*

    At my old job, one of my primary responsibilities was to take pictures of shipping containers that would be going overseas for customs records. One thing the drivers would have do to was to close the door with the container number on it while leaving the other opened so it was clear what was in there.

    Generally I knew every driver who came in and they were generally, at the very least, polite. On this day, it was a new guy. I asked him to close one door so I could get a picture. Well, he took offense and started screaming every swear word under the planet at me about how it WASN’T his job, he WASN’T going to do it, if I wanted it done, I should do it myself. In the end he did close the door – while continuing to hurl verbal abuse at me – and sped off in a huff.

    I went inside and sent an e-mail to the shipping person, telling what had happened and making it clear that if he returned, I would not be working with him. Within 10 minutes she responded – she called the trucking company he worked for, told them what happened, and they responded with “Yeah, um, today is his first and last day.”

  68. Rufus Bumblesplat*

    I worked in sales for a luxury furniture brand. The dress code was smart casual as the role was in person and customer facing.
    On the day one of the company directors was due to visit our store, our new hire decided to turn up wearing skin tight leggings with horizonal rips starting at the ankles and continuing to upper thigh level.
    She was also meant to be part of the set up team for a new store. She was sent back to us in disgrace after the first day. She had been asked to iron a pillowcase for use in a display, claimed not to know how and demanded the visual merchandiser explain the process to her, and then went outside and sat on a step and cried inconsolably.
    The woman was in her early 50s and did not make it through her probation period.

  69. Imaginary Number*

    Is active duty military cheating? I’m going to share anyway.

    We had a new Soldier show up on our books but never arrive to our unit (this would be his first duty station out of basic training and AIT.) Never managed to locate him so he was classified AWOL. Two weeks later his mother calls us and says, “My son is here. He’s supposed to be your problem now so you need to come get him.”

    So we did.

      2. Imaginary Number*

        It was short enough that he just got an Article 15 (non-judicial punishment.) I don’t remember what exactly it was, but probably some extra duty and a loss of pay for a few weeks.

    2. Environmental Compliance*

      “He’s supposed to be your problem now so you need to come get him.”

      Oh my. Did he ever give a reason for what his thought process was and why he just…went home?

      1. Dragon_Dreamer*

        “I raised him to be an entitled git, but my little angel is YOUR problem now!” Snowflakes don’t last long in the military…

          1. Not Australian*

            Not confined to them; general usage in the UK. (Derives from ‘get’ as in ‘beget’, so roughly ‘spawn’.)

            1. Pennyworth*

              Well I never knew the etymology of ‘git’ until now. Stores information in squirrel brain.

          4. Dragon_Dreamer*

            I hang out online with too many Brits, Aussies, and Kiwis, so I’ve picked up some of the slang. :)

      2. Imaginary Number*

        Just that he didn’t want to do it anymore.

        He wasn’t a terrible Soldier after that. Not great but certainly not one of the top troublemakers.

        1. Anonymouse*

          Did the mother not realize that the whole purpose of Basic Training is so she could move and not tell the recruit?

          1. SnappinTerrapin*

            There was a recruit in my BT platoon whose first letter home was returned by the Post Office: “Moved- No Forwarding Address.”

            He did receive a letter from his parents a couple weeks. later, though.

            It was a real struggle to drag him through the course. I suspect he didn’t stay in service very long.

  70. Kittykuddler*

    A New Hire showed up the first day wearing flip flops for a kennel position. Had to send her home to change shoes. The next day she was in the news for flipping animals. We had to terminate her.

        1. Dhaskoi*

          It’s worse than that – pet flipping is stealing an animal and then selling it, like a car theft ring only with animals.

    2. Phebe Waterwish*

      Flipping the animals as in physically flipping them over, or acquiring them for resale (like flipping houses)?

    4. AnotherLibrarian*

      Like many others, I am not super curious what “flipping animals” entails exactly.

    5. A Wall*

      I cannot help from imagine her taking the shelter dogs, slapping on a fresh coat of paint, and selling them with a 30% markup.

  71. DisneyChannelThis*

    Professional lab setting. They interviewed in a suit. They had to borrow my gym shoes to be allowed to tour lab during interview. Which I would have thought would have been a memorable moment to them. They definitely got the list of safety rules during interview as well as in all their paperwork. Closed toe, non mesh shoes. Long pants. Shoulders covered. Long hair up. Safety goggles.

    Her first day she shows up in sandals, a skirt that was not to the knees let alone to the ankles and an athletic top that had the cold shoulder cutouts and midriff showing. She was so confused why we were frustrated (we couldn’t do any of the training planned that day, some of the experiments were multi-day processes we had a whole week charted out for her to train on). She got fired within 6months, just couldn’t get it together.

  72. Hamzo*

    My first day in a new team, they took me out to a nice place for lunch. When the waitress brought the drinks she stumbled and tipped a full glass of orange juice (with bits) all over me, and into my bag. Which would have been bad enough except that I was wearing a white shirt and spent the rest of the lunch wondering quite how much of my bra could be seen as it had gone a bit see through… I’m sure I made quite a first impression!

    The poor waitress was mortified and refused to come back to our table – apparently it was her first day too!

  73. Shrinking Violet*

    Once Upon a Time I worked at a now-defunct nation-wide department store. We hired a new salesperson for the Electronics/Appliances department, and he went through training just fine. First day out on the sales floor, he goes up to the senior associate in the department (been there forever, as honest as the day is long), and asks “So, how do we get merchandise out of here.”
    Need I mention that was also his last day?

  74. Going Anon for This*

    So this was not at my work, but at my husband’s workplace: a young woman was hired and in less than 2 weeks had slept with another beloved part-time worker, dated him for a few weeks and then broke up with him. He was really upset over the breakup and no longer wants to be in this location when she is there (luckily, he has another job and only helps out on occasion), but it’s really tough to see someone who was great not want to be there anymore due to someone who has questionable judgment.

    1. Midwestern Scientist*

      So the entire issue is her fault? He has no culpability for also sleeping with her and not being able to separate his personal and professional life?

      2. DANGER: Gumption Ahead*

        Dontcha know that when men can’t handle their emotions around relationships it is ALWAYS the woman’s fault? /s

      3. The Buddhist Viking*

        Also: How did this woman manage to date the “beloved part-timer” for a few weeks “in less than 2 weeks”? Something is weird here and it’s not just that woman’s judgment.

        1. osmoglossum*

          She slept with him within two weeks of working there then dated him for a few weeks before breaking up with him is how I’m reading it.

      1. Doctors Whom*

        And it’s super unprofessional for the dude to be unable to be at the workplace when his ex is working there (no abuse was mentioned, so I’m going to assume this is not a safety issue).

        The *guy* here sounds like the problem, assuming these were both two consenting adults.

        I really hope this commenter re-examines their bias after reading these replies.

    4. Dark Macadamia*

      I sure hope you mean his own questionable judgment, since apparently he’s the one who can’t handle the fallout of dating a coworker. It’s really weird how you make their mutual choices sound like 100% the woman’s fault/responsibility.

    5. Going Anon for This*

      To clarify a bit: not saying it’s entirely her fault, but I also don’t think it’s wise to go into any work place as a new employee and sleep with a coworker (and that applies to men, women and nonbinary folks).

      And yes, he made a poor choice too, but has been struggling with some mental health things that make his situation a bit more sympathetic to most of the staff. I’m not excusing either side, but this post was asking for “poor first impressions” and I do think that starting employment with that isn’t a great first impression.

      1. I WORKED on a Hellmouth*

        Did… did she announce to all of her new coworkers that they were sleeping together or something???

  75. Dotty*

    The New Guy sat behind me, in the other half of the shared cubicle.

    Day 1: He spent his entire day making a chart on graph paper, of every writing implement that the last person had left on/in that desk, with a column for each writing implement’s nickname, long description, and examples of solid and dashed lines. This despite me giving him the standard training materials and a practice assignment to complete.

    Day 2: First thing in the morning he asked me a lot of questions, then told me my answers to each was wrong – in each instance running down his whole resume of how he’d done things “in my last 20 jobs” (the guy wasn’t old enough to have had 20 jobs unless the average tenure was +/- 3 months.) After he was done with me he moved on to my supervisor in the next cubicle, who had heard the whole thing and repeated everything I told him. After lunch he moved on to one of the higher-ups in the big offices, barging in on a closed door to repeat all the questions and complain about our previous answers. That guy marched him back to his desk, told him not to do that again, and to direct all his questions to me.

    Day 3: He brought in a radio and played it loudly. I told him that wouldn’t go over well in that firm. He told me I was wrong. 5 minutes later people from all over the office started coming by to complain. He would turn the radio down, then gradually inch it up again to loud. The guy from the closed office came and yanked the cord out and walked away with the radio.

    Day 4: The partner in charge of the office announced a full staff meeting in half an hour. New Guy decided to impress him by making coffee for everyone. But he didn’t put the coffee pots under the machines. A coffee river started rolling by our cubicles and everybody but New Guy rushed in with paper towels.

    Day 5: New Guy played video games all day. I didn’t do anything about it because at least he was quiet and not flooding the office. Around 3 PM he handed in his two weeks notice. The boss said that’s ok, you can leave today and not come back. New Guy applied for unemployment. Maybe that was the plan all along.

    When I was cleaning up his space for the next guy, I found a little notebook in which he’d recorded his judgements about each of us coworkers. They weren’t kind. Leaving that behind was probably also intentional.

    1. Rusty Shackelford*

      Day 1: He spent his entire day making a chart on graph paper, of every writing implement that the last person had left on/in that desk, with a column for each writing implement’s nickname, long description, and examples of solid and dashed lines.

      I would love to see this chart.

      2. TeaCoziesRUs*

        I mean…. I bullet journal pretty frequently and love to do this on my back pages when I get a new pen. I could see myself doing this if I got a treasure trove of new pens. (I went to an artist’s estate sale last fall… I’m still having LOTS of fun with all my new toys!)

        I would at least complete my assigned tasks first, but I would be doing this and loving every minute during my break!

    3. amcb13*

      “First thing in the morning he asked me a lot of questions, then told me my answers to each was wrong – in each instance running down his whole resume of how he’d done things “in my last 20 jobs” (the guy wasn’t old enough to have had 20 jobs unless the average tenure was +/- 3 months.)”

      Now I’m picturing an evil version of Kirk from Gilmore Girls.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Which begs the question – when read through an AAM lens, is regular kirk actually evil kirk?

    4. Slow Gin Lizz*

      After Day 2, how did he even make it to Day 3? Sounds like your office was on Candid Camera or something. (Yes, I’m dating myself.)

  76. Mom1kids3*

    My department had a new hire start when I was 8.5 months pregnant. She reported to a different manager and I had not met or even seen her during the hiring process.

    Her first day, she was standing with her manager in a common area of our department, and I walked/waddled up to introduce myself. Her manager asked me how I was doing and said something to the effect of I must be uncomfortable (I was hugely pregnant). I said I was fine, but my back was starting to bother me a little.

    The new hire said “oh you pregnant women are all alike, you think you have back pain but you should see what real back pain feels like”.

    I learned as we worked together more that a) she had no filter and was always that blunt and b) she was extremely sensitive about anything remotely critical that was said to her. I avoided her as much as possible.

    1. Dragon_Dreamer*

      Wow, I hate that type. No pain is real to them unless it’s their pain. Then it’s the Most Important Thing in the world.

      1. el she-ra*

        Medical joke coming up…
        “What’s the definition of minor surgery?”

        “Surgery on somebody else.”

  77. untitled*

    Board of NFP finally names a Director after nearly 18 months with an Interim Director. Director comes to office to meet staff in person the day their appointment is announced. Someone asks new Director something along the lines of how they’re feeling and the Director response is “worried.” Director also did not prepare any remarks to introduce themselves to staff.

    Director has now officially started and has, among other things, stormed out of an online budget meeting (e.g. logged out) after telling the finance person they were wrong for requiring separate budgets; and told the payroll person that completing required paperwork to withhold and submit payroll taxes to the neighboring state (where they reside) was an “extreme measure” and not necessary. It’s been just over a week.

      1. untitled*

        The ship has been sinking since I started (about two years ago). My friends refer to it as my “Titanic gig.” I’ve been looking for a new job since about 5 months after I started (when they fired the Director who hired me and the Interim Director told me he didn’t want to professionalize the organization in the way I was hired to do). It’s awful.

    2. Ama*

      Eeeeeeek. As someone with the bad luck to have had two different bosses fired for financial misconduct I hope your org is set up so that Director can’t make any purchases without oversight. The separate budgets thing, in particular worries me, because that sounds like someone is used to playing shell games with the money to hide deficits.

      1. untitled*

        Just to clarify — it’s separate project budgets, which would have restricted income tied to them. So each project needs a separate budget to make sure restricted income is not being misapplied. Not separate organization budgets; I agree that would be very suspect! The finance person explained why separate project budgets were necessary and the Director said they (the finance person) were wrong. Should be noted Director has zero experience with restricted income, budgets, or NFP finance. Finance person has roughly 14 years of experience.

  78. Midwestern Scientist*

    In college, I interned at a genetic testing company. The lab manager had a standing poker and whiskey night so came in super hung over every Friday morning – to the point where we were forbidden from turning on the lights in the office that he shared with 2 other people and he would put his head down on his desk to take a nap. Shocking behavior to 20 year old me from a 40-50 year old adult!

    1. BK*

      We had a driver at one of my high school jobs who would call in sick probably 1 -2 Fridays a month for similar reasons. He’d always blame it on “eating some bad fish” the night before to the point where we’d make jokes about “you’d think Rob would stop eating fish!”

  79. Childcare Nightmare*

    I managed a childcare in a gym when I was in undergrad. We hired a lot of 18 – 20-year-olds. An 18-year-old girl started who seemed nice enough, if a bit quiet. Started to open up about an hour in talking about how the background check process must have been pretty bad because she had several spent time in a juvenile facility for stealing people’s purses. This lead to our GM looking into her twitter where she was (1) badmouthing the company, (2) switched her profile picture to herself in uniform , and (3) tweeting very sexually explicit thoughts about some of our male co-workers.

    1. Veryanon*

      To be fair, I think juvenile records are sealed and wouldn’t have shown up on a standard background check, but YIKES that she felt comfortable enough on her first day to share that with you! Holy moly.

  80. Melissa*

    Many moons ago, I worked for a company that rented office space on the third floor of a building that was showing its age. In particular, the elevator made some weird noises. The certificate in the elevator was also not up to date, although we were told that the current certificate was on file somewhere. We had a new hire, let’s call him Bo, who was especially vocal about the elevator.

    One night in his first month of work, Bo was especially determined to take a smoke break. Unfortunately, the building owner was replacing the carpet. At the time of Bo’s smoke break, the carpet layers were replacing the carpet on the one and only staircase. Bo refused to use the elevator and he REALLY wanted his smoke break, so he decided to use the stairs anyway. The stairs that were covered with super sticky, smelly carpet glue. He walked through the glue-covered stairs, got to the second floor, and realized that his shoes are now gross. He decides to use the second floor bathroom to try to clean them. The carpet has already been replaced on the second floor, so he and his glue-covered shoes are now walking on brand new carpet. The carpet layers were trying to get him to stop but did not speak English; they put a carpet scrap down on the floor in front of him so he could wipe his shoes off. He JUMPED OVER the scrap and continued to the bathroom, where he apparently made another mess.

    Building management was obviously not happy and complained to my boss. Boss was out of town and asked me to let Bo go before he got back. (There had been other issues involving Bo’s attitude, so it was not the first strike, just the funniest.)

  81. Forensic13*

    The first couple weeks of meeting a new fellow employee at a medical manufacturing job, she complained that she felt sick and maybe had a fever.

    And then proceeded to lift her shirt up so I could “feel her belly” to check her temperature.

    I, uh, declined.

    She did not get any less weird in the few remaining months she was there, but that incident always stuck the most.

  82. Alexander Graham Yell*

    Oh man….so this story spans maybe a month?

    New inside sales woman starts and after a meeting notices that she lost a diamond from her engagement ring. Literally has all of us with our phones crawling all over the floor to find it (including our CEO). She was really emotional and we stayed late trying to find it but didn’t have any luck. Totally one of those “Normal but unfortunate” things and we feel bad that her first day started like that.

    The next week she’s barely functional and tells me she was up all night doing her hair and her daughter’s hair. It doesn’t seem like maybe the best use of time when you have work in the morning, but I’ve shown up to work hungover before and I’ve worked directly after landing from an international red eye, we all make weird decisions sometimes.

    She isn’t in the office much, and I figure she’s just working from home. Suddenly she’s in the office, but moves all of her stuff from her cube to her boss’s office (her boss worked in a different city and only came every other week). About 3 hours later, her boss shows up. It’s maybe 4:30? A high-level coworker tells everybody to go ahead and go home since it’s a slow day. The next day I find out that the days I thought she was working from home were all no-call, no-shows and when the boss sat Office Thief down and said it was time for her 30 day review, OT said, “I don’t see how you can give me a 30 day review when I’ve only worked 15!” like it was some kind of gotcha.

    We checked her LinkedIn 6 months later and not only was she listed as still employed with us, she had her title set to “Director of International Sales”.

      1. Dotty*

        You can report that sort of thing on LinkedIn. I had somebody who’d never worked for me who was listing himself as an employee (I’d never heard of him, he wasn’t even in the same country, and my company is a side gig that has no current or former employees), and I was able to report that and get him removed.

        1. Alexander Graham Yell*

          Somebody might have, but we mostly shrugged it off – there were issues with the company as well (it eventually was purchased by a competitor) so somebody claiming to work there that as far as I know it just wasn’t something anybody cared to find a way to fix.

  83. AM*

    This might not count because it was interns. But I just had to share because of the audacity.

    The first day I meet the interns is for onboarding. Intern #1 forgets to bring her signed non-disclosure form. She had a week to read over two pages (of straightforward language) and sign it. She made a very bad first impression by failing this first assignment. I had to print out a new one and tell her to review and sign it now, otherwise I cannot onboard her. I try to make some low-stakes conversation and I ask her “are you still in college?” She tells me that she is in a strange situation. She thought she graduated, but when her diploma didn’t arrive, she contacted the school and was told some of her transfer credits were not eligible so she hadn’t actually finished her degree. She was finishing up those credits now. We are in the US and this was around 2014. I know education in the US can be pretty abysmal, but I’m pretty sure the school would have told you that you were ineligible for graduation/credits were not eligible for transfer and you also would have been able to check your online account. WTH. Do not tell anyone this. It doesn’t make a good first impression. Just tell a white lie of “yes, I’m still in school.”

    Intern #2 didn’t come off well either. At the beginning of onboarding, she asks if she’s going to get special software to use on her personal laptop. She was really giving off vibes of “I’m going to exploit your business” instead of “I’m here to learn and get a good recommendation.” No, this is onboarding. We are not putting expensive software on your personal devices.

    Yes, I did tell my boss about Intern #1 forgetting to bring her signed NDA because I felt it was significant. Boss would want to know if intern had trouble with a task this simple. No, I did not say anything about Intern #1’s college diploma thing. I felt that would tread into gossip territory, I wasn’t out to sabotage the intern, and I wasn’t sure if boss was already aware of it. In retrospect, maybe I should have brought the college thing up because Intern #1 continued to word vomit like this, which were really signs that she was not reliable.

    1. many bells down*

      I kind of feel for her about the degree thing because some schools are really bad at communicating things like that. I was once told, *three years* into a degree program, that a whole bunch of my previous units were actually not valid and I’d have to repeat them all. It was going to add another year to the program, and if they’d told me earlier I could have gotten them out of the way while I was waiting to get into impacted core courses.

      1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

        right, but you didn’t spill all that to someone on your first day at a new job, did you?

        1. Junior*

          I don’t know if it’s something to ‘spill’? Like it was such a common occurrence at my school that I wouldn’t have batted an eye at an intern explaining this situation. I’d assume it was just part of small talk.

          1. Momma Bear*

            Could be she’s just not great at small talk or took it as an opening for a longer conversation. Not all of us are great at being put on the spot and kind of ramble. It’s like being asked “How are you?” and few people want a truthful answer.

            But at least if she proved unreliable she was just an intern with an end date.

            (FWIW, I also had the experience of getting into college and them deciding that I couldn’t take a class my *Junior* year because they’d missed something about my dual credit class in HS and didn’t accept it. I had to go back and take a freshman class so I could proceed with my major. My advisor had missed it, too. I ticked off the wrong bean counter.)

      2. quill*

        I narrowly missed (by not being required to take the course) a minor department scandal where students who had been told to take a lab course at a nearby college and transfer the credits were suddenly discovering that since the other school counted the course as 3 credit hours (class) and 1 credit hour (lab) and ours set up labs as no credit hours and the class as 4 credit hours it wouldn’t transfer. Head of department had not just one cow, but a whole herd of the things at the people who had approved this course plan without making sure that our poor scheduling department could put it in the computer right.

      3. TweedleDee*

        I’ve had issues with transferring credits too. I had to call a friend who still lived in the same city as the college and ask them to go IN PERSON to the school to pay a $20 fee for me (just $20 and it couldn’t be done online for any reason). It was the only way the school would release all of my credits to let me transfer them to a different university. This was in 2013 and I’d left the school in 2006 because I dropped out and I’d finally got myself into a position to get my bachelors degree.

        It was such a circus.

      4. CupcakeCounter*

        Same thing happened to me when I had one semester left. I applied for graduation and they told me 2 gen ed courses weren’t being counted towards graduation, although they were counting the credit hours in my total (worthless in this case but helpful later on for a certification I needed). I had a great program advisor who directed me to a couple of tests I could take to get out of them – saved me about $3k and I still graduated on time (December grad so I was able to study the second half of summer since I took summer classes in June and July).

      5. kitryan*

        Similar story here – I’d known I would be a theater tech major but not my specific concentration when I started, so I spend yrs 1-2 making great progress taking all the foundation coursework for the major along with the gen ed requirements. I figured that I’d then be sure what I wanted to focus on and have the latter 2 years to take mostly the specialty coursework. Then they changed the foundation course requirements for my major in my 3rd year, which I’d pretty much entirely completed, removing 2 or 3 courses and adding 2 or 3 different ones instead. I petitioned to be able to use the old set of requirements, since I’d already finished all of that course work but was told that I had to meet the new requirements as well. If I hadn’t proactively looked into the revised requirements and asked which version would apply to me I could have easily been short some of the coursework required for my major.
        Ironically, I was pretty much the only person affected in this way as no one else had gotten so far with the requirements in their first two years.
        I’d been on track to graduate a semester early (AP credit and summer classes) and this plus getting mono and having to drop 2 classes because of that ruined that plan. I’m still a bit salty about it.

    2. deesse877*

      for what it’s worth, it’s actually very common for students to not know that their credits didn’t transfer. It can happen because they were poorly advised, or because requirements at the second school changed. Some institutions also communicate very badly.

      It’s a major reason why people take more than 4 years to graduate.

      1. Pocket Mouse*

        Yes to changing requirements. I almost lost a substantial scholarship because the policy changed about which local community college courses had their credit applied to university transcripts as if they were courses at the university for purposes of determining a full course load/university credits. I only salvaged my scholarship by pointing out that the policy had changed mid-semester… so my course plan had essentially been pre-approved and then rescinded at a time when it was too late to do anything about it, and of course there was no notification so I only learned about it the following semester.

    3. Junior*

      Regarding intern #1 – this was actually a somewhat common occurrence at my university. For some reason, staff wouldn’t ‘catch’ eligibility until after graduation. I had a friend who thought she’d graduated, only to find out one of her classes had been misclassified, and she still needed those credits for that req. It was awful.
      Also, one person might tell you that yes, your credits transfer, and another would tell you they won’t. Fortunately(?) I was originally told my math credits would NOT transfer, so I retook my math reqs, and only found out when I graduated that yes, they HAD transferred. I can’t imagine the horror if I’d been told the opposite.
      Even with how on top of my credits, graduation requirements, and fees I was, I still wasn’t sure if I’d missed something. Our process was abysmal.

      1. All the words*

        These stories are starting to stink like a racket by the colleges to keep students having to buy more and more credits as the student’s diploma is held hostage.

        1. MsM*

          I think it’s pretty much inevitable when you have teachers and faculty advisors who either don’t know or don’t keep track of the requirements and how well any given student’s doing on meeting them, academic advisors who don’t have enough regular contact with individual students to be monitoring potential issues before they become issues, and students who don’t know that they need to step up and keep on top of all this because no one else will do it for them.

          1. quill*

            Even students who check meticulously don’t always get the correct answers, because of course scheduling and disorganized academic requirement processes. If they would write the requirements down and commit to them for the length of a student’s enrollment, maybe then we could expect students to keep on top of it, but I knew enough people whose core graduation requirement courses were suddenly “not eligible” because someone had told them the wrong thing when they were freshmen that I’m not going to assign any blame to the students. If the requirements SAY any non-lab science and suddenly you have decided that this means any non-lab science that covers physics, bio, or chem, and not, say, meteorology, that’s on the college, not the student!

            1. Alanna*

              Yup, it was course scheduling that got me. I was a great student, had TONS of credits, did everything perfectly, but they just … didn’t hold one of the classes i needed to graduate my last semester (and they were on a schedule, so it’s not like i had put it off). I tried everything I could to do that coursework that semester, and they wouldn’t do it. So i had to take an extra semester just for that one course. (and i was super mad because had i known i’d have an extra semester, i’d have done a double major instead of a minor, and i didn’t). That also screwed up my earning ability going forward because it was the difference between graduating before and during an election/recession, and things changed drastically – my classmates got amazing jobs, and i was lucky to get one at all.

              I have some bones to pick with higher ed.

            2. kitryan*

              yup- as stated elsewhere, I was *so* on top of my requirements that I ended up having to fill the requirements as set out when I started as a freshman *and* the changed requirements they implemented in my 3rd year. And I had to take Acting 1. With non majors. It sucked.

        2. Siege*

          It’s not that malicious. In my state, there are three classifications of “faculty counselor” that mean wildly different things, but the main thing is that the mental health kind and the guidance kind are understaffed roles across the state system, and the third kind are faculty taking on extra duties. Because there was no legal distinction between them until 2019, you could overwork your faculty, save money by not hiring (largely unfunded-by-the-state, meaning their salaries came from college funds which are tight at best here in most of the state system) mental health and guidance positions, and claim everything was fine. The people responsible for making sure students have the info they need to graduate simply don’t exist here in the numbers they are needed. It’s changing now, but it’s slow.

        3. Junior*

          I don’t necessarily think it’s a racket (but you could easily change my mind on that lol). It’s really just a systemic under-funding of core student-focused tools, processes, and departments. Like, I made more money in school as a janitor than the lady who told me my credits wouldn’t transfer, she didn’t have the tools to easily look this info up, and I’m sure she left as soon as she could get a better job.
          Which resulted in what is essentially a racket, so you’re far from wrong.

      2. Anon for This*

        This didn’t happen to me personally, but I was so paranoid before I started my first office job I paid for new copies of my master’s and bachelor’s diplomas from my schools, so I could be absolutely positive I had them and nothing went wrong. I was one of about twenty people who went from a four year degree to a five year degree because an advisor told us we could drop a class that was taught by a terrible professor and take it again next semester when it was taught by a not terrible professor with no negative consequences, because apparently “the class after this is only taught in the spring semester and it’s a prerequisite for the graduation capstone class in the fall semester” is not a negative consequence.

      3. GingerJ1*

        My roommate in college was given a BLANK DIPLOMA on graduation day. When she inquired, she discovered her GPA in her major was low–think 2.98 when she needed a 3.0.

        She had to take another course that summer in order to graduate. That was pretty low, and a crappy way to find out.

    4. LovelyMonsters*

      My state university didn’t tell me for TWO YEARS that the class my community college rated as 4 semester hours was only counted as 3 by the university. I didn’t find out until I applied for graduation that I was ONE CREDIT short of the hours required to graduate and had to take another $4,000 class to get it.

      It would never occur to me that someone would think there was something wrong with ME professionally for having been the victim of my university’s dishonest moneymaking scam. Blaming the people who mention injustices they’re suffering instead of being appalled by the perpetration of those injustices is way more professionally problematic than someone answering a question *you asked* about how far she’s gotten in college.

      1. AM*

        It was still too much personal information to know about an intern on the first day. I didn’t need to know about it. Intern was 24 years old and should have learned to not give away too much info, especially something that could be seen in a poor light.

        1. Tia*

          It was purely factual information and in response to a question you asked her. I think you are being very harsh judging her for answering you honestly.

        2. Whale I Never*

          I think you and I have very different understandings of “personal information.” To me it sounds more like small talk…

          1. Despachito*

            Same here.

            And to be honest, I do not see a big deal in forgetting the filled-in form, either. Why would it be so horrible to leave behind a piece of paper? And it seemed very easy to remedy – just fill in a new paper.

        3. platypus*

          you asked her…would you prefer she have lied? Most of the people commenting, myself included, don’t really think this is a “mark” against her, and thus not in poor taste to bring up.

        4. Junior*

          May I ask what industry this is? I work in software, and honestly not a single thing you’ve written about either intern seems particular extraordinary.
          Also regarding the school thing – I still don’t understand how it could be seen in a poor light?

        5. Dawbs*

          I don’t know how to say this better but… that’s rather victim-blame-y, for lack of a better descriptor.

          A TON of people are telling you that it’s very possible this student was adequate or even great and got screwed over by the system. Because they’re all dating “yeah, this system sucks and it chews ppl up and destroyed plans” and you’re saying she should have been embarrassed and horribly shy about this so as to not look bad in front of people who have no experience in the crapbasket that is transfer experiences?
          (Nevermind that if more people shared that info, ppl would know it’s a bum deal and not get eaten by it)

          It might be that there are lots of other trains you choose not to like this hire, but as a middle aged lady who has been in the professional world for 20+ years, i probably wouldn’t consider it an overshare as much as I’d see it as her accurately answering a question (as opposed to lying to you or saying “none of your business) and telling the sorts of anecdotes that new relationships are built on

    5. B*

      Re: the university not telling someone they were not going to graduate, something similar happened to me back in the early 00s. I had a friend who worked admin for a big state school too, and this happened more often than you would think – she had all kinds of depressing stories of students getting jerked around by the system. I get that the intern didn’t make a good impression in other ways, but I would reflect on this with more compassion for her situation since you don’t know what went on at her university.

    6. Raspin*

      I graduated college 25 years ago, and I still have anxiety dreams about not having enough credits.

      1. quill*

        Same, but eight years. Particularly because I discovered at the last minute one upperclassman year that I was going to have to take not only a singular gym credit, which I had scheduled neatly for a free evening, but an additional course that was “gym, but just a bunch of written tests and high school health level misinformation about nutrition” scheduled every other week during my only lunch slot for 30 minutes at a time the whole semester, to complete that single credit.

        I was not pleased, and very nearly did not pass, because of course it was only offered on days that I had labs that could go significantly over that time, and being on time was 50% of the grade.

      2. Anon for This*

        Same, but they’re dreams that I discovered I didn’t have enough credits to graduate HIGH SCHOOL while I was in college and my high school didn’t let you have any free periods so I was stuck taking eight new classes with much confusion.

    7. Not Elizabeth*

      The transfer-credit issue seems pretty well covered, so I just wanted to note that the OP is being overly harsh about the NDA thing as well. The intern left a piece of paper at home and the OP seems to think that’s a reflection on her competence (she “had a week” to read and sign it, she “had trouble with a task this simple”). (I wonder how the boss reacted to being informed about this.) If that’s one of the two most astounding first impressions you’ve ever seen….

      1. AM*

        I’m not being harsh about it. The NDA needed to be signed before I could start onboarding. Intern didn’t even realize she forgot her paperwork until I asked her for it at the start of our meeting. It is a bad first impression. It’s along the line of “you only had one thing to do.” Boss was shocked intern didn’t bring the paperwork and was grateful that I had the common sense to print out another copy and have the intern sign it.

        1. Anon for This*

          At my workplace, new hires are given a printed sheet of all their login information on their first day, and are instructed to bring it with them on day 2. If I had a dollar for every time someone called me and said “new hire didn’t bring their paper, can you send them a new copy?”…. well, our turnover isn’t quite high enough that I could buy a new car, but I’d definitely have enough to go on a fancy vacation.

        2. Wisteria*

          Printing out a new copy of a form that someone forgot is pretty basic problem solving skills. I think the problem here is your boss, who doesn’t understand that forgetting things is common and so is printing them out, and you spent long enough working for him that you absorbed his mindset and can’t see how ridiculous he was being.

          I’m not bothered by sharing her credit situation, either. True, there were details that were not pertinent to the conversation, but most conversations contain a lot of non-pertinent details. So what?

        3. lizesq*

          Nah you’re definitely being harsh about it. None of these things are unreasonable, you on the other hand….

      2. Lenora Rose*

        This. I read my NDA carefully, to make sure there were no clauses I could violate by accident. I signed my NDA. Had I then failed to pack my NDA in the morning scramble (while also packing my lunch, double checking my commute, listening to traffic reports and assembling my backup “suitably professional” outfit due to having missed spotting a 5mm stain on my favourite work-shirt) I would be rather put off by the person assuming I hadn’t done the reading or signing.

    8. Chris*

      I would not assume that the college communicated this well.

      When it came time for me to graduate, I sent in my application with the $250 fee. Five months later and I still hadn’t received my diploma so I called them up. They said I didn’t meet one of the graduation requirements. They were wrong and I showed them that I did. They had a bug in their software that did the calculation.

      I told them I never received a phone call, email or letter about the denial and they said that was normal. They denied the application but they don’t bother informing the applicant of it. And there was no system to look up the status.

    9. Dragonfly7*

      100% incorrect advising was the norm for me, such as someone insisting I needed to retake Composition I at their institution despite taking it dual credit in high school, and someone else initially evaluating a transfer credit incorrectly, so I had to take one more class to graduate. I memorized nearly my entire general education and degree requirements so I could stay on top of them.
      This continues to be a norm in my life, only now from my HR department.

      1. Siege*

        I had so many problems with registration when I went back to school for a technical degree. Off the top of my head, one couldn’t enter my Masters degree because she didn’t know that the UK was a real place and refused to input the location. One couldn’t be sure that my BA meant I’d passed college math (which, to be fair, I hadn’t as I went to a college that didn’t have gen eds, but that’s not the point – for the purpose of this registration process, a BA was accepted as cutting out certain class prereqs because you were assumed to have achieved the prereqs already). Then we had the same argument about whether I’d passed college English, and considering I had a 30k word thesis under my belt and had worked as an editor for 4 years, on top of my two degrees which documented a LOT of English composition very clearly, it was ridiculous. Another person in that office became confused when I was taking a course at a sister college that used different course numbering and decided I needed to prove that I had the prereq for the other college’s course structure – so I needed CS240 rather than what I had which was CMS210, and the classes were identical other than that course number/name.

        I graduated from that college, I tutored there and taught there, I worked on their web team, and my crowning achievement is that I never Force-choked the registration office staff, despite gross temptation.

        1. Mike S.*

          I had a friend who wasn’t allowed to take a Geology course, because he didn’t have college algebra. He had credits for Calculus and Differential Equations, but those didn’t count. He needed algebra. The school he got his bachelor’s degree from didn’t offer algebra, because they assumed you’d taken it in High School.

    10. COHikerGirl*

      I was in the International Baccalaureate program in high school and took the Standard Level 2 year math class (there was also a Higher Level 2 year class). We did calculus, and covered what a college would in Calc 1. The first college I went to accepted it as Calc 1 credit. So I took Calc 2 and 3. I transferred to another college who apparently did not accept the SL class as credit. So theoretically I was missing Calc 1. My advisor tried to get me officially excused from it (I was not going to retake it…5 credit hours is a lot to retake and it had been long enough since I had done calc that testing out would have required studying). My advisor told me that to graduate, the advisor had to sign off that you finished everything, so she was going to do that and we’d ignore that pesky calc thing. I am incredibly lucky that she was there when I graduated…I started there in 2003 and got my diploma in 2013.

      This wasn’t actually visible on my credit audits for a few years, which is why I had been away from calc for a bit. I started out at an engineering school and then switched to biology at the new school…lots of calc for engineering, not so much in biology!

    11. Katy*

      None of this strikes me as particularly audacious. Lots of people are bad at remembering paperwork, especially paperwork they got two weeks ago. It doesn’t necessarily reflect on how someone will do their actual work. I wouldn’t think of that as a “first assignment” – I’d think of it as paperwork. And if you’re making small talk, you have to be okay with someone sharing some details about themselves – that’s how conversations go! She sounds chatty, but it’s not like she shared anything inappropriate with you.

      And the second one was – a question. Which you answered, and she seems to have accepted your answer. Maybe a thoughtless question, but interns are there in part to learn work norms. They’re not necessarily going to arrive knowing all of them, and that’s a pretty harmless mistake to make.

    12. Helenteds*

      Yeah, I wouldn’t blame the intern for the issues with her degree. Don’t overestimate the competency of college registration people, I know that some of my classmates have been having trouble with them messing things up at my school (I don’t remember the exact nature of their problem, but I think one of the professors has their back and I know she isn’t afraid to complain to the administration if there is something wrong).

    13. L Dubb*

      Honestly, I don’t see forgetting to bring a single signed document for your first day of work as a big deal. On boarding is such a tedious process, especially for someone that’s an intern and likely fairly new to the working world.

    14. Rara Avis*

      Don’t get me started on the ridiculous hoops I had to jump through to earn teacher certification. I was penalized for knowing what I wanted to do early and taking the early levels of my subject in high school. (Standard high school courses, by the way — not dual enrollment.) It was like saying I couldn’t teach math because I hadn’t taken algebra I in college. I ended up having to take the level 1 course of my subject over again. (I did it by correspondence — drove 3 hours to take a 3-hour proctored final exam which I finished in 12 minutes and scored 105% on.) There was no testing out — you had to have the hours, even though I had already passed a subject-area competency test. And then I moved and my certificate didn’t transfer.

    15. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I have to look at it the other way — I’m impressed that the intern volunteered the story to clear it up, since she might have put graduation date on her resume to get the internship.

  84. AnonCorpTrainer*

    I have so many!
    I was working as a corporate trainer at a call center. One of the new hires was late and sent me a text saying that trying to avoid being late she tried to jump the curb to get by the traffic at the light and her car got stuck. She sent me a video of the car stuck and the wheels spinning. I told her it was fine, to just get her car taken care of.
    She comes running in 30 minutes later and tells me and the entire new hire class “I couldn’t get anyone to help me so I wedged a stick on the gas pedal and started pushing. It came loose! But then I couldn’t get back in and it jumped the curb and hit a parked car.”
    …. “Um, newhire did you find the owner of the car or leave a not”
    New hire “Oh my god no! I don’t have insurance.”

  85. I Am A Patient Girl*

    We had an IT guy who was straight up YELLING at people on the phone on his second day (I mean, the first was New Hire Orientation)
    Didn’t make it, go figure!

    1. CatPrance*

      We had a new IT guy who, when I explained the problem my computer was displaying, glared at me and snarled, “I don’t believe you!” Uhh, whut?

      Luckily, we didn’t have him for long . . .

  86. Yours Krewely*

    Not me but my husband’s story from about 20 years ago: new hire engineer at a Fortune 500 oil business sat in on a meeting and declared, “what you people don’t understand” and proceeded to outline what they didn’t understand.

  87. AnonCorpTrainer*

    Story 2- Working as Corp Trainer at a call center.
    CEO comes storming down to our offices asking who owns a car with a car wrap on the hood that says “Cocaine Queen”
    We find out whose car it is and tell them they can’t park the car in the office parking lot because it isn’t appropriate. She gets indignant and tells us that it is her “stage name” she worked nights as an exotic dancer. When we tell her that is fine, but it can’t be parked in the parking lot, she tells us that she picks her kids up from school and no one has ever said it wasn’t approriate.

  88. DW*

    One intern told us right after onboarding that he couldn’t work full days M/T/R like he said he could (he was part-time for the spring semester). Instead he could only do half-days on M/F. The nature of our work and training process meant with that schedule there was no way he’d ever improve his skills. (We still kept him, because we were desperate for any more work output, but he basically stayed at week-1 level for months.)

  89. TimeTravlR*

    Our most recent (govt) intern spent the entirety of her time with us complaining that all her other intern buddies had really cool gigs and got to work on much more interesting project and she just got to do administrative stuff, how boring! Except she didn’t even do that very well and ended up in some cases causing us more work than she completed. Surprisingly, she was not invited back the next year so never got an opportunity to be put on a more interesting project.

  90. Mitford*

    My company had hired a new receptionist/office manager, Kimberly. One of her first assignments was to arrange catering for a weeklong Lean Six Sigma training that was being held our office, but which involved employees from throughout the company including some top leadership from corporate headquarters. The catering included breakfast and lunch, and she’d arranged a variety of different caterers to provide variety throughout the week. Her job included meeting the catering companies, making sure they got set up correctly, and a bit of tidying of the room where the training was taking place (i.e., picking up plates, cups, soda cans) because the training was going on so long that the cleaning crew couldn’t always get in.

    On the fourth day of the training, I arrived at the office to find a delivery guy from Panera waiting at the locked office door. So, I let him in, told him where to drop off his delivery, and realized that the room had been picked up since the previous evening. So, I grabbed a trash bag and raced around the room picking up paper plates, cups, and cans; then cleaned a few spills up from the tables; then emptied the room wastebaskets in my; then uncovered the trays of pastries and bagels and readied the coffee service. All in about 10 minutes before the trainees were due to arrive. I was perspiring and slightly out of breath when everyone else came in.

    So, everyone was eating breakfast and senior leadership was wondering where the heck Kimberly was. She rolled in at the end of the breakfast hour and our division president asked here where she’d been because I’d had to set up for her. Her response was that she thought, since there was no hot food being served that day [previous breakfasts had included hot breakfast sandwiches and full breakfast selections involving sternos, etc.] she thought she could just sleep a little later that morning.

    The division president just looked at her and blinked several times, that blinking people do when they genuinely don’t know what to say. We’re in the Washington, DC, area, so if she’d just said, “Traffic was horrible this morning,” and no one would have batted an eye.

    She didn’t last very long at that job.

  91. Bernice Clifton*

    I worked at a financial services company that opened an office one state over that my director was in charge of. They hired a white, middle-aged guy to fly in and train at our office.

    This was before Uber and Lyft were available in my area. We had taxi cab companies in the area that were known for being expensive and not necessarily reliable.

    New guy was flying back home after training and our boss asked me to get him a cab to the airport (I was the admin). So I booked the cab with the company that had the best rates and would let me book online with a credit card.

    New guy called me from the airport to tell me the cab was dirty and the driver didn’t speak English. He ended up being even more high-maintenance and xenophobic as time went on.

  92. deesse877*

    for what it’s worth, it’s actually very common for students to not know that their credits didn’t transfer. It can happen because they were poorly advised, or because requirements at the second school changed. Some institutions also communicate very badly.

    It’s a major reason why people take more than 4 years to graduate.

  93. Doc What*

    Ohh, boy, I’ve got one. I didn’t witness it in person, but saw the documentation after the fact.

    We had a trainee on a smoke break outside, & he was playing music very loudly in the smoking area. Our director (let’s call her Dee) was also outside, and she requested that he either lower the volume to a reasonable level, or put headphones in. He refused, stating, “This is a free country and I can listen to my music at whatever volume I choose.” Dee explained that when you’re in a shared space at work such as break rooms, common areas, or smoking area, it’s standard courtesy to use headphones or keep your music at a reasonable volume. His reply? “You don’t sign my paychecks, I don’t have to listen to you.” She told him to come with her to HR, he said some more bullspit about MAH FREEDOM/I don’t have to listen to you or do what you tell me to/Paycheck signature, argued with her all the way back up to the training room & then back down to HR, dropping this gem along the way, “I’m sure sorry I look so much like the man who must’ve mistreated you, for you to be acting this way towards me.”

    He was termed that day.

    1. Moira Rose*

      Okay, sexist asshole, obvs, but also… Dee was the director?! Wasn’t she then… signing his paychecks??

      1. Doc What*

        I think he just plain didn’t connect the dots there, really. Dee would go up on the first day of training to introduce herself & talk about her role in the company, I’m forced to assume that he zoned out during that part because it was a woman speaking, haha.

      2. Dhaskoi*

        One of the fundamental traits of prejudice is a total inability to internalise that a person in the group you’re prejudiced against could ever *truly* have authority over you, regardless of what the org chart, title or plain common sense indicates.

        I, unfortunately, am acquainted with someone who spoke disparagingly of ‘those people’ to their immediate manager (who was definitely not caucasian).

  94. De Minimis*

    Had a data entry job with the Post Office, this one guy showed up on his first day wearing a UPS t-shirt. Not technically against the rules, but the head of the facility eventually had a talk with him about it. He didn’t get fired over it or anything, but I don’t think he was kept on after the season was over.

  95. cactus lady*

    I worked in a city not too far from some world-class skiing (think like Denver or Reno), and we brought in a temp to help manage a new program. Our hope was to hire this person on permanently since it definitely wasn’t an entry level position. We had a great interview with one who had the exact skillset we needed. On his first day he said, “Look, I don’t want this to turn into a permanent job, I moved here to ski and I just want to temp so I can focus on that.” He was PHENOMENAL and we had a great experience working with him. To this day I still admire how up front he was about that!

    1. TeaCoziesRUs*

      He’s someone you’d hope would come back next ski season and already have ideas about how to use him, huh? :) It seems there are a few companies in ski towns that work this way (or have ideas for summer interns among the mountain biking community).

  96. Wilder*

    I was a trainer for a multinational hotel conglomerate and was training a new hire on the ins and outs of the front desk.

    A male guest walked past and smiled at her. As far as I know that was their only interaction…but apparently that’s all it took.

    She was caught by maintenance coming out of his room the next morning and video showed she had spent the night. We never saw her again.

    1. Despachito*

      Just out of curiosity – did you have any policy that staff couldn’t spend a night in clients’ rooms?

      (I am thinking that they possibly knew each other from before and just used this opportunity, rather than they were complete strangers?)

      1. Kyla P*

        An interesting thought, but I worked in hotels for 20 years and never once worked at one that didn’t have an anti-fraternization policy—it’s a fireable offense. So even if she did know the guest, it’s still against policy to go into their room and spend the night

  97. Amber Rose*

    I do all the new hire orientations. All, at all levels. I have even given one to our CEO. Without fail, we end up not keeping the ones who put up a fuss about completing my Orientation Quiz. It’s barely a test, there are five questions on it and they ask things like, “what is our policy on drug and alcohol use?” and “who should you report an injury to?”

    The answers are “not at work” and “supervisor” for the record. I’m not looking for paragraphs here.

    Reactions I have seen range from incredulous laughter, complaints about it being a waste of time, disbelief that I have given them a pen and asked them to *gasp* WRITE, and blank stares in silence.

    1. Moira Rose*

      I’ll be honest, I’ve worked at all kinds of places, from food service to really strict, no-nonsense federal government agencies with WAY stricter drugs/alcohol policies than that, and a handwritten quiz on orientation materials strikes me as infantilizing. I think I have the composure at my current advanced age to perhaps merely raise an eyebrow upon being given such a quiz, but my favorite group chats would be getting an incredulous message about it later.

      1. Amber Rose*

        It gets me high scores on audits, which is why I do it. The government loves it and so does our auditing authority.

        Besides, most of the time the ones raising a fuss do it because they haven’t actually retained that information. Orientation may not be fun, but that doesn’t mean they get to tune me out. If our CEO can listen to me for half an hour, so can our techs.

        1. Bryce*

          I’ve seen things like that in my orientations as well. Basic stuff like “If you see a red lock on equipment you need to use, should you remove it” and “should you remove your rabbit suit (whatever the proper term for that is) after leaving an area believed to be contaminated with radioactive material?” If someone’s going to get those wrong you want to know right away.

          Answers for the record are “no” and “yes, otherwise you track the stuff all over the clean area.” Learning how to actually remove the suit without the contaminated side coming into contact with clean stuff is a whole half-day in training itself and nobody gets it right the first five times, but the basic question is basic.

      2. Nina*

        i’m in aerospace and all our in-person trainings have that. online ones have an online quiz. it’s so if you stuff up bad and try to say ‘i wasn’t trained on that!’ the excuse doesn’t fly because the logs are all there in your handwriting or with your signin.

  98. SherSher*

    In the federal gov it’s not uncommon for employees to be detailed to other offices. One time an employee was detailed to Office B from Office A. He is put in a cubicle and works in that spot for about a week when he notices that there is an office just sitting empty so he proceeds to move himself in there without even mentioning it to anyone. Well boss of Office B is quite unimpressed that he would do that without even asking. I don’t know if there were other factors, but his detail was cut short and he was sent back early to Office B. The kicker is he had previously worked in Office C which was responsible for buildings and space, so he KNEW there was a process for getting an office, and plopping yourself in one was NOT part of it! LOL

  99. NYWeasel*

    This was not my story, but was related to me by someone who was there…

    New executive hire at a major soft drink company—let’s call it Copsi—was traveling with other key execs for meetings on maybe his third day. At the airport he grabbed a water at the newsstand, and sure enough the “Crystal Mountain Zephyr Glacier” or whatever brand he grabbed happened to be a Poke brand instead of Copsi. He came back over to the group of execs and it was an instant needle scratch as they looked at him in horror. His boss quickly pointed out his faux pas, and he ditched the water. He thought it was just an awkward stumble until they got back home from the trip and he was immediately let go from his position. There was ZERO tolerance for consuming Poke products by anyone at Copsi.

    1. Art3mis*

      I used to work for a company and our client was one of the big three auto makers. When traveling to the client we always had to make sure that the rental car was one of their cars. Always. Except the one time that the brand new rental broke down in hotel parking lot the morning of the meeting and the rental company didn’t have any more of their brand left. So when our exec showed up in a competing brand they had to say “Yeah well your car with less than 200 miles on it is dead in the Marriott lot down the street, so…” We could get their employee discount. Most of us did not use it.

    2. Purple Cat*

      I was at Food Manufacturer A that had a business relationship go disastrously south (multiple lawsuits)with Food Manufacturer B – former partner, now direct competitor. I had one coworker that would constantly bring in Food B’s products to eat. WHY?!?

    3. Mitford*

      I worked for one the (then) Big Five accounting firms.

      1) There were only Copsi brand vending machines in all of its office, because Copsi was a client.

      2) A sales team had their admin assistant ship the bound copies of their sales presentation to the client they would be presenting to, which happened to be an Orange and Purple shipping/delivery service. She used the Big Brown shipping company to do so. The Orange and Purple company was not amused.

    5. Loredena*

      My father worked for the bank at which the Poke recipe was stored. One day he had some senior management in the car after giving my sister a ride somewhere. My sister, a Copsi drinker, left a can in the car. He was a highly valuable employee but there was enough flack that my sister absolutely heard about it later.

    6. Julia*

      Well, that sure demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s important in hiring and keeping good personnel. Yikers.

    7. allathian*

      Hah yeah. On business trips when you’re representing the company I can understand it, but the company’s policing doesn’t extend to what people do when they’re not working.

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      sorry, this was meant as a comment on another story. move along, nothing to see.

  101. Anonsy*

    Tech Company:
    New hire was an older lady who came from working internal tech at another company so thought she’d be a good fit and was very explicitly hired into a tech support role at my company – we’re SaaS and call out upfront it’s a very technical role even at the lowest levels. She had written all the documentation at her old job and had worked there for years as the lead tech person before the company downsized, so between that and job shadowing prior to hire we were pretty enthusiastic.

    While taking her first tickets to troubleshoot, she pulls out a notepad and starts taking down notes. We explain to her that notes need to be input into the computer – here’s a field for it and everything – she continues to take all her notes on her notepad, then transcribes it to the notes field on the computer. Didn’t seem to be super slow at typing, so couldn’t figure out why she was doing something that took thrice as long, particularly when you were then doing redundant work adding it to the computer, and she got pretty defensive about it. Particularly because we were expected to meet certain KPIs for time and volume, and clearly her process was messing with that. Only the tip of the iceberg as we eventually learned she really was unable to do real tech troubleshooting, instead was more of a level 1 turn things off and on person which we really don’t have here.

    1. JSPA*

      Given my rapidly aging eyes, I may be able to add insight.

      Notepad fields are often too small to show the full input after you adjust the text size to be easily viewed by someone who increasingly needs larger typefaces.

      (That’s assuming you can adjust the size of the typeface at all.)

  102. Art3mis*

    One of the other trainers on my team recently had a new hire that at first refused to turn on her webcam during class despite being asked to several times. Finally her manager stepped in told her she needed to have her camera on. When she finally did turn it on she pointed it so that she was turned away from it. She spent a lot of time arguing with the trainer and rolling her eyes during class. She was fired before the training class finished.

    1. PBlart*

      Oh! You reminded me of the guy who was flown to our headquarters office for a week of training, along with about 8 others. During this training even the president of the company came in and led a portion of it. This guy fell asleep a couple times throughout, and once while the president of the company was speaking! Needless to say he did not have a job by the time he got home.

    2. ArtsyGirl*

      Not my story but my husband’s. He was hired to do technical sales for highly specialized products that cost tens of thousands of dollars and have to be custom made and therefore are rather complex to sell. He was sitting in an onboarding meeting at the company’s headquarters with the few other new hires listening to a presentation. The lecturer was discussing the product when one of the hires shot her hand up and started tapping her watch. The group was supposed to break for a catered lunch in five minutes and she wanted him to wrap it up. The man lecturing was the president and CEO of the company. She was packed up and sent home that afternoon.

    3. KateM*

      I saw during a new hire class someone with her side to the camera and quite obviously talking to someone else on another computer while the trainer was explaining things (hire was muted, of course). Only, unlike your hire, she didn’t even NEED to be on camera – most of people weren’t (which didn’t exactly help to hide the behaviour of those who were). There was absolutely no need for her to demonstrate that she was doing other things.

    4. KimberlyR*

      We all work remotely and we have team meetings that require your camera. Even a couple months in, she would refuse to turn on her camera and had to be told to do so. This was not her first remote job and not the first time she had to. She didn’t want to turn it on because people are watching her from her webcam and also from her tv (we have no idea why she thought that was relevant.)

  103. Stackson*

    We had a new guy start one time who had previously been self-employed, so I think going back to working for “the man” was an adjustment. We gave him some pretty simple tasks to complete–they were mindless and not very interesting, but also not difficult considering he was new–think data entry, or transferring a number from a sheet of paper to a white board. Somehow he managed to screw it up almost every single day. You had to write Number 2 next to Item 2 under the correct date, and somehow he would manage to put Number 5 next to Item 2, and for the wrong date. My coworker made him a cheat sheet to try and help him out, and a week later, she comes in and he’s clearly writing the wrong thing in the wrong spot again.
    Coworker: “Bill, where’s your cheat sheet??”
    Bill: “Oh, I’ve erased it.”
    Coworker: “What?! WHY??!”
    Bill, tapping side of head: “I’ve got it allllll right here!”

    (He did not, in fact, have it all right there)

  104. Aarti*

    trying to hire a new VP in an organization that is working very hard to be at the forefront of inclusivity and diversity and this woman at the dinner the night before her day of interviews complained about “all the immigrants moving into Michigan”.
    Ugh, what a waste of a day.

    1. Paige*

      Better to find it out before you hired, at least. We had someone who was a “champion of the value of staff” during her interview, only to completely flip and act like only tenured faculty (and she did not include tenure-track faculty) were worth her time/consideration after she was hired to oversee a department of almost all staff. Waste of almost a year.

  105. InternsAreFun*

    I somehow ended up managing the interns at a very large and sought after engineering firm. These are final year engineering students and making about $50k in 6 months, this is a very competitive internship.
    Day one – one of the interns tells me he can’t work the rest of the week, and I tell him unless it is an emergency this isn’t going to work. There is too much going on this first week to get them set up for their projects. He tells me he needs to call his mom. He whips out his phone and calls his mom. All the other interns and I listen to his part of the conversation, apparently, he wanted to go on a family trip with them but I wouldn’t let him. He then tells me his mom wants to speak to me. I told him “no, either be here this week or I replace you.”
    Looking back now I wish I had spoken to her to find out what she would have said and to explain to her that she wasn’t helping her kid!

      1. CatPrance*

        I knew another iteration of this guy, and it took a 2-year stretch of rolling disasters while on the other coast from his family. As I recall, it went like this: Job 1: Never made it through training (overslept first day, argued with trainer). Job 2: Fired within two months (misrepresented his skills). Job 3: Company went bankrupt and closed. Job 4: Part-owner embezzled all the money and fled.

        He came back briefly, and there were definitely some changes that had taken place. He had been the petted son of a male-centric family, and he’d had a LOT of air let out of him.

  106. Clumsy Librarian*

    As a recent library school graduate I scored my first professional job as the library director at a small-ish public library. On my first day I walked to work (no car) in the pouring rain. The wind was so strong it blew my umbrella inside out, and I got soaked. One of my new coworkers drove by and saw me, and offered me a ride. In her car I managed to get my umbrella and headphones completely tangled in the seatbelt and almost tripped out of the car getting out. I arrived soaked and feeling slightly frantic. The first thing the staff showed me was their process for checking in returned books, a task that was always done first thing in the morning. As I helped with checking in books and stacking them up on the desk one of my new direct reports came up behind me to grab a stack of books and move them to another area for shelving – but I didn’t see her. All is saw out of the corner of my eye was the stack of books moving, and it looked like they were toppling over, so I whipped around to try and catch them, and elbowed my new employee square in the chest, causing her to keel over in pain. Luckily, that day wasn’t a premonition of the rest of my time there – it was a great job, but it was certainly a good story that I tell to new graduates who are nervous about starting their new jobs. “If you can get through your first day without injuring a coworker you’re off to a better start than me!”

    1. Kimmy Schmidt*

      Now THAT is a first impression! I hope your colleague wasn’t too seriously injured. You got the worst day of a job out of the way on day one!

  107. Rosie*

    My employer needed someone with a tricky specialist skill set. Found a guy in March or so. It turned out he had such a complicated visa situation that involved so many legal twists and turns he had still not been able to be hired by the time the Christmas party rolled around. But he was invited anyway.
    He got waaaaaaasted and proceeded to grope, make obscene comments to, or both, every single woman at the party (but not me, because I wasn’t there). The CEO personally threw him out. There was then an emergency meeting the next day to work out whether they could afford to eat the sunk legal fees and not hire him. They could not. I learned this in the emergency all-staff meeting the following day, where the CEO stood up and laid all this out. My female colleagues damn near rioted but it was made clear it was a financial decision only, no one wanted this guy anymore but it was too late and too bad.
    The groper joined the company in mid-January. I was the only woman in the office who would speak to him; when I left that job a few years later there were still female colleagues who wouldn’t acknowledge him. He was given the worst assignments and denied the standard bonuses and promotions for two years because of his party behavior. And he took it all on the chin, never complained, and never drank at a work event again. He was obviously a bad guy but I’ve never seen anyone take their medicine so well. You couldn’t say you liked him but the way he took responsibility for what he’d done was impressive.

    1. allathian*

      Yeah, who knows what he was really thinking, but at least he could keep all his bad impulses to himself when he wasn’t drinking. That’s all one can really ask at work, anyway.

      1. Sick of Workplace Bullshit*

        No, one can ask that no sexual abusers are welcomed into their company.

    2. Sick of Workplace Bullshit*

      That is truly disgusting on the part of your employer. They told the female employees in no uncertain terms that their well-being and safety was less important than money. Sickening.

  108. PSA*

    I said something in a new-staff orientation almost 30 years ago that is of durable cringe material. I won’t be surprised to see me in this conversation.

    1. BlueBelle*

      Ahhh, yes. The wake up in the middle of the night with your heart-pounding, your brain saying “remember that thing you said 30 years ago.” LOL

  109. Lana Kane*

    This was an extern who would have been hired had she passed the externship.

    We worked in a cubicle farm, prior to lactation rooms being mandatory. Nursing moms who didn’t want to use the bathroom would hang a curtain across the entry to their cubicle with a sign saying “do not disturb”. Enough women did this that the department leadership made it known to never interrupt when a cube had a closed curtain. (I know, I know, but this is was the option available at the time)

    One of my coworkers who sat in my section was a nursing mom, and set up her curtain to pump. The extern sitting in the next cube over heard the sound of the pump, got up from her desk, flung open the curtain, and loudly asked “What are you DOING?” She was gone within the hour.

    1. eisa*

      Was it verified that the department leadership had explicitly “made the rules known” to this person, or was she supposed to absorb that information by osmosis ? If the latter, I feel that her expulsion was not justified.

      1. JSPA*

        “Your attempts at privacy are my signal to aggressively invade your space”–especially coming from someone who’s not yet an employee–why would the company not cut them loose?

        “My curiosity about that sound trumps both your ‘do not disturb’ sign and your strategically hung and closed curtain” is a red flag attitude error (and consent violation).

        If someone had been doing something else private, and taken the same pains to ensure privacy, it would be just as bad. Regardless of whether or not the extern had been told about pumping, or expected to be exposing someone’s bare chest to the world.

  110. Babs*

    Back in my chef days, we had a desk with a computer and printer in the corner of the kitchen. It gave us a spot where we could keep up on administrative duties and ordering while still keeping an eye on production.

    I had brought in a temp to cover the dish room while my full time dishwasher was out on vacation and he got to the kitchen about 15 minutes early. One of the cooks showed him into the kitchen and told him to have a seat at the desk to wait for me to get there. This man proceeded to turn on the computer (which, up until this point, was not password locked. We wanted all of our staff to be able to login to their benefits and payroll at any time since a few of our employees didn’t have home internet) and watched hardcore pornography in full view of my entire staff. My grill cook intercepted me at the door to let me know and I sent him home immediately.

    The kicker: this was the kitchen for the cafeteria in a corporate dining room so I spent the first half hour of my day explaining to my facilities manager and the IT guy who took care of us why that computer was going to be flagged for viewing prohibited material so our internet access wouldn’t be disabled

  111. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    The one guy who on his FIRST day on helpdesk went around all the women with, shall we say, large system attributes, and asked them if they were single.

    When taken aside to say ‘wtf are you doing?’ he tried to say something about how he wasn’t doing anything wrong because it wasn’t harassment.

    This was 15 or so years ago and I’ve never forgotten it! Yes I was one of the ones he approached – it became obvious on his lap of the office that he was only approaching those of us with large bosoms.

    He did stop though, took a stern ‘I don’t care if you feel a need for a girlfriend, leave the staff alone’ word from the boss. To his credit he stayed on for 5 years and gradually turned into a more respectful rounded individual.

  112. Anonymous Poster*

    New hire at an engineering outfit.

    He was smart, and he knew it, but didn’t seem to realize that people with a decade or two of experience are also very smart. Questioned everything, repeatedly argued with me as his trainer, and at one point I sent him to a subject matter expert to explain something technical because he simply wouldn’t believe me. An hour later, said subject matter expert loomed behind me in my cubicle. She glared at me back until I turned around and said, “Never send him to me again” and walked out. I knew it would go… fascinatingly, but apparently it went even more fascinatingly than I expect.

    This subject matter expert is incredible, and anytime I had a question about her subject she was incredibly helpful and knowledgeable. New hire decided to teach her how her system worked (I don’t think it was mansplaining per se, because new hire did this to everyone, men and women). It ended with him shouting at her to learn her system and was escalated to management who… didn’t do anything. Which wasn’t surprising, but he wasn’t allowed in that part of the building anymore.

    New hire also regularly thought it was okay to take naps at the office when his work was done. But it’s the kind of job where you always have side projects to work on when everything else is done. I guess his side project was checking his eyelids for leaks?

    It took another year or two before he shaped up, but his job wasn’t ever really at risk. Though it really, really should have been.

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I’m curious if the SME ever had dealings with him again?

      Also, I think someone can mansplain to other men, because the idea of mansplaining is thinking you are smarter than that person you are speaking to, but I could be wrong. In any case, he was definitely mansplaining to that SME.

      And I am also appalled that he managed to keep his job if the amazing SME had that experience with him. Sucks that management didn’t deal with him.

      1. Anonymous Poster*

        I wish that experience was a one off! He was very full of himself. I guess I’m not comfortable saying that anyone that’s full of themselves is automatically mansplaining. And I thought mansplaining had the context of a man thinking, “Oh OF COURSE that woman wouldn’t know as much about X and Y…” versus “Oh OF COURSE everyone else doesn’t know as much about X and Y…”

        I could be wrong, but it strikes me that saying that anyone that acts this way is mansplaining cheapens when it happens with that gender dynamic.

  113. Dust Bunny*

    New kennel tech at a veterinarian’s office who had a full-on panic attack because she was afraid of large dogs, and somehow hadn’t expected that to be a problem.

    2. Ace in the Hole*

      Man, that’s worse than the guy who quit on the second day because he had an intense fear of rodents and hadn’t realized he might encounter rats at work. He’d seen a rat scurry across the floor on the other side of the room.

      …we are garbage workers. At a garbage dump. The room was full of garbage. I don’t know what he expected.

  114. Dunno, I usually just read AAM...*

    I had forgotten about this until now, but in a job many (many) years ago, we (the existing staff, of which I was the youngest at about 20) took a new hire out to lunch on her first day. We all sat down and her first question was “have any of you had an affair? I want to cheat on my husband and need some advice.” I don’t remember much beyond the stunned silence that followed!

    3. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Another story where I feel like your company was actually just on Candid Camera because wow, is that person for real???

  115. Spillz*

    First week that this fellow was on the job, I sent around a mockup of a slideshow / video thing that we were going to be using to promote an event on social media to most of our team, mostly as an FYI that it was complete and going live soon.

    Now, our company used a primary color (bright orange) that was admittedly somewhat garish, but was a signature part of our brand, and then secondary colors for marketing, powerpoints, etc, as most brands do. Due to the nature of this event, I had used some of the softer colors in this design, and on the email chain with everyone, including our CMO, he said something along the lines of: Love this design! Wish we could use these colors all the time instead of the bright orange. It looks so much better.

    Not the most egregious thing someone could do, but it was just a lack of awareness and I cringed HARD. How did he know that this wasn’t the team that picked that primary color? What if he was just insulting all of us and implying a terrible decision? He was so new, he hadn’t even seen the guidelines doc yet that outlined all of our colors and yet, decided that he would show initiative with this foot in mouth comment. To me it was just a good example of why it’s better to watch and learn for a few weeks than jump right in and try to look smart.

  116. Winifred*

    New hire started and we discover that any work-related conversation brought her to tears due to a mental health issue. She asked us to ignore it and she would continue to work even while crying. Everyone followed her lead and ignored it. Then started screaming arguments with her fiance on the phone, constantly losing things like her car keys and her engagement ring, accusing the security guards of steal the ring, chronic lateness even with our boss giving her a very flexible schedule as an accommodation, accusing the people who sat closest to her of spying on her, and more. Eventually she was fired during her probation period. It was an unfortunate situation. She had moved for the job and had had a lot of support systems in place where she had moved from, but what she had in place when she moved for this job wasn’t as robust.

  117. RG*

    I was a trainer for a tech company. The strategy for the role I was training was to hire a bunch of temps and then at the end of their contracts hire them directly if they were doing well. The training period was a couple weeks long and was classroom instruction.

    On his first day, one temp fell asleep while sitting at the conference table with his new coworkers. I let the first one go—maybe he’d been up all night worrying about his new job!

    But he fell asleep again—snoring lightly—on the second day. And on Wednesday, the third day. I woke him up both times with something discreet-ish like “Hey, are you all right?”

    By Thursday I was 100% over it. I pulled him aside after class and asked tactfully if there was a reason he kept falling asleep (since I didn’t want to be the jerk who yells at someone for a medical condition beyond their control). His reason: “Lack of sleep…I guess?” I told him that he had to figure things out because it would be a problem if he fell asleep in my class again.

    The next day he fell asleep and then, after I woke him up, he played YouTube WITH THE SOUND ON while I was teaching. After being called out on that, he watched YouTube on mute WHILE I STOOD BEHIND HIM.

    I asked my boss if we could please end his contract, and she had me fire him. I was one notch above entry level and to this day it is the only time I’ve ever fired someone. It was definitely not an appropriate thing for me to be doing. I had no idea what to do and no one supported me, so I had to walk the man I’d just fired out of the building by myself. We were alone in an elevator and everything. (My dad was furious when he heard this story.) I had no idea how to send him off, so I boneheadedly told him to have a nice day…after I’d just fired him.

    That’s just one of the crazy experiences I had in that training job, but it was probably the fastest a new hire made an impression.

    1. Art3mis*

      I’m also a trainer and last summer during my very first new hire training we had to fire someone. Luckily it was not my call to do so and I wasn’t the one to do it. I felt bad enough when the guy said he was leaving the meeting because his manager called him away and he’d see us all tomorrow. I knew he wouldn’t be back. I can’t imagine having to do the firing. I’m not properly trained to be a trainer, I’m sure as hell not properly trained to be a manager.

  118. Anonymous Badger*

    I was a shift supervisor at a sandwich shop a little over a decade ago now, and I was responsible for training the new staff. It was a new hire’s first day and about an hour into it, I started to train him how to properly hold a knife and cut the roll so he wouldn’t injure himself. Instead of listening, he told me I was doing it wrong, grabbed a knife, and before I could stop him he decided he would show me the “correct” way to do it . . . and then he cut about half an inch off his finger. He spent the rest of his shift at the hospital and was fired the next morning by my boss.

    2. Elizabeth West*

      My sandwich job had a rule that anyone cleaning the slicer must wear a Kevlar glove. It was a firing offense not to use it. We were all out front during a lunch rush when suddenly there came a high-pitched scream from the back. My boss and I sprinted back there to find my coworker in utter panic, clutching his hand in a bloody towel, and blood all over the slicer, the walls, the table, and the floor. Sure enough, no Kevlar—he’d horizontally sliced the top half of his thumb clean off.

      Boss took him to the ER. I had to clean up the gory kitchen—no one else would even go back there. She didn’t fire him; I don’t know why. He must have given her a compelling reason or else his puppy-dog eyes were on full blast that day.

      1. KoiFeeder*

        My guess would be that she’d figured he’d learned his lesson on that one, but man.

  119. Lynn*

    I used to do intern activities for my department. One summer we had an intern starting two weeks after the rest of the cohort, so he missed orientation. I worked with his manager to grab some time to go over the material with him 1:1 in his first day and once we finished he looked at me and said… “do I have to do that?”

    I chose to interpret that as being overwhelmed with all the new material and we moved on. He was not the worst intern but the one we ended up having the most interesting stories about.

  120. Birdie*

    I was tasked to babysit new hires in my department while we waited for their federal security clearance to clear. One of the names I recognized as someone my recently (as in only a couple months) ex-husband and I went to high school with, but I had never really interacted with her before. Less than ten minutes into meeting each other on her first day I found out my ex-husband had been cheating on me for years. Apparently he had attempted to cheat on me with her but was unsuccessful, and she had receipts. I have no idea why she felt it was an appropriate thing to tell me, especially since I had already mentioned we weren’t together anymore.

    2. CatPrance*

      “Oh, hi, Marsha, how nice to see you again! Joey tried to have an affair with me, you know — I mean, he was banging every girl in town, but he just never made it with me — ”

      Who in hell says something like that? And why?

    3. allathian*

      Ouch! I mean, I can sort of see why someone who’s very self-centered would want to tell, especially if they assumed that you must’ve known that your ex had been cheating on you and that you’d divorced him because you caught him at it (incorrectly). But why she felt the need to tell you within ten minutes of being introduced, and why she’d kept the receipts (WTF?), I have no idea.

  121. Dust Bunny*

    One place I worked rehired a girl (we were all in our late teens and early 20s) who had worked there before they hired me, but everyone who had already worked with her was annoyed that she’d been hired back because she was an infrequent bather (by choice–had a perfectly functional bathroom and the means to afford water but didn’t believe she needed to bathe more than once a week. We live in a warm climate) and had no filter. My bosses at this place were lazy hirers and I’m sure they were hoping to get someone who didn’t need training.

    She was fired a second time when she wouldn’t stop talking about her sex life and asked a coworker about the relative tastes of various bodily fluids.

    She honestly seemed to think all this was normal, too–you never got the impression that she was doing it for shock value. We all Had Questions about her home life during her formative years.

    1. Order of the Banana*

      The taste…of bodily fluids. I’m sitting here with my hands pressed against my mouth in shock. Consider my pearl necklace clutched.

    3. Dust Bunny*

      We all suspected that her childhood had been pretty deprived and dysfunctional (possibly/probably to the point of being neglected/abusive) so we wanted to be sympathetic, but she wouldn’t take input about what not to do at work and finally everyone was just too grossed out.

  122. Leslie Knope 2.0*

    Ohhhh I’ve got some good ones.
    I used to hire lifeguards and swim instructors, meaning my applicants and new hires were almost exclusively 15-18 years old, and it was most of their first jobs.
    Here are my favorites:
    1. The girl who provided a resume that was 4 pages long with the last two pages being her “interests and hobbies,” which included activities such as spelunking and flying single-engine airplanes. I should note that a resume was definitely not required nor expected to get an interview. I never asked her about it, but it was fairly obvious she just googled up what a resume was, filled in her two previous jobs (babysitting and one retail position), and then clicked print. Sweet girl though!
    2. The employee who wrote that he spoke fluent Japanese on his resume. Little did he know, one of my fellow supervisors used to live and teach English in Japan. I had hired him without her present and filled her in that he said he spoke Japanese. She tried to speak Japanese to him at orientation, and he shrunk into himself and mumbled something back to her. She later filled me in that the extent of his Japanese was clearly limited to what he learned from watching subtitled anime. Turned out to be a decent employee still! But yeah—don’t embellish your resume like this, because you never know when someone in Parks and Recreation in Texas speaks fluent Japanese.
    3. The girl who showed up for her first day of teaching swim lessons in full clothing. Our work uniform was a swimsuit, for obvious reasons. She informed the manager on duty before the lessons started that she couldn’t teach in the water and was going to teach on deck. This is something we did not do as our lessons were hands on and with children ages 3-10, most of which couldn’t swim independently. The manager told her she’d need to get into her swimsuit and get into the water. She then told the manager that she couldn’t because she was on her period and couldn’t get in the water. The manager called me and our other supervisor, completely unsure of how to handle this, to which my supervisor took the girl aside and disclosed feminine hygiene products she could use. She then told my supervisor “Well I’m a Virgin, so I can’t do that”.
    Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was her last day with us.
    4. The one I was most impressed by was a new hire lifeguard that was starting his first shift. The lifeguards would always shadow a veteran staff member on stand, and then take the stand by themselves on their last part of the shift. The shift was at our Senior Pool, it was a weekday evening, and it was mostly empty. This place was typically dull and uneventful except for the Seniors complaining the water was too cold. The manager on duty assured him he’d be fine and that he’d probably only struggle with boredom. Except, sure enough, a woman on the side of the pool had a sudden diabetic emergency and required the help of the new staff member. He activated our Emergency Action Plan (aka blowing a long whistle) and ran to her assistance. He went through everything perfectly. He later told me he thought it was a joke at first and that he was being hazed! He eventually went on to be promoted and is a supervisor there now.
    5. And lastly, at an orientation, I was going through training exercises with the lifeguards. There was some small talk on the side of the pool where we were getting to know each other while they were waiting to practice skills, and one of the lifeguards asked me what I studied in college. I filled him in that I had double majored in English and mathematics and was at that point in grad school for my master’s in statistics. He raised his hand for a high five, shouted out, “You go, girlfriend!” And then slapped my palm. This was not the 90s—this was 2015. He did not last the summer as his lifeguard skills were as lacking as his social skills.

    1. urguncle*

      I briefly worked in early childhood education and the company I worked for took on minimum-wage high schoolers to boost our instructor-to-child ratios for the summer months. I still think about the rising high school junior who sent in a 4 page resume with accomplishments listed back to kindergarten and first grade.

    2. Dust Bunny*

      3. For the record, some women legitimately cannot use internal products, but she should have brought up during the interview that there were times when she couldn’t wear a swimming suit and asked if there was an accommodation to be made.

        1. Dust Bunny*

          No, but being a virgin doesn’t rule out any of the other reasons. They might also be the reason she’s a virgin, and they might not be properly diagnosed yet, or she might for whatever reason be more comfortable saying she’s a virgin that saying she has one of those conditions.

        2. JSPA*

          Without getting too detailed…

          if she’s only aware of her own, uh, structure (as wasn’t and isn’t uncommon)…and if that structure is indeed prohibitive for using internal products…she may well not be aware that the vast majority of people who have vaginas, and who have not had vaginal sex, can in fact use internal products.
          .
          .
          .
          .
          Details for those who care:

          Imperforate hymen is seen in 1-2% of assigned-female births; the level of reconstructive surgery varies from actual construction to a minimal perforation. Significant closure without being fully imperforate affects a few percent more. Additionally, there are people who have been surgically altered to restrict access [we can agree this practice is abusive, while still admitting it exists and has long existed]. Add in that the condition can run in families, and, well, “for us, it’s essentially impossible while we’re virgins” isn’t a “fake belief about tampons taking your virginity,” it’s a literal description of what’s physically achievable without force, blood and pain.

          (It has always struck me as a bit glib for tampon manufacturers to ignore people whose genitalia deviate from the average, in their instructions and labeling.)

    3. Jamie Starr*

      As a former lifeguard I laughed at #3 thinking she can teach lessons from the deck in clothes! Maybe – just maybe – if you’re senior enough to teach level 5 or 6 you can manage to teach solely from the deck. But even then you should have your suit on in case there is an emergency and you need to jump in.

  123. AnonCorpTrainer*

    This wasn’t their fault at all but I’ve never forgotten it. I happened to look out the window as one of the new hires was walking towards the building. He noticed that there were geese in the fountain and detoured to go look at them. They had nested and if you know anything about Canadian Geese, they can be vicious! The geese started chasing him, he freaked out, ran around to get away from them, slipped on the geese poop, landed on his back in the grass, and had 4 geese honking at him. Poor guy came in covered in poop and wet grass. I told him to go home and we would try again tomorrow.

    2. Dust Bunny*

      Okay, I would never actively harm a goose but they were everywhere in the city in which I grew up and my favorite place to see them will always be flying overhead, on their way to somewhere else.

    4. I should really pick a name*

      I feel like a story like that is supposed to end with “We’ve been married for 30 years” :P

    6. Elizabeth West*

      This reminds me of the guy at one job who got fired for kicking at a goose. Company thought it would be cool for our campuses to have water features (like a golf course) and you know where there are ponds, there will be waterfowl. Welp, those cobra chickens are federally protected and you can’t mess with them. To be fair, it was attacking him as he walked by (but not near) a nest, but they canned him anyway.

      1. redwinemom*

        I never heard of a ‘Cobra Chicken’ and had to Google it to find the type of bird that it was.
        HA! I’m kind of liking it now!

    7. Elenna*

      Oh noooo I would have seriously considered quitting on the spot in order to never see anyone there ever again. Poor guy. (Also, my university was covered in Canadian Geese, screw them.)

    8. Okee dokee pokee*

      I live by a river in Canada and we have Canadian geese here, basically in my back yard, throughout the warmer months, raising their babies. I love them! I love hearing their honking and I love watching them with their families — one adult will eat grass while another keeps watch for the family. We know to walk around them so you don’t get hissed at or chased. It’s really much better than where I previously lived in Canada where we had to watch out for bears and mountain lions.

    9. allathian*

      The most certain way of ensuring no geese in your stretch of creek is to have a pair of swans nesting there. We have both mute and whooper swans. They’re less aggressive than geese, but the males can weigh up to 30 lbs. Having one of those come at you with wings and neck outstretched would be enough to scare the crap out of most people. My devout grandma used to call them Jesus birds because they walk (run) on water when they take flight.

      Poor guy, though. Geese poop smells awful.

  124. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    I’m going to put in for a GREAT first impression.

    Our office has a really wide array of functions, our rule of thumb is it takes 1 year to even see them all, 2 to become reasonably proficient. We are also very much 1000 things flying in all directions so not at all a straightforward training plan. It can be really overwhelming at first because within the first few days you can briefly touch 50 functions all with their own set of quirks.

    New hire at the end of the 2nd day sent our office a spreadsheet – tab 1 the functions she had been trained in and felt reasonably comfortable proceeding, tab 2 the functions she had been shown quickly but felt she needed more training or documentation and general questions, tab 3 the functions she had been told to put on her to-do list but not yet been trained in.

    She maintained this list for the first few months in google drive until the number in tabs 2 and 3 were reasonable enough she could just ask when something came up. It was such a huge help for us to make sure she was getting the right info and to not assume someone else had already trained her in an area. It also allowed her to proceed with work without interrupting us every 30 seconds and reminded us to set aside training time.

  125. Lady Ann*

    I had a new hire tell me, her younger, female supervisor, that she did not respect women or people younger than her.
    She quit a few months later.

    1. allathian*

      Ugh, male misogyny is bad enough but internalized misogyny by someone who looks like and probably identifies as a woman is somehow even worse.

  126. urguncle*

    I work with software that is relatively complex, with things that people learn every day, even ones who were part of the original development team.
    A non-technical customer success employee proudly announced 3 weeks in that they “more or less have mastered the platform.” When I heard this, I let out what could only be described as a guffaw.
    Every time they submit a ticket, I want to ask “sorry, but I thought you’d mastered the platform, why are you asking me?”

  127. Ingrid*

    Two stories:

    1) My brand-new sales manager who showed up on the very first day and told a room full of women in their 20s: “I get my best ideas in the shower. I wish you all could shower with me every morning.” He was male, in his 50s. TBH, he was a terrible employee.

    2) The guy who was doing our gas line for our basement finish. It was his first day; he was unsupervised. He left around 5PM and I woke up at 1AM smelling gas. I was 30 weeks pregnant, with two little kids, it was the middle of December, and my husband was out of the country. We called the gas company, I woke my kids, and we hunkered in the front yard with blankets while we waited. The gas guys said it was the worst gas leak they had ever seen that didn’t end in tragedy. If I had started my car or opened the garage, we all would have blown up (per the gas company guys). The original gas line guy got fired. It was intense.

    2. L Dubb*

      Omg. That’s so scary.

      Years ago, my ex caused a gas leak. We were installing a fence, he said he called and had the utility company mark the lines, so I didn’t give it a second thought.

      Except he lied. He never called. (Hindsight, I should have realized, because there weren’t any spray painted lines anywhere, and things dude lied about everything.)

      He hit a line while we were digging to set a post and the response was something I will never forget. No joke, there were 12 fire trucks at my house, the streets were blocked off and the fire chief was there. I had grabbed my two large dogs but didn’t grab their leashes because I was in such a hurry to get them out of the house. I was holding onto their collars for dear life while sitting on the street corner just hoping my house didn’t explode.

      The chief and the firefighters were very kind to me, they were a lot more stern with my ex.

      Even 15+ years later, I haven’t forgotten how absolutely terrifying that was, and my leak was outside. I can’t even imagine having an indoor gas leak and having kids, I’m so sorry that happened to you!

      1. CatPrance*

        The electrical connection to the garage door opener could have been enough to set off an explosion. When there’s petroleum gas, all it takes is a spark to ignite it. Static electricity is enough.

  128. Subject_Clause_Predicate*

    This one is quite mild by comparison to some of these, but there was a woman, let’s call her Jane, who started at my office about six weeks after I did. Our job is very compliance regulation-focused and sometimes the acronyms we use have some overlap with acronyms that are used for different things in the private industry we oversee– think “Teapot Coordinating Provisions” for the regulator but “Task Catching Protocol” for the teapot manufacturer. On Jane’s first day, she argued with a senior member of staff (who had been with the organization for over 20 years) about whether or not a particular agency was responsible for TCP reporting. It was obvious to the rest of us what the misunderstanding was, but she would not back down. It made a horrible impression on a lot of us and was just one in a long line of her believing to know more than she did and doing a generally poor job at any task she was assigned. She lasted two years at a place where it’s not uncommon for people to stay their entire careers. The cherry on top was that she left for a private organization with notoriously terrible compliance practices.

  129. Fabulous*

    I interviewed for a temp job to cover a maternity leave once – I was not selected. However, the following Wednesday I received a call asking if I was still available (I was). After I’d been there a while, I asked what happened to the first person they’d hired. In the two days she was there, she apparently had come to work drunk, had a family emergency, and didn’t show back up.

    1. Fabulous*

      To add onto this story – once it was discovered I had tech savvy (very early on), in addition to the regular administrative tasks I was hired to do, they put me in charge of re-vamping their entire training presentation and had me creating new training modules, which led to me being hired full-time in a role dedicated to instructional design. Now – 6 years later – I’m still working for the same company doing it in an official capacity on the corporate level. Who knew I’d actually find a career through a temp job doing something totally different!

  130. NHNonprofitDirector*

    More than 20 years ago, I worked for a small publishing company and had to hire a part-time assistant. My budget was miniscule and I had few applicants so I went with the best of the bunch, a young man who interviewed with a hole in his sweater, which I chose to overlook. On his first day he papered over his cubicle with images of naked North American Indigenous people – think risque old-fashioned children’s book illustrations. When asked about it, he responded that although he was white, he had an affinity for the culture. After having established a familiarity with Internet research in the interview (and this was pretty new back then) he began to resist doing it and referred to going online as “jumping on the Devil’s back.” A few weeks in he didn’t show up on a day an assignment was due and later said it was because he’d fallen in love the night before. When he did show up he was disheveled and said he hadn’t slept and excused himself to get breakfast because he also hadn’t eaten. Due to falling in love.
    I wish I could have fired him on the spot but the owner made me go through a process that took a loooooong
    few weeks.

  131. After 33 years ...*

    One for the plus side:
    We ask faculty job candidates to present a teaching demonstration to an undergraduate class, on a topic of our choosing, fitting into the normal lecture progression for that class. Consider the candidate applying for their first faculty job and encountering:
    – a cross-continent journey, with mediocre connections and a weather delay;
    – a ~ 3 am arrival in consequence;
    – mislaid baggage;
    – a lecture topic they had never studied, completely outside of their research area;
    – a lecture room with too few seats, with prospective faculty and graduate student colleagues sitting on the floor;
    – a class that was facing a midterm later that week;
    – TWO projector failures; and
    – giving a solid, well-constructed lecture that made the hiring decision very clear.

    1. OrigCassandra*

      RESPECT to that candidate. I had a 2am arrival prior to an interview once. I made a decent impression, but it was hard. (I did not get an offer. I know the person they hired, and given that choice, I would have hired that person also — zero grudges from me.)

    2. AnotherLibrarian*

      I once had to do a faculty interview after arriving at about 4am, getting 4 hours of sleep, and then attempting the day long interview. I did not get hired (though I knew who they did hire and they made a great choice), but I was told by the committee they were impressed that I was even able to be coherent.

  132. Chagrined Teacher*

    This doesn’t quite fit the brief, but it’s a good story.

    Once I was about to start a summer job coaching new teachers in a fast-track certification program. I googled the names of all the people assigned to my site just out of idle curiosity. We in education tend to be pretty cautious about what we put online, because students have phones and know how to google too, but I thought maybe I’d come across a LinkedIn profile or a standard bio on a school website that would let me know a little about them professionally.

    Imagine my surprise when googling the name of one of the folks at the site turned up a blog by one of the people detailing a torrid affair … WITH ONE OF HER STUDENTS … and the aftermath (including her getting fired)!

    I did, in fact, immediately reach out to the program director to inform her and remark that in my opinion, someone who had displayed such poor judgment on multiple fronts should not be permitted to work anywhere near high school kids or guide brand new teachers.

    1. Dragon_Dreamer*

      Are you sure it was the same person? If so, that’s disgusting. Why didn’t it show up during required background checks?

  133. Still Queer, Still Here*

    I have a part-time side gig at a church doing digicomm. Website design/maintenance, social media graphics, and AV support for worship services. I was hired at the same time that an Interim pastor started. She’s in her 50s, late to the clergy profession, had only served for a handful of years; she had done something like archiving before. I had been warned that she was not tech-savvy, so I was somewhat prepared. Things I was not ready for within the first week:
    -A conversation in which she implied that anyone who uses social media is morally deficient in some way. She said this to me, THE SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER.
    – In response to me asking for access to a folder with professional exterior photos: “Why would you need that for marketing? I don’t understand.”
    -*watching me discuss a google form with another staff member* “It’s like you’re speaking another language!”

    It’s been a year now, and it’s still happening. And like, if she had an interest in learning instead of constantly implying that my skill set is a necessary evil that we have to use to exist and reach people who are morally lacking because they use technology… I wouldn’t mind. This is a liberal church, with a lot of diverse and welcoming viewpoints. I’m not the only not-straight person on staff, if that gives you an idea. So this attitude from her is kind of insane, you know? Fingers crossed we hire someone to fill the position permanently soon. I’ve about had it.

  134. NyMari*

    I work for a nonprofit that serves that has several shelters. During new employee orientation when we were going over boundaries with clients including not being allowed to have any intimate relationships with them, a new (male) staff member who was hired as the second in command for one of our women’s shelters asked how he is supposed to handle it when a male staff member is falsely accussed of assalting a female client because in his experience women lie about these things all the time.

    I immediately walked into the HR office and told them I was not comfortable with this person remaining and employee, and luckily, they agreed right away.

    1. Bernice Clifton*

      “how he is supposed to handle it when a male staff member is falsely accussed of assalting a female client because in his experience women lie about these things all the time.”

      First of all, GROSS and I’m so glad that he got fired, but putting aside that part – he really told on himself!

  135. Jamalama*

    I was training a well-meaning but somehow inept new hire at a restaurant many years ago. He seemed flummoxed by the concept of concentrated juice (you know, the kind that comes in a frozen can and you add 2-cans worth of water to to reconstitute it). He seemed incredibly confused with everything: pulling a can of juice out of a cooler, putting it in a pitcher, adding the water, he was just SO CLUELESS. And he asks “what kind of juice IS this?” and was told, “concentrate!” so, he did. He squished up his face and made of show of concentrating really hard.

  136. River*

    When I used to work in retail, there was a new hire that came in on his first day in a suit and tie and brought a briefcase. What was in the briefcase, if anything? I don’t know. The employee dress code was that you had to wear the store’s branded shirts and black pants/khakis. I don’t know if he knew that either. But seeing a young guy walking in with a suit and tie and briefcase did get some attention. Yes there’s that saying that first impressions can be everything. From then on throughout his time with the company, he never wore that suit and tie again.

    1. Dragon_Dreamer*

      I got told I was “weird” by a younger shift supervisor after I was hired at the 3 letter pharmacy. Why? Because I dressed nicely in a conservative blouse and slacks for my interview.

      I wore the required uniform to actually work, but was “weird” for not wearing a t-shirt and jeans. 9.9

      1. River*

        That’s not nice that you got labeled as weird. Don’t take it personally. Sounds like a lack of communication. Thanks for sharing.

        1. Dragon_Dreamer*

          This was the same shift supervisor who later left out a list of “Things to Say to DD Before Summer” that included a LOT of nasty remarks about my appearance (especially my at the time huge chest), my car, and liberal use of the R word along with diagnostic guesses.

  137. NormyNorman*

    I had a new hire who was fresh out of school and didn’t have a grasp on office norms. From constantly asking for the temperature in the large open office could be changed instead of bringing in a cardigan, to complaining about the equipment she was assigned (it was the same as everyone else below management levels), to essentially asking to be promoted in their first week. It was… a lot. I corrected where I could and hoped that after a couple of weeks they would get it from my corrections and observations. They did not.

    1. Dust Bunny*

      OMG did you get our intern? We had one who complained constantly about it being cold–we’re in archives; it’s always cold–and could we turn the a/c higher? No. Good grief, woman, if you think you want to do this for a living you need to start stocking up on layers.

  138. A Pinch of Salt*

    We had a manager in our department originally from France. When he met one of the new customer service reps, he told her the name of his hometown in France (sorry, I don’t remember the name).

    She responded with “oooo the sexy city.” After seeing our confusion, she explained it’s sexy because all their license plate start with 69.

  139. Tasha*

    Former company had a tedious data verification project with a strict deadline from a regulatory agency. We hired 12 temps to go through customer files and verify or update the database. One left after a couple hours, one didn’t return from lunch, and another didn’t show up the second day. Only the last one gave notice to the temp agency. (Three of them lasted the summer and completed the project.)

  140. GOOD TIMES*

    Had one new hire, Jenny. She was just the worst.
    On her first day, she was an hour and 20 minutes late. No explanations, no apologies. She spent most of the day on loud, personal (and trivial) phone calls. When told about a meeting the next afternoon, she announced she couldn’t attend because she needed the afternoon off to chaperone a school field trip. She walked around the office asking the hierarchy, wanting to know “who was above who”. She gave the impression that she only wanted to know who she had to be nice to. When entering the warehouse part of the building, the manager there told her she had to wear safety shoes. She said she didn’t have to listen to him because he was only a warehouse worker. She said to her own supervisor, “hey maybe you can explain this to me over lunch. If you have a wife, she’ll just have to get used to it. I like work lunches”. Just….everyone knew she would be toxic as all heck. She was let go at the end of the day and never had to see her for a second day thank goodness.

    Then there was the new guy who made an impression for just a silly reason. When work was over at 5:00, a few of them invited new guy out for a drink. He said “Sure, it’s 5:00 somewhere!”. They said, “Um, yeah…here” He turned red and said he can’t believe he just said that. Like he got really flustered. The next day he apologized again. Really over the top in his embarrassment. He’s still with the company 12 years later, and his nickname is “5 o’clock” LOL, which usually has to be explained to new supervisors, lest they think he just has a penchant for leaving early every day.

    1. ecnaseener*

      Hahaha guy #2 is amazing…trying to do a Social Script, forgetting how jokes work, very relatable!

  141. Former Radio Guy*

    At my last job in radio where I was the operations manager for a small AM station with an FM translater, my job was as the primary announcer and I oversaw the rest of the programming which was primarily satellite delivered or pre-recorded. I worked for the general manager who oversaw the entire station operations and sold advertising time. We were the only two full time employees. We brought in a communications college student as an intern to basically help with social media content and to learn about digital audio production and help with doing commercials and other audio production. We commonly did this for school internship credits. On his first day, by the end of his shift he was throwing a temper tantrum with the general manager insisting that he could do my job better than me and wanted to get a salary more than what I was making. I overheard this while I was preparing programming before I left for the day.

    After I left and went to band practice, before the practice started I caught the drummer on the phone with my boss who was still in the office and my boss was chatting about getting his chimney sweeped since the drummer has a chimney sweeping service. During the course of the conversation, the intern stormed back into the station and began yelling all sorts of employment demands at my boss and eventually yells something about being oppressed by the old white men who ran the radio station (oddly enough the intern was also white). After the tirade ended and we were still overhearing this on the phone, the drummer casually said to my boss that you need to get rid of this kid.

    The unfortunate ending for me is that I’m now out of radio thanks to an ownership change at my station which made me redundant and this kid is working in radio and first got hired by the company that I was laid off from before I had my last radio job.

    1. Ms. Afleet Alex*

      As a former radio person (former for so many reasons, including pay, workplace toxicity, lack of training, etc.) I feel for you. And this intern thinks he’s going to get a real salary in this line of work?? Clearly he’s new!

  142. Oh Honey!*

    Intern’s first day in the early 2000s. In the span of his first 2 hours he:
    – Admitted he was drunk during his (phone) interview for the job
    – Inquired about the college alma maters of every person in our department and then went on a lengthy rant insulting each and every one of them
    – Saw a photo of his boss’ wife and informed him how “out of his league” she was and detailed what he’d like to do with her “if she were mine”
    – Told the women in the office what each of them could do to “look prettier” (i.e. wear more makeup or less baggy clothes… mine was that I needed better posture)

    He then spent the entire afternoon on the phone, which we later learned was a long-distance call to his girlfriend… in Japan.

  143. Dezzi*

    I took a job as a housekeeper in a nursing home the summer between high school & college. I was 17 and hadn’t finished the Hepatitis B vaccine series yet, so they gave me that and my TB test during orientation. Have I mentioned I’m not great with needles? I did okay while the nurse was doing them, chatted with some people, then got up to go back to the orientation room. Walked about fifteen feet before my ears started ringing and I could tell I was about to faint, so I very quickly just sat down on the floor right where I was.

    You know what happens in a nursing home when they see someone on the floor? Literally everyone comes running, because they assume a resident fell and could be seriously injured. By the time I opened my eyes again, there were three nurses and four CNAs standing over me. Needless to say, that wasn’t how I’d planned on introducing myself to my coworkers!!!

  144. Old Med Tech*

    This first year out of college I worked in a hospital lab. The lab manager hired a new phlebotomist. On the forth day they did not show up to work. Someone at work had read the morning paper and the new person had been arrested for a B and E and was in jail. That was the shortest time span of employment I remember for any lab employee.

  145. Just Me*

    At my boyfriend’s job about four years ago, this new hire was asked to introduce himself to the whole office during a staff meeting. The guy stood up and did a freestyle rap about how he was excited for the new job because “I do things a little differently.” The same employee took a three hour lunch on his first day to go get drunk at a strip club to celebrate getting the new job; when a senior employee asked where he was, new hire said he’d treated himself to a long lunch because “this is just syllabus week, anyway.”

    He did not last long at the company.

  146. Not that casual*

    I worked at a non-profit housed by a university. We were, needless to say, a relatively casual bunch.

    I received a promotion and moved from cubeland to an office. My replacement (new hire) came to my office on his first day to review some training. He sat in the guest chair, leaned back, and put his feet on my desk!!!

    Wearing, as it turns out, slippers and no socks. The slippers would normally be on the order of a silly quirk to rib someone about – but not on my desk, thank you very much!

  147. Former Truck Photographer*

    At my old job, one of my primary responsibilities was to take pictures of shipping containers that would be going overseas for customs records. One thing the drivers would have do to was to close the door with the container number on it while leaving the other opened so it was clear what was in there.

    Generally I knew every driver who came in and they were generally, at the very least, polite. On this day, it was a new guy. I asked him to close one door so I could get a picture. Well, he took offense and started screaming every swear word under the planet at me about how it WASN’T his job, he WASN’T going to do it, if I wanted it done, I should do it myself. In the end he did close the door – while continuing to hurl verbal abuse at me – and sped off in a huff.

    I went inside and sent an e-mail to the shipping person, telling what had happened and making it clear that if he returned, I would not be working with him. Within 10 minutes she responded – she called the trucking company he worked for, told them what happened, and they responded with “Yeah, um, today is his first and last day.”

  148. Former Retail Lifer*

    I was a manager at a large office supplies store. A manager from another department interviewed a few candidates that he liked but he only had one open full-time position, so he hired someone part-time for my department, “Katie,” on my behalf. I would normally appreciate this, as I generally trusted his judgment…but not this time. Her first day was on the same first day as the woman hired for the other department, “Jen,” so I did their new hire orientation together. We were completing new hire paperwork and Katie started questioning everything, from the time clock policy to paid time off to the dress code. We would provide the uniform shirt, but employees had to supply their own khakis. She told me she couldn’t afford them, which was fair, so I told her she could wait until she got a paycheck and she only needed one pair. She got LOUD with me and told me she would only wear jeans. I told her that was against dress code, and we would happily wait to enforce dress code until a few days after she got paid, but she still refused to be “told what to spend my paycheck on.” She also yelled at me about filling out her W-9 form because it was intrusive and wondered why we needed her social security number. She was in her 40s and must have ad a legit job by that age, right? I left the room and had them watch training videos since it wasn’t going well. When I came back 15 minutes later, Katie had convinced Jen that we had made a mistake and that Katie was supposed to be hired for the full-time position and Jen was supposed to have been hired for the part-time position. They were supposed to be filling out their paperwork while the videos played. Jen had all hers filled out and Katie still refused to fill out the W-9. At that point, I stopped the video and said we were going to have to reschedule the orientation. I caught Jen on her way out and told her I’d call her. I then placed a call to HR to inquire how to pay Katie for her time without a completed W-9 because she was being fired immediatelty.

  149. Devin Singer*

    Oh man, there was Finger-Guns Guy. This fellow was interviewing for a Director of Marketing position and one of the first things he confidently asserted was that all women between the ages of 21 and 40 are bisexual and therefore we should definitely use a lot of scantily -clad women in our marketing materials. (He said this in a meeting full of women! In that age bracket! Whose own sexualities they were very confident about!) He then gave double finger guns to everyone who walked by the conference room while he was waiting.

    I was not in this interview but I immediately went to lunch with everyone who had been and yes, he sure did make an impression.

    1. Devin Singer*

      I now realize I need to clarify that I misread the prompt, we absolutely did not hire that individual, but I just got so excited to tell the story…

    2. Roy G. Biv*

      Yikes – I think my company did hire him, or maybe his frat brother. Finger-Guns Guy is a legend because he drew more in salary than he booked in sales in his 15 month tenure with my company. I think of him whenever someone is breathing down my neck about my sales goal. Perhaps I should try to be more like Finger-Guns Guy. (Not)

  150. Elle Woods*

    I once worked in an agency that had hired a new employee, Jane. During her first week on the job, she said she didn’t want to work on certain accounts because they were boring, openly stated she would sabotage someone if she felt she could do a better job on the account than the account executive could, got drunk at her welcome lunch, mocked one of our most important clients, and made multiple disparaging comments about people with disabilities. No one was upset when our director fired Jane at the end of the day on Friday.

  151. Cute Li'l UFO*

    My last holiday season in retail. The most shocking group of temp hires I ever had to train.

    One, Grabby. I don’t know if she understood what I was trying to explain to her, but we got pick lists of items and then went out into departments and pulled them. Naturally, because holidays, it’s really busy. She wanted to print pictures of every shoe to find… which was a massive waste of paper and time when the location in the stockroom was on every label underneath the display. I explained and explained and she would only say my name and drag me by the arm. I asked, requested, demanded that she not grab my arm and that seemed to sink in. For a day. Another day she tried to drag me across the shoe salon to look at something, clamping a hardcore vice grip on a bicep tattoo I’d gotten the night before. My supervisor moved her to just packing not long after and there was one day I came back from lunch and asked where Grabby went. All I heard was “she is no longer employed by Department Store.”

    Two, Cap’n. I guess he made a great impression in the interview process, being in the NAVY and all. Every single thing out of this guy’s mouth was being in the Navy and how good and intelligent that made him, and how none of us would ever last in the military. Now, I wasn’t in the armed forces but I do have a paramilitary background and many family members who did serve. Anyone who talks up so much heroic duty and singlehanded save-the-day stories is… probably lying. This guy could not, would not take orders. Supervisor and I were like “I think this guy had to have been peeling potatoes in the brig, he cannot pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.” He would screw up scanning packages, forgetting the crucial important step of affixing the shipping label to the box before putting it on a flatbed. I asked him to slow down, be thorough, be careful, because it delayed packages and we’d get them back from the shipper and then have to compensate for the delay by overnighting. This was akin to being a fire-breathing shrieking harpy and supervisor, myself, and several other coworkers just could not get it. We’d watch him scan, the label would print, scan another box, get a label, and removed him from scanning duty after watching a lasagna of labels clog up the printer.

    Oh, and when the temps found out they were let go he was utterly shocked. And also admitted to sabotaging my work (when he did go out to pick items) by taking things I’d pulled and then putting them back so I’d go crazy looking for something I had pulled and marked off.

    Three, Stabby. We were all afraid of her. When I’d call out that Cap’n missed putting a shipping label on something, she’d scream “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” at me. She was fond of also yelling “You not a part of this conversation!” if someone asked something like “how would I wrap this?”

    One afternoon she ended up [allegedly] scratching a coworker and nothing got done about it. This woman was a time bomb. I told everyone to never be alone with her.

    I remember thinking “maybe this won’t be so bad, we’ll have some extra hands at least!” that one year. True to my word, that was my last holiday in retail.

  152. Elsa*

    Arrived for work driving an ATV. Parked it on the front walk so everyone else had to step off the walk into the mud to enter the building. Came in and took off his shoes. Sent an email to everyone (in every department) two days later saying that he’d devoted the last two days to throwing out all the needless paperwork that his predecessor had left behind.

    1. Elsa*

      (in the interest of full disclosure, I will add that one of the muddy footprints that appeared on the seat of his ATV may have been mine)

  153. Mel*

    Was out at a charity luncheon with my brand new assistant (Mary). Usually only execs get to attend the luncheon, but when they can’t, I’d occasionally get a ticket since the charity was related to my division. My grandboss (Lisa), pretty much second in command at the company, sat down, pleasantly offered her hand to Mary and said “Hi, I’m Lisa, I don’t think I know you.” Mary looks at her with complete disdain and replies “You should.”
    There was no reason for Lisa to have known Mary at all. The look on Lisa’s face was…intense.
    Turns out, that was unsurprisingly the beginning of a series of poor decisions by Mary…

  154. Lady Luck*

    Cheating a little because this person didn’t make it all the way to the “hire” stage, but goodness is it memorable.

    Several years ago I worked in a café that was located inside a hospital. One day while standing at the counter, I had a lady march up and say she had a job interview. So, I walked over to our small office (which was like two feet away) where the manager was and told him she was here. He said “okay, let me grab her resume and I’ll be out in a moment.”

    So, I go back to the counter, while she is still standing there waiting, and the phone rings. I answer it, and it’s the hospital security. They ask if we have a woman there for a job interview, and they describe her, and I say yes. He says they are looking for her because she apparently assaulted a hospital employee on her way in. Supposedly this person was “in her way” while she was trying to get to a job interview, which was far more important. So security had been calling around and trying to find where she was interviewing at.

    So, at this point, I hear my manager shuffling and getting ready to come out of the office, so I quickly move over there and tell him to pick up the phone, trying to make it clear without being obvious that it’s about the applicant. He does, so I just head back to the counter and try to look normal. Probably not even a minute later, a couple of security officers arrive and they immediately take her and escort her out. From what I hear she was kicked out and banned from the hospital. And of course, my manager is like, “Um, no thanks.”

  155. Maiasaura*

    At my old company, a new employee, A, came in flustered and upset on her very first day. As she was heading in to begin her job, another woman had roughly pushed past her into coming into the building entryway, shoving her to the ground, and then the psycho had flipped out and started yelling at her. She told everyone she met that day about the crazy, terrifying woman who had pushed her down. It was awful, and we all felt very bad for her–what rotten luck, and how awful to know that you have to work in the building with someone that mean!

    … until we heard the other side from a B, universally beloved employee, a great manager known for her calmness, who had been in a really unpleasant altercation the previous day. She’d collided with another woman coming into the office; neither was knocked down or injured, though both dropped some items. The other woman immediately began screaming obscenities at her and threatening her with police and lawsuits and general “revenge.” B was generally a stoic non-complainer, so for her to be so thoroughly rattled was really something.

    I can still remember the shock I felt upon realizing that A was talking about B–it just did not compute. It was the start of a bizarre journey with A; I still don’t know if she was intentionally deceptive and vindictive, or just lived in a reality where she was never.ever.wrong and was always the victim of others. She excelled in some areas of her job, but performed really really poorly in others to the point of negligence. When she worked on a project I managed, I realized she had been making a significant error in a series of client deliverables that was not only sloppy but also unethical. Fearing the blow-up, I went to my own manager to get coaching on how to approach the issue first. I couched it in the most neutral but direct terms possible, carefully framing it as a “this is an error that could be very costly; moving forward, this issue has to be handled in this manner.” She *lost it* and went to my manager, spinning a tale of woe about how incompetent and mean I was being, with a side order of unfounded accusations about how parenting was compromising my performance, unaware that (a) I had looped the manager in ahead of time just in case this happened and (b) the manager was my direct supervisor and had complete knowledge of my perfectly adequate performance. We had an extremely uncomfortable mediation session, I could tell she hated me throughout, and she trashed me to anyone who would listen (which was hardly anybody, she’d burned so many bridges). I left shortly thereafter for unrelated reasons.

    I’m pretty sure she is still at the company, since I was told after I left that since she was good at some parts of the job, it wasn’t worth it to spend the money defending the inevitable lawsuit she would bring if she was fired.

    1. Mockingjay*

      “just lived in a reality where she was never.ever.wrong and was always the victim of others”

      This explains so many people these days…

    2. Goldenrod*

      ” I was told after I left that since she was good at some parts of the job, it wasn’t worth it to spend the money defending the inevitable lawsuit she would bring if she was fired.”

      WHY oh why do people make this calculation? Think of all the great employees they likely lost due to this one crazy freak creating a terrible work environment!

  156. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    New hire doing the same role as me showed up in a full suit, tie, shiny shoes etc in an office environment that was business casual. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but whilst making social chit chat I lightheartedly complimented him on the formal outfit and he said something along the lines of… yeah I leave the house dressed like this and my family think I’m a successful businessman instead of [Job he and I actually had].

    It wasn’t the last time he clearly showed disdain for the job, the company, the people… he spent most of his time in HRs office complaining that he needed a raise, why hadn’t he been given the internal promotion, etc etc.

    I was quite young then and didn’t have the social skills to deal with that very well – nowadays I could have a lot of fun with someone like that! (Or even deal with them professionally :-) )

  157. joriley*

    When I was a college senior, I worked on campus and we hired an admin assistant who had just graduated the year before. He didn’t officially manage me, but effectively that role did supervise me day to day. It’s relevant that I’m female, had been there 3 years, and was beloved by the other staff. Some highlights of his first few weeks, before I left for an internship:

    – Made a mistake in a spreadsheet, then insisted that it couldn’t possibly have been his fault when the departing temp assistant (who was training him) pointed it out.
    – Insisted on eating lunch at the empty desk next to mine… every day. Even if I wasn’t also eating lunch at that time.
    – Heard that I studied abroad in France, and proceeded to demonstrate that he too speaks French! By reciting Romantic poems that he had memorized.
    – Started one day by showing me the new marketing material for his side hustle. Boss came by, asked “What are you working on today?” and he responded by showing it to her as well. “Great, what are you working on *for us* today?”
    – Invited me to a pool party at his house.

    He could feel the rising hostility and left for a job across campus in less than two months. Everyone was relieved. I still talk to some coworkers from that job and he is remembered… less than fondly.

  158. Queer Anon*

    Several years ago, an intern showed up to her first day in open-toe wedges and a floor-length skirt, for a job where both of those are serious safety concerns. It turned out that she hadn’t realised we were doing that kind of work on the first day (she thought it was just the orientation) and she ended up being fantastic, but I was deeply worried!

    1. KoreCob*

      Hooray for self-aware interns! It’s nice to hear when negative first impressions are unfounded.

  159. I Just Took This Internship To Call You Out*

    I worked at a residence for at-risk youth. As the exec admin I was forced to wrangle interns. It was a competitive place to work and very hard to get hired there in a clinical position. Our clinical intern program wasn’t that choosy, which it should have been. One of the interns sat through orientation with a face like the room smelled like rotten garbage, spent the whole time huffing and fidgeting and rolling her eyes. I finished orientation and gave them their badges. Her badge was smudged a little (crappy printer) and she lost it on me saying “I knew you (the company) was a total scam! Look at this badge! it’s total garbage! I’m so glad my mom doesn’t work here after all! You didn’t hire my mom the last three times she applied and she’s way more qualified than any of you! Ugh! I took this internship just to call you out and I knew I was right! You’re all terrible!” She stomped out and I swear to god, one of the other interns looked up at me startled and was like “was that a prank? Is this a prank show? This internship is real, right?”

    She tried to add me on LinkedIn last month. I’ve changed fields and am a freelance artist and like…girl how bad did you burn bridges?

    2. I Just Took This Internship To Call You Out*

      I should mention her mom wasn’t hired (I found out later) for the following reasons:
      1. Not having an active license in our state.
      2. Not having an active license in any state.
      3. She was in the middle of three malpractice lawsuits, two in our state, one in another.
      4. According to my boss who had sat in on one of the interviews, the mother was so strange during the interview and so erratic they almost breathalyzed her (which is a gray area if they could have, there were law enforcement officers on the hiring panel and they believed she might be a risk to the students behaving as she was on the premises.)

  160. Late To The Party*

    Our corporate office hired a new sales manager to handle a new office in another city in our state. She was assigned to a week in our office for a co-worker and I to train her on our company systems. Monday was her first day of training but she didn’t show up until mid-afternoon with some story about her commuter plane getting lost??? Red flag #1. On Tuesday we took her out to lunch where she told us story after story regarding a lot of drama from her previous job. Red flag #2. Wednesday morning began with a call from her that she would be late because she fell in her hotel tub the previous night and was knocked unconscious and had been held at the hospital for observation. Red flag #3. On Thursday she announced that her flight had been changed by the airlines from Friday to Thursday so she would be leaving the office at lunchtime. Red flag #4. So with less than 20 hours of training, she was gone. The person who hired her called on Friday for a report and they still gave her the benefit of the doubt. Once the new office opened, the new sales manager was given a corporate Amex which she quickly racked up thousands upon thousands of dollars in personal items. Then she was fired.

  161. Hiring Mgr*

    A younger new hire’s first day on the job was at a conference – he was from London and flew to LA for the conference and to meet everyone. Seemed like a very friendly and intelligent guy…

    First night of the event he gets very drunk and somehow winds up naked outside the CEOs hotel room making alot of noise.. Colleagues had to come get him to his room, etc..

    He was going to be given another chance, but he quit on his own a week or so later..

  162. Environmental Compliance*

    Oh boy.

    1. I was hired at the same time as the new safety guy at a previous job. Immediately, he was…..weird. He insisted that he got told by lots of people all the time that he looked like Brad Pitt. (He did not in any way.) He would just vanish. Like you could go through the facility with a fine tooth comb and he was no where to be found, but his vehicle would be onsite. Then suddenly he’d just be back in his office. You wouldn’t even see him on the security cameras. It was ODD. He would tell really weird “jokes” about his very pregnant wife. None of the women in the office wanted to be in a room with him (including me). He only lasted about 3 months before getting fired because he refused to investigate a hot work permit issue on a fuel line (active fuel line, welding, no permit, next to very large fuel tanks). When we were going through to clean out his office for the new person after he got walked out, we found a notepad filled with him rewriting from the Art of War and descriptions of weapons.

    2. When I was working for the state, and myself and another person were hired within a week of each other. Very similar backgrounds/experience, entry level roles right out of college, doing the same thing in the same team as each other, went through the same training as each other. She immediately plastered her cubicle with coloring book pages. We all kind of assumed it was from her kids or family. Nope, she colored on breaks and would put them up. We wrote compliance permits. A month in, I was handling Title V major level permits with new construction. She still had name change requests, and every time would come ask me what to do. Y’all, use ctrl-H, change out the name, read through to review and see if anything went wonky, send it out, this was the most basic of all of our processes. I usually had 20+ permits on my docket. She usually had 3-5. She would come to me constantly complaining she was hugely overloaded and how did they expect us to keep up. There was something about her fiance? boyfriend? depended on the day what exactly he was? and she had a photo of them up that she would regularly face backwards or tape another picture over. Hope she’s doing okay now, in retrospect I think she probably had some significant personal issues she was dealing with. She left within a couple months citing stress.

    1. FreakInTheExcelSheets*

      I did not know Ctrl-H as a shortcut for find/replace and would always use Ctrl-F and select the replace option. I don’t use it a ton, but love to learn something new!

  163. Anone*

    The coworker at a newspaper who refused to use a company desktop and brought in her own laptop.

  164. LunaCat*

    We hired a contractor to supplement my department several years ago. They guy interviewed well, seemed to know his stuff, and we were excited to bring him on board. His first day of work happened to also be the first day of an internal conference we were hosting. Employees from other sites all over the country flew into our office. We started the conference off with a day of software training in the computer lab. He was very loudly clicking away at stuff on his computer while the instructor was presenting. Then at lunch, he let several curse words slip while eating with our guests from the other offices. This was a more conservative culture where that was not the norm. And even so, it’s his first day – find out what the culture is first before you get that comfortable! The next day, (his second on the job) he very visibly fell asleep during the conference, despite the 4-5 Mountain Dew bottles lined up in front of him.

    It went downhill from there. My work offered pretty flexible schedules, but he was a contractor, and contractors were expected to keep more regular hours. He wanted a different schedule, but instead of trying to work with my boss, who would have accommodated him as much as possible, or making a rational case, he claimed we were discriminating against his narcolepsy and sued my employer. It became a big legal deal where we all had to track what time we arrived and left and when we saw him arrive and leave, in our otherwise flexible workplace. We never figured out if he was really narcoleptic (not really our business) or if he just stayed out too late every night playing with his band – which he talked about a lot.

    He was also creepy. He had a really off-putting way of appearing over the cubicle wall out of nowhere, and you would have no idea how long he’d been staring at you before you noticed him. Not surprising that we weren’t sad to finally see him leave.

  165. NAWSbrat*

    I work retail. New hire drove to her first day of work drunk, hit a customer’s car, and drove away. She then returned in full view of said customer. New hire was in the office doing her first day computer work when the cops showed up to interrogate her about the hit and run. Normally when an employee is suspected of being under the influence, we have tests in the store to check. We were out of tests that day, so she was allowed to work. She quit within a week.

  166. Longtime Lurker*

    This was a few years ago: I was working at a small magazine that was owned by a larger group. We had just hired a guy, I’ll call him Jim, as a full time staff writer. The second day he was here, someone from corporate came to visit and spoke to all of us in our open office, talking about some new initiatives, etc. As it happened, Jim’s new desk was right by where corporate exec was speaking. And he … fell asleep. I’m not talking nodding off, I’m talking full on, head lolling back, drool, snores, asleep. At first corporate exec didn’t realize, but some of the staff did, so they were trying to quietly wake him up — the person at the desk next to him rolled over in his chair and jostled him, someone else threw a pen, that sort of thing. Nothing. Finally, our boss, who had been standing next to corporate exec, went over and shook him and said “are you okay? you need to wake up!” Jim finally was roused, but by this point, everyone was looking.
    Jim spent the afternoon in a meeting with the bosses.
    Later that day we learned two things: Jim had believed that he could continue working as a bartender at night while holding down this job, and Jim was no longer working for our company.

  167. clearlyMillennial*

    oh yeah! where to begin.
    1. i showed up for an group interview (really hippie company) and the person I was paired with was wearing a corset and 5 inch heels. we both got the jobs. she was later arrested by US Marshalls at the store and when that happened, my boss found a week’s worth of deposits in her purse. she also brought her mom to the interview… or her mom brought her.
    2. i was hiring for a sales associate position and the applicant had a frenulum piercing. i thought it was dumb but it had nothing to do with the job, so who cared? at one point she announced that she had gotten the piercing to distract people from her teeth (it did not do this at all) WHILE SHE WAS PICKING HER NOSE.

  168. t-vex*

    I think I’ve told this story before, but we hired a new volunteer manager at my mid-sized nonprofit. Young guy, not completely new to work but only a couple years out of school. His role has very little authority built in – he recruits volunteers, gives them the orientation spiel, and then hands them off to the department manager where they’ll be working. Well his first group volunteer orientation comes around and because Covid, it’s being held on Zoom. Because it’s New Guy’s first one, our CEO has logged in to say hello and whatnot. Well apparently CEO logged in from his phone in his vehicle because New Guy stops the orientation and PUBLICLY ASKS HIS BOSS’S BOSS’S BOSS’S BOSS NOT TO ZOOM WHILE DRIVING. He did, all is well, and I’ve never been so impressed with someone in my life!

      1. Rara Avis*

        My first adult/post-college job was in a residential setting. On my first morning I set out to make French toast in a communal kitchen. The smoke alarm had been placed immediately over the stove. The steam from placing the first piece of toast in the pan set it off — for the entire campus. That’s how I met all my new colleagues.

  169. Jen from IT*

    We had a new hire at a tech company brag about her illegal hacking activities on the dark web on her first day to another engineer tasked with onboading her. She also interrupted one of the founders every few sentences with questions in the founder meet & greet meeting.

  170. InTheTumbleWeeds*

    I have two stories. First employee: During his first day tour he proceeds to tell us that everything is being done incorrectly. EVERYTHING. He wouldn’t do it that way, it shouldn’t work that way, he was going to fix it immediately. He had no clue about the realities of our work, but would double-down on anything when shown otherwise. He was also a major conspiracy theorist and would spend hours talking about free masons and President Lincoln and linking one conspiracy to another. For being so paranoid we figured he would have been smarter about linking his personal email to his company computer and running a side business from our office. He was terminated about a month after he started. Second employee: He was a really nice guy with years of experience in the field, but once hired we found his skillset had been grossly misrepresented and his work ethic sorely lacking. A natural born salesmen, this guy could sell ice to an Eskimo and make them think it was their idea, but he’d never be able to deliver. He complained from the very first day about being siloed in the role he was specifically hired for and thought they’d make him a manager soon, which was never even remotely a possibility. He attended meetings he didn’t need to/was told not to, left hours early nearly everyday, wanted to hire contractors to do his work and pushed off what little he did for weeks or months. A PIP was about to be implemented, but he ended up being laid off when the company scaled back. When they went to tell him they found he’d left work nearly three hours early that day so he had to drive an hour back to work to be told. He landed fine though – he’s a manager somewhere else now.

    1. Okee dokee pokee*

      “Eskimo” is considered by many people, including the Inuit, to be a slur. A replacement expression I just read is “sell honey to a bee”.

  171. school of hard knowcs*

    Thru a temp agency hired a administrative assistant. She (henceforth known as SG) came and interviewed with hiring manager. SG was young and kinda quiet and seemed pleasant. First day I gave her the onboarding training and things to sign, login’s etc. SG then sat with one of the 2 people she would be working with. She was training SG for a few hours. Then SG asked if she would have to use Excel. THEN SG started talking about her friends who were strippers and how much money they made. She left (same day) and didn’t come back. We called the recruiter and told him we needed the key card back. A couple days, her Dad dropped off the key card.

  172. Big Bird*

    I have posted this before on a different thread but it fits here. I work in a heavily-regulated field and we had just hired a new assistant director for my team to report to. I had been passed over for promotion for that position and had been very clear that I thought this particular person was unqualified, so I was walking on eggshells. I was working with outside counsel on a 500+-page regulatory submission and received a draft for review–new hire was ‘cc’d, as was our boss and grandboss. New hire proceeded to reply-all saying that their eyes were glazing over from boredom, the material was much too technical and how on earth did we expect the public to understand it? Turns out they had absolutely no idea what the document was and why it was being submitted. I was the one who had to explain to them that the reason that the document was so technical was that it was not for the public; it was being submitted to the government agency that wrote the regulations we were complying with. This was just the first of several such gaffes and they lasted less than three months. The person who hired them was reassigned to special projects and lasted just exactly long enough to meet the requirements for a pension. I am still there but never got that promotion. Karma was not as sweet as I thought it would be.

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      Get some resumes out! Maybe you can get a management role somewhere better!

  173. Hotdog not dog*

    Years ago I worked in a grocery store. On his first and last day, a new guy hired for the maintenance department announced that he refused to clean the restroom because scrubbing toilets is women’s work. I have no idea what he thought the maintenance team did, but his (female) manager was not impressed.

  174. RangerK*

    My very first internship in my desired field was in a national parkway. The time would split 60% in office and 40% in the field. I did not realize that “in the field” meant what many would still consider national park settings… like beaches, forest, and everything in between. On my first day my new supervisor and colleague informed me that the next day would be in the field, and to wear some hiking shoes. Everything I had packed was office wear like flats and slacks. No tennis shoes, no hiking boots, nothing. The only options that I had were leather cowboy boots and skinny jeans. My new colleagues were very worried about my feet and ankles and repeatedly asked if I was alright. I sweat through my jeans and my feet were puffy and aching. After getting off work, I immediately went to the nearest outdoor supply and purchased hiking pants and shoes. They lightly teased me the rest of the internship about proper footwear and deservedly so!

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      They should have mentioned footwear ahead of time! Not your fault!

      1. Dust Bunny*

        A national parkway is a scenic highway surrounded by park (as in national park) land so 40% in the field could safely be assumed to be outdoors and not on pavement. Assuming that office flats would suffice is pretty naive even for an intern.

  175. True colors*

    This wasn’t a new hire but during an interview I (female) was conducting along with another female employee. The candidate was male. We asked him our first (pretty standard) question and his response was “Wow, that’s not the first question I’d be asking. You’re asking the wrong question.” Umm, nope, I think we actually asked the perfect question and it’s all we need to know that we won’t be hiring you!

  176. these are different things...*

    I was hiring a Marketing Executive for an international sportswear company, that was based in France, but this was a US position that would spearhead the entire marketing and branding objective for the country. An applicant that did not make it to the next round worked at a small sporting goods store in Vermont.

    She was super mad that she didn’t advance, because she was a great store manager, and a great merchandiser, made amazing store sets, etc. She sent a very hostile reply to my email that she wasn’t advancing, and we were looking for someone that had more experience in creating and executing national marketing plans, etc.

    In the end, I had to explain to her the difference between a marketing executive and a merchandiser.

  177. Eeyore is my spirit anima;*

    Due to some quirks of the Federal Government, I was not eligible to apply when my old boss got a major promotion and moved up to the agency’s headquarters in DC. I work for a small office of a large agency.
    The new boss, Wakeen, shows up and spent the first fours weeks telling everyone how he was here to establish the program in the community, completely dismissing everything that we currently had running. The majority of his proposed actions were outside of our guidance, if not completely against regulation.
    Our director retired right before Wakeen arrived, so Wakeen thought it was appropriate that he take over some of those duties and bossing around people in other departments, ignoring and offending the two Assistant Directors, who had been named Acting.
    In order to get some buy in, Wakeen invited our Programs Managers down from DC for a site visit, so he could better explain his vision. One of the guys was my old boss. Again, Wakeen showed a total disrespect of the existing program and most of the proposed changes were against regulation, including taking over similar department that is funded through a different branch of the agency. At Wakeen’s request, I led a meeting that covered what the program is currently doing for the Program Managers and Wakeen fell asleep during the meeting. The PM’s later told me they had never felt so dismissed and disrespected.
    After all this, he came and told me that he was disappointed that I had gone to dinner with the PM’s and he felt I was plotting behind his back. One was my old boss, we had worked together for 12 years. The other I had supervised as while he was an intern about 20 years ago.

    1. Bad at picking names*

      So what happened? Is Wakeen still there? I’m so sorry for you and your office.

  178. LunaCat*

    My department had recently hired a new guy who lasted a week or 2 then started calling out or no-showing several days in a row. That Friday night, a group of younger, single co-workers who used to go out pretty regularly went to a local strip club to celebrate one of our birthdays. Guess who we saw sitting front and center at the strip club? The new guy who hadn’t bothered to show up that day! My work friend went up to him, feigning friendliness and concern, and said I’ll be sure to let your boss know I saw you and that you’re doing okay – she’s been sooo worried. (My work friend and my boss were also really good friends.) They guy claimed he had quit his job, but my boss just didn’t know that yet. So on Monday morning, we all got to tell my boss and my VP how we saw they guy at the strip club and how he’d claimed to have quit. Thankfully, we had the kind of boss and VP who were cool with that conversation. And that was the last we saw of that new hire…

  179. LibrarianSteph*

    I, unfortunately, did not see this, but a colleague of mine had someone come to an interview with McDonald’s and proceed to eat it during the interview.

  180. calvin blick*

    This one is kind of sad, but at one point the company I worked for hired a pleasant looking older gentleman to handle Accounts Payable. Basically, he just had to cut checks for approved pay requests for subcontractors. HR sent out a welcome email his first day, and a “so-and-so is no longer with the company” email around noon his second day. Apparently he “wasn’t cut out for the role.” This was not a company that was quick to fire people, and I never figured out what he could possibly have done to get fired after eight hours.

    1. Dragon_Dreamer*

      Either he refused to cut certain checks, or he tried to write them to himself. Or both.

  181. 867-5309*

    I was leading the comms department within a manufacturing plant and hired a new coordinator. She started the same week we had a huge event, involving the mayor, senators, company CEO, etc. When my boss, who attended the event, asked her what she thought of the day, she replied, “I don’t know why 867-5309 didn’t involve me more. I have a lot of event experience and could have helped her with planning, writing scripts or anything.” The event took place on her third day. She hadn’t even had a proper plant tour yet.

  182. Kesnit*

    Our office has professional staff (which requires a graduate degree and special certifications) and support staff (with various qualifications). Our support staff is the backbone of our office and are all very good at their jobs. We hired a new professional staff member, “Sharon,” from a very prestigious school. (So much so one of my co-workers made a bet with our boss as to whether Sharon would actually start work or if she would get a higher profile job elsewhere).

    Soon after her arrival, another of our professional staff, Judy, reached out to Sharon and offered to help the her get settled and get her feet under her. Sharon literally did a “talk to the hand” and rudely told Judy that she was too busy to talk to her. Some time later, Judy reached out again and got another rude response.

    Sharon is rude to our Office Manager. She ignores the rest of our support staff. She will ask the professional staff for help, but if she doesn’t like the answer she gets, will move on to another (without telling the subsequent ones about her previous conversations).

    Sharon is still here, but I’ve been making internal bets with myself about how long she’ll stay…

  183. 15 Pieces of Flair*

    Lied about his previous employment record.

    Last year a new hire claimed to have previously worked for a small competitor…to a colleague that had worked for that competitor for 3 years immediately prior to joining. The colleague relayed this story to me as we were both recruited from the competitor at the same time and I was a manager in the same department as pants on fire (POF). I followed up with POF regarding his claims about having worked for the competitor. He gave very evasive answers, so we concluded he was almost certainly lying. However, he didn’t list the competitor on his application so I couldn’t take any action.

    Fast forward 9 months and another former colleague from the competitor joins our company. I was catching up with my once and again colleague when she asked me if I work with POF and what he was like. Turns out that he had interviewed with her at the competitor at the same time that he was interviewing with our current company. He was not selected for a final interview as he seemed unmotivated. That piece of info confirmed that POF had never worked for the competitor in any capacity. POF has since been fired for being unmotivated and lying in other contexts.

    1. 3DogNight*

      Totally off topic, but I had to reread your user name more than twice, because my demented mind keeps changing flair to hair!

  184. Cedrus Libani*

    New Guy wasn’t actually at fault, but what a way to make an entrance…

    He’s just arrived, and is being shown around. There’s a microscope room. It used to be a darkroom, so there was once a sink, and there’s still a bit of pipe sticking out of the wall where the sink used to be. Imagine a walk-in closet, crammed floor-to-ceiling with millions of dollars’ worth of sensitive and hard-to-replace electronics. And a pipe, which New Guy promptly tripped over, causing it to snap.

    There was now a torrent of water coming out of the wall. It would fill a standard personal-size trash can in “thousand-one, thousand-two, NEXT”. I know, because the whole floor heard the hollering; to our credit, we immediately organized into a bucket brigade, with dozens of nerds frantically relaying the water to a sink or anywhere else that could hold it. This went on for at least 15 minutes, until the water supply to the building was finally turned off. It was…memorable.

  185. HotSauce*

    I finally have a great one to share! Several years ago a large industry adjacent company in our area closed. We took on several of these employees and most of them turned out to be fantastic assets. One woman managed to aggravate everyone in our department on the very first day. While giving her a tour of our production facility she loudly complained about how dirty it was and how “gross” all of the people looked. When we returned to the admin area she stated that she was glad she had a degree so she wouldn’t have to do such disgusting manual labor (the production floor was mostly automated tended by a few people, so not exactly manual labor). When lunch time came around she turned her nose up at our cafeteria, which while it’s not a Michelin star restaurant, wasn’t your typical high school cafeteria fare, and opted to step out for lunch. When she returned she proceeded to crunch down an extra-crispy 3-piece from Kentucky Fried Chicken at her desk complete with loud smacking noises and slurping of her soda. After finishing her lunch she resumed her training and proceeded to pick her teeth with a toothpick while we all tried to stifle gags. She repeatedly complained about how boring the training was, claimed she knew exactly what to do, despite our company using very unique software, and demanded that we just assign her accounts and let her get on with her life. She put her notice in by the end of the week and didn’t return the following Monday.

  186. Sincerely Raymond Holt*

    Years ago, I worked for a large global company in a department that was mostly women in their 20-30’s. It was a bit like a sorority. We had a weekly meeting where everyone stood around and shared news or information that was relevant to the team. Because of the people on the team, it was a lot of baby and wedding announcements, and the department manager usually shared some high level company initiatives or status of projects. One week, we had just hired a guy in his mid-20-‘s, something that was rare for our team. We had him introduce himself and he shared the normal stuff. Someone shouted out, tell us your most embarrassing story!… and we all laughed thinking that he’d say something silly about his childhood, or that he wouldn’t say anything all. But he went for it! Told us how he was previously a teacher and on his first day, he came out of the bathroom and realized that he had zipped the tail end of his shirt in his pants. His shirt was sticking out, creating a “shirt wiener”. Mouths agape from all of these women and no one said anything! But I burst out laughing and I knew then that I was going to like working with this guy. We’ve been friends for almost 20 years now and I still tease him about his shirt wiener story.

  187. Jean*

    I was the new hire trainer at a big box retailer for a brief (1 year) stint in my 20s. I had a nice but clearly not all there older lady in one of my newbie classes – I had a new batch pretty much every week – who I knew right away would not last long. Day 2 or so of training, I was going over some basics, including our robbery policy, which basically stated that if someone attempts armed robbery, just hit the silent alarm button behind the counter and give them the money in your drawer or whatever else they were demanding. Pretty standard CYA/liability stuff.

    This lady jumped up and started loudly arguing with me that she would FIGHT anyone who tried to take anything of HERS. I was stunned but eventually was able to find my voice and ask her to sit down and save questions for after the session. She lasted about 2 weeks, and was finally let go after having 1 too many loud emotional outbursts on the sales floor. This same lady also once asked me how many kids I had, and then started crying (!) and loudly praying when I told her that I didn’t have any and wasn’t sure I wanted any. Lots of interesting stories from that job.

    1. Susan Ivanova*

      Interviewing for a summer mall job, I made the mistake of saying my other job was teaching karate (relevant: 20 year old skinny college girl). The interviewer then asked what I’d do if the place was robbed. “Call security, that’s their job.” We taught self defense, #1 rule of which is do the minimum necessary to get out of the situation and then book it.

      And then the interviewer kept escalating the situation: “what if they grab you? Or a kid? They have a knife? A gun?”

      My answer was always the same: “I’m not going to jump in and fight them, I will call security, because that is their job.”

      Didn’t get the job.

      1. Dragon_Dreamer*

        They wanted you to be security so they could save money by getting rid of the professionals.

        1. Susan Ivanova*

          Security was employed by the mall, not the store. It was just around the time of the first Karate Kid movie, I think the interviewer just had weird ideas about karate.

  188. RandoLlama*

    One of my weird quirks is that I’m super into organization. I’m always looking up productivity tips or tricks. Shortcut keys, color coding, automation, whatever; I’m always trying to re-organize things and be efficient for my workload. I just geek out over it.

    However, that means I’m usually much more organized than like 90% of anyone I’ve ever met. I joined a new organization who didn’t quite know me yet and while on a screen share, at the end of the meeting, someone inquired about how I color coordinated my calendar. This ended up leading to an impromptu tips and tricks session on triaging and managing your inbox.

    I have now simultaneously terrified and impressed my coworkers. When it comes to knowledge management tricks, I’m always the go-to.

    3. bananaramafofana*

      Please teach me all of your ways. I have ADHD and it’s murdering my productivity.

  189. avocadolime*

    At a staff meeting we were discussing more effective ways to measure impact, and the new hire spent half an hour explaining how it’s really easy and all we have to do is…the thing that we had spent a year figuring out was not effective.
    What’s worse is that he cited our previous (ineffective) work as an example, but didn’t actually know it was our work. He was not embarrassed when informed.

  190. MapleHill*

    Oh man this just happened. We have a company orientation for all new employees which, due to Covid, is still in a virtual format. Our CEO joins part of the meeting to talk about company culture and then he asks the employees to tell him about their interview experiences, how long they took and why they decided to work for us.

    This employee, let’s call her Sansa, is a woman I’d guess is in her mid 20s. Sansa’s turn comes and she says it was a hard choice because she had other offers, but after a long interview process she eventually just wanted to prove that she COULD get the job because, you know, you want what you can’t have. But she doesn’t know if she’s made the right choice. Sansa says to the CEO, I guess we’ll see if I made the right choice in a couple months… talk back with me”. LOL, talk back with me to the CEO. He handled it gracefully and said I’ll be sure to ask every time I see you. He frequently visits the field, so I’m sure he’ll follow through on that.

    She already showed up in a baseball cap (ok, fine, she works in the field and that’s on her manager to set expectations), she showed up a day early in the wrong class, then showed up an hour late for her class. Bad enough that she’s one of few women in a male-dominated field (which we’re working on), but these are the impressions she’s making. I’m so curious what she was like in the interview process that the manager hired her, and I’ve no doubt he’ll be asked. All I can hope is that she kicks butt in this role and we can work with her on her communication skills and knowing her audience.

  191. Emotional support capybara*

    Back in the days of dialup and porn autodialer malware, new admin-side hire in a computer repair shop tried to call the police on a customer whose infected PC barfed up an NSFW but otherwise garden variety lewd popup while we were trying to exorcise it.

    She got as far as “yes hello this is Jane from Place What Fixes Computers and we found suspicious porn on a customer’s computer” before any of us realized what she was doing. Luckily the boss snapped to in time to take the phone and go “disregard all that, just malware, it does that, customer doesn’t want it, we’re fixing it.” Once that was handled he told the new hire not to come back in the next day or ever again.

    This was the thrilling conclusion of her week-long tenure, during which she also told multiple customers we could fix their TVs (no), their pagers (no), their Dish network thingies (nope), their major appliances (no!?) and more, and got into a heated argument with a customer AND the tech looking at his computer because she was certain that the machine was in for a new MOTOR. I didn’t work on that machine and don’t know what it was actually in for, and I still don’t know whether she misheard “modem,” misread “monitor,” or heard it making a horrible fan noise or something and connected the dots wrong.

  192. another kate*

    When I was training call center techs, we had a few doozies of hires. Our training program was two full weeks long plus preceptor/assessment week, with 100% mandatory attendance for those three weeks. I’m told this is kind of extensive for call center work? But we were teaching people to be a virtual receptionist for twenty-six clinics AT ONCE. My job as a trainer, besides teaching, was to weed out the people who probably wouldn’t pass assessment week by Wednesday or Thursday of Training Week 1.

    I have weeded people out for:
    – Skipping the zoom class but claiming they were present
    – Trying to do the zoom class from their doctor’s office
    – No-Call No-Shows
    – Not actually having the HIPAA-compliant dedicated workspace they said they did in their onboarding
    – Not actually having internet at home when they said they did in their onboarding

    But my actual favorite is the person who locked herself out of her computer three times on the first day, twice her second day, then four times on her third day. She absolutely refused to stay in the breakout room with IT & the second trainer — she kept literally disconnecting the zoom call and coming back into the main room, interrupting my attempts at training the rest of the class. I had to send everybody else to break, drag her back into the breakout room, and explain that IT and the other trainer would help her get back in and keep her caught up, but her coming back into the main room to ask ME questions was not acceptable. Her response? “But there’s just so many passwords! It’s intimidating.”

    God help me, at this juncture in training, they only had to remember two. Two passwords. One for the base computer, and one for their Microsoft account on the VPN.

  193. Winterborn*

    Hired a guy for sales at a small retail store, who, on his second day, draped the two table lamps (the only lighting) in our cramped stockroom with lightweight raspberry pink fabric – “to make the lighting nicer.”

    What it did is make the room pinker and at least twice as dark. He was devastated that we removed his attempt at improving the atmosphere and was let go for other reasons shortly after.

  194. Mental Health Manager*

    We once had to hire a masters level supervisor for our therapist staff due to a state requirement that the supervisor have been licensed for at least 5 years (we had great supervisors who had been licensed 3-4 years). This particular license had only been around about 7-8 years, so there weren’t many options and none of them good. We tried to pick the least bad option. In one of his early supervisions he asked the therapist he was supposed to be providing supervision to what ADHD was. We let him go after a month for basically not being smart enough to do the job (this was just the most egregious example). He reapplied a month later with a cover letter that said he had “fixed the issues” that led to his dismissal. No, I don’t think you did.

  195. GOOD TIMES*

    This happened to me – first day of new job and my dog got sprayed by a skunk that morning. You know how bad skunk smell is, I showered multiple times, sprayed air freshener on my clothes, etc. I knew it was still on me but it was my first day and I was young and so scared to call and say I wasn’t going to show up. I thought I would look like a flake. So I went and I could immediately tell how overpowering it was. I swear, people looked like they wanted to vomit as soon as I got close to them. I guess they were too polite to say anything, and I was just trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. Manager called me in the office and told me to go home. He was nice about it. When I went back the next day I could still smell the skunk smell lingering in my chair / office area. They must have hated me! No one ever said anything. I am gone from there now, but I always wonder if people at the office thought of me as Skunk Lady.

  196. Spacey O*

    Boss said that at the interview that new hire was arrogant . I countered with “it’s just confidence!” Hired, given to me to train, fantastic rapport, great work, fast learner….until that Friday, when the (woman) group leader have him less than 100% positive feedback on an assignment. He bristled and flushed red, but took the correction. Monday he comes in waving his arms and blustering how he’s going into that meeting (that he had requested with boss, GL and HR) with a list of how to talk to him…I said “So today’s your last day, huh?”

    He was escorted out of the building after he threw the HR rep’s glasses against the wall (luckily they weren’t her face at the time).

  197. All The Small Things*

    Guy shows up Day 1 and seems flustered to be asked to fill out onboarding paperwork required for everyone, NDAs and such. Of note: this is a federal contract job. There is no wiggle room on these forms. He tries stalling but by Day 2 HR is onto him and information isn’t matching what he stated in his interview. Day 3 he basically just arrives to get his things and is walked out.

  198. ME*

    My daughter worked as a server at a well known 24 hour restaurant that is at every exit off the interstate in the south. She came home late from her shift one night. It was obvious that she had been upset but had gotten through it. I asked her what happened.

    Well they had two brand new servers on the floor that shift (not uncommon) but at the end of the shift, every one did their thing and the manager said they could leave . THEN he counted the drawer from the shift. It was $300 short. My daughter was like “You know it wasn’t me.”
    The manager called the girls and told them if they brought back the money he would not call the cops.

    They did. Then asked if they were fired.

  199. HistoryLady*

    Hired a guy to give public tours on the recommendation of the senior exec overseeing our branch in the building. He did not impress in interview, but we were short-staffed and he came recommended, so we gave him a shot.

    Within the first two weeks all the other tour guides were dreading shifts with this person and avoiding interacting with him at all. I joined a casual chat between tours to see what was up and was regaled with a (gruesome, and not at all possibly true) story from him about how he was born a few weeks late, coming out partially calcified and tearing his mother very badly in the process. Later that week he asked me (I wasn’t even his direct supervisor, but his supervisor’s manager) if I could ask my husband to help him pick up a TV and use my car to transport it. Also we had to keep reminding him not to walk down the stairs backwards on tour??? Honestly there isn’t a redeeming thing I can say about this guy.

    It was a term position, and he seemed surprised when we did not renew him. He actually ran into the office after he was no longer employed with us and demanded we rehire him because he didn’t have any money. I set up a meeting with him so we could have a more formal discussion about his request (and how we weren’t going to hire him)… he no-showed/no-called it. The worst.

  200. Thorn*

    1. Currently working with a guy who sent me an email yesterday apologizing for not being online to meet because he was getting up to speed on work for [department]. I’m the person who was supposed to be meeting with to get up to speed. That was three days ago. Not sure he’ll be here by the weekend. His first day was Tuesday, when was a no show for our meeting.

    2. Trained an interns to do some database work on day one. Went to get coffee, came back to find one of the new interns telling the others that I was stupid for not using a more efficient method and showing them how to do it her way. She over wrote the primary keys in our database – which is why we tell interns not to do it her way. We were down for 4 hours for a database reload, several senior analysts lost hours of work. When she was finally fired 6 weeks later, she sent a department wide email telling everyone that she finished work “ahead of schedule” and was moving on for a full time position.

  201. Exhausted Employment Attorney*

    The very first time I met one of our newest employees (an associate attorney), she proceeded to tell me, in great, excruciating detail, about: (1) her fraught medical history, which led into an explanation of how high-risk she was when she got pregnant, (2) how when she was giving birth, she proceeded to very nearly “bleed out” to her death in the hospital [n.b: “bleed out,” and its past tense “bled out,” were used liberally during this section], and (3) how she wasn’t really sure actually having the kid was worth it in the end, although of course she loved him and all.

    As a lawyer, I am fairly immune to very weird behavior from people, so while I was really quite desperate to get her the hell out of my office, I didn’t think much of it overall. I later found out that she gave this speech to not only every single employee that she encountered, but that it was also standard conversational fare for her when first meeting with clients. Her tenure at our firm was… interesting.

    1. JustaTech*

      I had a coworker who, on her second day, spent lunch telling us about her severe drug addiction as a teen and then also in medium detail about her horrible bike vs truck accident where she ended up in a coma for a couple of months and then showed us pictures of the x-ray of her reconstructed arm.

      She was generally a good coworker, but would bring up the truck accident story to anyone new, regardless of if there was time to tell the story or if it was appropriate.

    2. Dust Bunny*

      I had a coworker who introduced herself and then went into the history of her abusive first marriage. Followed by how much better her second husband was. Except he wasn’t; all her anecdotes had the undercurrent of him being a mooch. She later divorced that one, too.

      We had a lot of other things in common and I really wanted to like her but every interaction was a storm of oversharing and I just couldn’t be around her for that long.

  202. Mandy*

    So many years ago I hired a new receptionist (we can call her Erma) to manage our busy front office. Erma interviewed very well with myself and the rest of the hiring team and had prior experience that included some great references. One of the receptionist’s responsibilities were ordering office supplies for the company. Erma was provided with an account with a local office supply company and could order whatever was needed within reason. Anything over a certain amount, or including items needing special approval, would trigger and e-mail asking for me to review and provide approval. Erma went through training on how to order office supplies and was given a list of items we normally stock along with our monthly supply budget. The former receptionist who was doing most of Erma’s training was very pleased with her positive attitude and how quickly she seemed to be picking up on her new tasks. No red flags at all. Fast forward a week and Erma’s first day after her finishing her training was off to a good start. She was showed up a little early and was busy rearranging her new work area and making it her own. She said she noticed that there were a few things that would make her life easier such as a pop up post it note dispenser and clip boards to make it easier for candidates coming in to complete paperwork. I told her that I was totally fine with that and to go ahead and order what she needed. Later on that day I get an e-mail from the supplier….Erma had ordered…. an expensive new chair for herself, a side desk, a lamp, a coat rack, a computer stand, an ergonomic keyboard, a light up bathroom mirror, pink glitter pens, pink chair cover, foot rest, artwork for the wall, a pink fuzzy rug, about 20 bags of candy, and a candy dish, a bunch of fancy lotions and soaps along with matching dispensers… and those are the items I remember!! The invoice was several thousands of dollars. I thought this has to be an accident. So I approached her on it and she said oh no it was very much her doing. I explained to her why this was not ok as it was way over budget and included many items that require special approval such as furniture and artwork and she pitched a fit! How can she work in this environment? Her chair was too high, the office was drab, the pens all blue and black… lack of a candy dish is soooooo uninviting…. and forcing her to work in such an environment would be bad for her health. I showed her how her chair was adjustable and told her I was fine if she wanted the special pens and a couple of bags of candy, but we just did not have the budget, or the authority to purchase those other items. Corporate had a specific “look” for the office and well pink fuzzy rugs were not part of our corporate colors or their vision. She had a full-blown toddler fit and said she could not work with such a micromanager and she left. The next day she tried to show up to work like nothing happened. Security turned her away at the door. A few months later she actually put me down as a reference for a new job. I told them that I was not comfortable being a reference for her. I will never forget Erma!

    2. ferrina*

      Wow. I love how your “micromanaging” means not allocating several thousand dollars and re-design the corporate visual identity.

    3. Elizabeth West*

      She ordered A WHOLE OTHER DESK?!?!?!

      I was allowed to get some stuff for myself at OldExjob (a mesh laptop stand and one of those desktop organizer thingys), but
      1. I asked first.
      2. I paid the company for it.

  203. Anonymous Hippo*

    I had to train a new accountant for another manufacturing plant in our company. He came down to our company was immediately set everyone’s back up because he knew everything about everything and WOULD NOT SHUT UP. And I’m talking stuff he literally didn’t know anything about, like arguing with the middle aged lady with 2 kids about how much it costs to raise children, him being a 21 year old unmarried just out of college young man. He rearranged the furniture in my office because he felt “trapped” behind the L-shaped desk during training, and would randomly make barnyard animal noises while he was working on the computer (like random moos, or snorting like a pig or whatever..appropo of nothing, just like a tic or something). I muddled through the training steadfastly ignoring his utter weirdness, just telling myself everyone is different, it’s not on me to judge.

    He went back to him plant after training, and OH BOY. Apparently he unplugged his desk phone because “people kept calling him and he didn’t want to have to figure out the answers” he was told multiple times by multiple people, up to the plant manager that he had to leave it plugged in, and he just kept unplugging it each day. After a couple weeks he went straight to the plant manager (this was an entry level accounting position) and demanded a raise, because he was so much smarter than everyone else he was working with. He caused such a ruckus over this that he was eventually frog marched out the plant by security and told never to return. And this is a company where previous employees might stop by and hang with old coworkers, ie super chill. After all this went down a couple of us did some after the fact digging and found his FB page which was a veritable hotbed of wackadoodle conspiracy theories and nonsense. Turns out his first impression was indeed correct.

  204. Foot, Mouth, etc.*

    Telling on myself here.

    I was in my 20s, working at a new job in marketing. I had recently read a memoir of someone who seemed confident and funny, if a little bit of a mess, and she was relating tales from her previous jobs. For some reason, I thought that using some of her language at work would help me portray the image of myself that I wanted–smart, funny, perceptive, a little irreverent. So, in a meeting with my boss and a couple other people, I offered an insightful critique of a proposed marketing campaign: “I think this would be us blowing our wad too early.”

      1. Foot, Mouth, etc.*

        There was stunned silence for a moment and then, mercifully, no one ever spoke of it again.

        I went on to stay at the company several years and got promoted several times, but oof. That early impression was not good.

    2. ecnaseener*

      Lolllll did you realize you were making a sex reference or was it a blissful ignorance thing??

  205. Strict Extension*

    I worked at an absolute mess of a bar/restaurant for all of 2.5 months. During that time a bartender was hired “for her following.” The first day on the job, she invited that “following” behind the bar to make their own drinks. The barback lasted a week after picking the kale smoothie-drinking healthy living-advocate cancer-survivor bartender to try to hook up with hard drugs.

    That barback later ended up at another restaurant with me where he brought along a friend he met on the bus that day who also got hired. His first week he asked the owner to provide feedback on his audition to be the lead singer of a heavy metal band and had this conversation after mentioning several other part-time jobs he worked:

    Bartender: That’s a lot of jobs!
    Barback: Yeah, I’m saving up to buy my girlfriend an engagement ring.
    Bartender: But you’re so young! You’re already getting engaged? How old are you?
    Barback: I’m nineteen. But I’ve been engaged before.
    Bartender: Really?
    Barback, completely nonchalant: Yeah. But some things happened and she’s not alive anymore.

  206. Robin Ellacott*

    My favourite (in one way, no in others) was the guy who greeted me and my older male co-interviewer by shaking our hands then asking me “any coffee, sweetie?”

    I’m the COO.

    The look on his face when we introduced ourselves still makes me grin a few years later.

    He did not get the job.

    1. Robin Ellacott*

      Ooops, this was new hires! I guess Coffee Guy still looms large in my head.

      The best new hire story is the one who tried to move into the CEO’s office when she was the newest person in the company. She didn’t like her desk which was in a semi-open area, saw he wasn’t in often, and was standing in his office planning where she would put her desk when I found her and explained some things to her.

  207. Mother of Corgis*

    I’ve had some real “winners.” People who show up hours late for orientation, or not at all, with no call that they’re running late. I’ve heard every excuse from overslept, to lost my wallet, to my car got stolen by my ex’s boyfriend while I was at the gas station. The one that comes to mind is less a first impression than an entire saga of just trying to get him to show up. For context, we live in a pretty rural area, primarily mining industry around here. My company has jobs throughout the area, so I only see the majority of our employees for hiring and firing. We’ll call our town Town A, and the nearest town is Town B (about 50 miles to the west). The job in question was located about 40 miles north of Town B.

    New Hire had checked in pretty regularly for a few weeks until I finally had something open up that he could fill. He lived in Town B, so was a good fit for this job. I called and let him know when the next onboarding would be so I could get him hired and sent to the job the next day. Orientation comes, he doesn’t show up. I try calling him a few times just to see if he’s on his way or if I need to reschedule him. New Hire finally calls back two hours after my last call and explains his grandmother had died suddenly. Okay, that happens, I understand, so I tell him we can reschedule. He insists he wants to come in that day though, so I tell him I can do another orientation after lunch. That will give him plenty of time to get to Town A.

    Lunch comes and goes. Not a peep. I call him again. He says he’s almost there. An hour later, he calls and says he’s in Town A, just trying to find our office. I give him directions. Its not a big town to begin with, so we’re hard to miss. Another hour passes. I call him one last time, he says he’s on his way. 4:30 he finally shows up. I manage to rush a two hour orientation into a half hour span, because at this point I am NOT staying late for this guy. When he’s done, I give him his form to go take a drug test at the clinic a block away, and tell him he cannot show up on site without the results. All he has to do is go take the test and leave the results in our mailbox. I will call him in the morning to let him know where to show up for work.

    Somehow, in the span of a block, he forgot he had to go to the clinic. I call him in the morning, tell him to go take it before the day is out and bring me the test results before 4 pm. He brings them in right as I’m leaving at 5. I quickly give him the instructions on where to show up to be picked up, as we transport all our workers to job sites because they’re in pretty remote areas often with limited parking. I even write it all out, with the address in Town B, time (6am), and van number to look for and his new supervisor’s number in case he has any problems.

    The next day, I get a call at 10. Not only did he not show up to the pick up in Town B, he’s actually here in Town A, wondering where he needs to go. At this point I’m frustrated, but we need to fill the position, and he says he really needs the job, so I give him one more chance and give him the same instructions as the day before. Next day, he left a message that he couldn’t get a ride to the pick up spot. When I get in to work, and am listening to the voicemail, the site supervisor calls and says the guy just showed up on site, somehow having miraculously found a car, driven himself and found the site that I never even gave him directions to (I only gave directions to the pick up spot; I didn’t even know how to get to the actual jobsite!). But whatever, at this point, I’m just glad he showed up, so we give him the last chance, because we’re desperate.

    The day after that, he didn’t show up again. Supervisor called him and told him he’d blown his last chance, and I’d have his check ready. New Hire swears he’s on his way, can be there in an hour, but supervisor is done, and so am I. Never comes to get his check either, so I put it in the mail at the end of the day.

    A week later, I see in the paper the New Hire has been arrested for trying to steal a go-cart from our local hardware store. Just pulled up in front and started loading it onto his truck, then tried to drive off with it half loaded when a store employee showed up, then led police on a chase before his eventual capture. Dodged a bullet with that guy.

    1. Elenna*

      Um. Wow. I have so many questions about that guy.

      Unrelated, though, I once did actually misplace my wallet the day before starting a new job! It was in a different city ~5 hours drive away from my hometown, my parents drove me there (this was a university internship) and took the opportunity to sightsee for a few days. Several hours after they left, I discovered that I’d left my wallet in their car.

      I got up early to walk to the office. It would never have occurred to me to just arrive late. Although that did unfortunately mean I didn’t get enough sleep, and I accidentally fell asleep during the afternoon’s training, so it’s not like I provided the best first impression either… My supervisor knew about the issue because I had to explain why I only had pictures of my ID, and he was nice enough to ignore my falling asleep and lend me $20 to cover the bus fare while waiting for my wallet to arrive in the mail.

      1. Mother of Corgis*

        I still have questions about that guy too. I try to be understanding because I get that things happen, like with losing the wallet, etc. As long as you call and let me know you’ll be late or something came up, I’m willing to work with you. Its the ones that don’t call for hours after they’ve missed their time that get to me.

        Speaking of walking to the office, I had a different new hire sleeping in our patio furniture outside our door when I arrived for his orientation. He told me he’d been there since 4 am, having walked there from his house. I don’t know why he got there so early. Even if he couldn’t find a ride in the morning, he lived no more than a few miles away, and orientation didn’t start until 8. He was an odd one throughout his employment with us. I have so many weird employee stories from this job.

  208. Anon for this*

    New manager (in a very busy medical specialty) didn’t speak to anyone her first couple of days or introduce herself, just walked by frowning a few times and have unfriendly vibes. The first attempt she made to communicate was walking by our desks and coldly ordering us to stop using reams of paper as footstools.

    I politely /friendly…ly explained that a) we had been denied in our request for real footstools, b) the desks were non-adjustable and for some reason so tall that only someone about 6’2” could sit at them properly, and c) adjusting our chairs that high meant our legs dangled freely, causing immediate and severe back pain that we were not willing to endure. I explained that if we actually could get footstools, we’d be happy to stop using the paper. In response, she just silently walked away.

    Radio silence until a few days later at our next staff meeting, she opened the meeting by telling everyone in a limp, flat voice that our department was doing badly and we weren’t doing good work, and asking us all why we were doing so badly. We had our struggles, for sure, but they weren’t that bad and it was a pretty bold (and vague) opener. People mostly sat in silence, and she told us that we were going to have to work harder. This is after asking no one for their perspective of how things were going and the history of the department. It was overworked, yes, but not a disaster, and she was mostly referring to a metric that goes down when departments are… overworked and understaffed.

    I transferred soon afterwards, but my friend in that department messaged me three months later complaining that manager had been AWOL for a week, had given no heads up, and no one knew what to do or had been told who was overseeing things in her absence. I persuaded my friend to email someone up the chain, asking for information about who the department was delegated to while the manager was gone. Within an hour that VP had swooped in and started asking people what was going on.

    Turns out that manger had no-call no-showed for a week but no one above her knew! And she was so uncommunicative that her whole department thought that she was just on PTO and hadn’t told anyone. They finally got a hold of her and she said that she quit. Managers at that level make very high salaries; it blows my mind that she would just peace out one day leaving dozens of doctors and staff baffled as to what was going on!

  209. Free Meerkats*

    We hired an admin for our small office (then a manager and 4 inspectors). She reported to work Monday with a bankers box full of Beanie Babies and spent the entire morning carefully arranging them in her workspace. Wednesday she left for lunch and was gone for about 3 hours, said she met her mother for lunch every week and they always needed a long lunch to catch up. Friday morning she was sent packing, Beanie Baby packing went much quicker than unpacking.

  210. Cleo Not Patra*

    My Director and My Supervisor Drove took me to the Hospital for Period Cramps –
    When I was 16 years old I got my first job as a teacher’s assistant in a day care centre. On my way to work on my third day, I was getting off the first bus, and waiting for the second bus and I was hit with really bad period cramps. I knew it was my period so products part was covered. However, sometimes, I would get immensely ill on the first day. I would get nauseous, dizzy, sweaty, be in a phenomenal amount of pain, and need to lie down.
    I knew I wasn’t going to make into work, so I went to the corner store beside the bus stop and asked to borrow the phone (1988) and I called my work to let them know that I was sick and wasn’t going to be able to come in. I then asked the store owner if I could lie down somewhere for a minute. The kind elderly man let me lie down in the back room. I am a germaphobe, but I just lay down on the cold concrete floor trying not to get sick, and trying to wait out the waves of pain so that I could take a bus back home.
    A few minutes later, the director and the special resources teacher (who both interviewed and hired me for the job), were at the store, helping me up. I did not tell them where I was, so I assume the elderly man out of concern for me redialed the number I had called?
    I told them I was fine and didn’t want to tell them that this happens to me almost every month. So, they took me to the hospital. I managed to convince them that I was ok and that they didn’t need to stay with me. I spend the next couple hours asleep and medicated on a hospital bed…for severe period cramps. The next day, which was my fourth day at work I was back at work. Word had gotten out, and every single person was asking me if I was ok. To some, I could quickly say, yes feeling much better and move on, to some that pressed and pressed, I felt foolish saying, I have severe period cramps and was provided a prescription to help deal with them. I was mortified. I did continue to work there on and off as a regular supply teacher and as a program assistant for children with special needs, while completing my university studies. So I guess it didn’t hurt my future employment with them.
    While the first week of work was utterly embarrassing, I still cringe when I think about being driven to the hospital by the director and my boss for period cramps, no one remembered or ever brought it up after that……But I remember.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      You’re talking as if period cramps are an embarrassing thing to seek medical attention for! This is very common and it sounds like they did the right thing. I had a friend who thought she was having bad cramps because the timing was right and she ended up being mid-appendicitis attack. Had to get surgery. Cramps are no joke when they take you down like this.

      1. Cleo Not Patra*

        I appreciate your encouragement in regards to the fact that periods are not embarrassing. For me, as an extremely shy 16 year old who does not like to be the centre of attention, and this was my very first job, and I was around people that I thought were pretty professional, and I did not know them at all, this was not how I wanted to make my first impressions. At that point I had not met all the teachers at the daycare centre, so the first thing some of them knew about me was that I was picked up sick from the corner store down the road, and that I was driven to the hospital on my third day of work. And every single person felt compelled to ask me questions about it. While my adult self can appreciate that cramps is a medical issue like anything else, my 16 year old self wanted to die of embarrassment of feeling like I had to share this personal fact about myself in the first 5 minutes of meeting someone. Yes, in hindsight, I didn’t have to, but it was a on the spot judgement call, of not wanting them to worry and think there was some other more serious health condition, or worse because I was hired from a program for low income students, I didn’t want them to think I had some substance abuse issues.

        1. JustaTech*

          I can totally understand why that would be incredibly embarrassing, even as an adult, let alone as a teen! I’m really impressed you stuck with the job; as we’ve seen here today a lot of people would have just left and not come back.

    2. ferrina*

      Aw! What amazing people! I’ve worked at daycares, and I once had to argue with a boss that I needed to leave because I was literally too dizzy to stand up straight (she thought it was a good idea for me to supervise 10 two-year olds in that condition?)
      Seconding Eldritch Office Worker- cramps are no joke. You have no reason to be embarrassed about this. You were so responsible to call out and not just try to power through or no-show. Impressive for a 16 year old!

  211. BakeryB*

    I was the packaging supervisor in a very large and busy retail bakery. I ran the crew who packaged all the hundreds of products and filled the display cases. I was training a new hire on her first day. Her second comment to me, after asking the time of her first break, was “Not much of a job. A monkey can count twelve rolls into a bag.” I said “You’re not paying attention if you think this is all the job is on your first day.” On her second day, she went on a break and the boss found her sitting in the storeroom on bags of flour—putting polish on her nails. He told her to go back to work. She told him not until her nails dried. She was clocked out and walked out right then.

  212. Kammy6707*

    In high school/college, I worked at a big box retailer in their seasonal section – so where the lawn and garden, Halloween, and Christmas stuff all cycled through. We had one register and usually one person was assigned to the register for their shift, but everyone was trained on how to run it, so when it was time for the register person to take their break, someone working the floor would cover for them.

    We had a new girl start, early 20s I think? Not really sure at this point. I believe I was in the summer between high school and college when this occurred – or it was the spring of my senior year. So she was clearly an “adult” and I was not.

    Anyway, I was on the register and asked a coworker if they could let her know it was my breaktime and I needed register coverage when she was available. When I came in, I replaced her on the register and she was finishing out her shift on the floor so usually you swap back and forth with the prior register person for breaks so you don’t have tons of hands in the cash. My coworker returned sheepishly, and told me that she replied “I’m not her b*tch” so he would cover the register for me even though he was working on another task (she was just straightening shelves to my knowledge). We shared a WTF moment over this.

    Apparently she stewed over this request during my entire 15-minute break and walked off the job shorty after I returned to the register, yelling obscenities at me as she did so.

  213. Beth*

    Late in the thread, but here’s a positive story:

    When I started my current (really great) job, there were two things I did at the beginning that really set me up well and are still paying off:

    During the interview, I said that as their new Operations Manager (the first person they’d ever had in that role), one of my first priorities would have to be getting a clear understanding of what software they were currently using, and how, and especially, what worked well for them. Because it was very important that I did NOT try to change processes that were already working smoothly.

    In my first week, I took a clunky Excel spreadsheet that they all used as a template for a particular, very important, time-consuming process. In my industry, there are software platforms that will do the whole thing, but they’re very expensive, incredibly fiddly to set up, and require that the process be exactly the same for every client. My firm, instead, individualizes this for every client. They hire people who can do this individualized process really well.

    I automated the front end so that most of the fiddly manual setup could run with a few clicks and buttons. The resulting Excel file looked and acted exactly the way it had done before I’d automated the front end; the only difference was that they could immediately start using it for the necessary task and didn’t have to do the setup.

    It’s been over ten years, and they’re still using it! And still not paying a steep annual license fee for the high-end platform that doesn’t give them what they wanted. I’ve revamped it half a dozen times to keep it current and add requested features, but it still runs in Excel and looks pretty much the same.

    After I’d done that, I had some solid capital to work on things that actually did need changing.

  214. Beast ala Mode*

    A student intern had my car towed during his second week of work. I had parked in my assigned spot. I was on vacation the week he started, and had decided that the assigned, but “open” spot was his. So when he got to work on that Monday, when I returned to work, and found a car in “his spot” he called a tow truck and had it towed. I went out at lunch to get something and my car was gone. I called the impound lot and found out that the intern was the one who made the call to have the car towed. Intern’s boss paid the impound fees, and intern was not hired for a permanent position at the end of his internship.

    1. JP*

      So…can people just call and get cars towed for whatever reason and tow companies don’t question this?

      Also, the audacity.

      1. Beast ala Mode*

        The company had a contract with the tow company, and did tow somewhat frequently for us. But usually it was a security guard calling in a tow for a car that had been left overnight or in an assigned spot.

    2. ferrina*

      Wow. Seriously- the audacity.
      Kid got lucky that someone else paid the impound fees and he even got to keep his internship.

      1. JustaTech*

        Good grief! When my boss accidentally parked in the VP’s spot (the boss usually biked but had to be in at 4am so just took whatever spot thinking he’d move his car before anyone arrived and then everything went sideways) the VP just parked in a visitor spot and didn’t fuss.

  215. Sunny*

    I worked with someone who mansplained how pregnancy…to three women. I don’t even know why he was discussing this at work anyway.

  216. publicsectorprincess*

    Not this first day for this person, but the first day I worked with them, as a part of training, they accompanied me on a home visit, as that is a large part of the job they had been hired to do. During said visit, while I was engaging with the client, and this individual fell asleep, complete with snoring.
    Shockingly enough (to me) this person was kept on and given several more chances, but eventually left after an incident where they asked me for guidance regarding a poor performance review, then began to scream at me about how they review was not correct , and also the poor performance was my fault.

  217. Web of Pies*

    A new hire was due to start after the winter holidays, so management invited him to the company holiday party. A weird way to make a first impression to be sure, but my first interaction with him was when I was sitting alone DJing because no one else wanted to do it. He approached me, introduced himself and said “why don’t you play something good?” I think he thought it was cute?

  218. Extensia*

    I interned on the website of a pretty well established print publication back in the early 2000s, before most print outlets had really figured out the web. The web team were primarily there to do content entry for print articles into our web publishing system. It was a pretty menial job, but my boss had sort of an outsize view of his/our importance (he was ahead of his time, but in a way that was really not useful at all). Anyway, a full-time role opened up and when he posted the job, he asked for a lot of web experience and advanced qualifications – even though the job was 98% data entry. But because of the lofty job description/requirements, he hired someone who was quite ambitious, and who was therefore pretty dismayed to spend her days copy-and-pasting articles into different systems.

    At the end of her first week of work, there was an all-day corporate retreat, at which New Employee cornered the publisher of our very large, very well known publication and proceeded to lecture him about undervaluing the website and that “you need to spend money to make money.” She did have a point, but she had been there A WEEK!

  219. arachophilia*

    I had been at my job for about 4 or 5 years, when I found out my mother’s cancer was imminently terminal. I was fortunate enough to be able to take about 6 weeks off (paid) to care for her in her final weeks. When I got back, a temp had been hired to fill in for a staff member who had resigned while I was away, and my boss was considering bringing her on permanently.

    The first day I was back, she refused to make eye contact with me, then lectured me on a process that I had developed. Later, someone asked me a question about vacation accrual, and the new temp jumped in to explain (incorrectly) how vacation time is accrued. She thought that all jobs were like her previous job, and when I jumped in to correct her (since the question was actually directed to me), she visibly rolled her eyes, and used a super-sweet voice to explain that I wouldn’t know since I’d just gotten there.

    Fortunately, my coworkers knew better, and even my boss, who was extremely swayed by someone who exuded confidence, even if they were factually wrong, decided she would not work out long term for us.

  220. JP*

    I wish I had more details than this, but within two weeks of my grandmother starting her first bookkeeping job out of college, she discovered one of the accountants was stealing money and alerted the company. I wish I had more details than that, the first time she told me the story she was already starting to struggle with her memory.

  221. JJ*

    This one is me and I still cringe about it. I had interviewed at a law firm for a secretary position and didn’t hear back for a few weeks, I assumed I didn’t get the job. I was 19 and interviewing constantly, but had never worked an “adult job” and didn’t realize that not hearing back right after an interview was normal. I got a call from the lawyer I’d interviewed with and was offered the job. I answered with a *squeal* and said “Yes! Thank you ! I wish I was in person so I could hug you!” I worked there for a year before getting a better paying job, I’ve never once offered to hug anybody for offering me a job since.

    1. ferrina*

      Aw! This is kind of sweet. I didn’t use those exact words, but I’ve definitely been that excited after getting an offer.

  222. Shoney Honey*

    We hired Paul (in his mid 20’s) as a warehouse assistant. On his first day, if there was a moment where he wasn’t actively aware of something to do, he would step outside to smoke. Two hours into his shift I had heard the question “Where’s Paul?” so many times I went and chased him down myself to speak with him about the issue. After lunch that same day he was sent to an offsite warehouse to pick up a few items. When he didn’t return, my boss went to find him and could not. She realized after a few minutes that the restroom door was locked, so she started knocking on it and calling Paul’s name. After a few more minutes she was pounding on the door and shouting his name. She finally broke into the bathroom, where Paul was sitting on the toilet, fully clothed and fast asleep. She finally managed to wake him up and he said that he had too much to drink the night before and was hung over. Despite this rough start, he stayed on as an employee for another three months of last minute call-ins, excessive smoke breaks, a couple of drivers license suspensions that prevented him from doing his job before he got fired. I keep his nametag to remind me that someone can give a fabulous interview and absolutely suck as an employee.

  223. And so it goes*

    I was asked to see if I could find the brand new student worker who was supposed to be staffing a front line desk, as everyone who walked past noticed no one was sitting there. I happened to go around the desk- and discovered her sitting underneath the desk, absorbed with her phone. (She’d taken off her shoes, for an added touch.) I politely asked her to sit in the chair. She climbed out from under the desk, said something about not feeling ‘people-y’ today, and sat in the chair, eyes never leaving her phone.

    Student workers can be notoriously hard to fire, but she no-showed enough in a short period of time that we were able to let her go.

  224. Lady Knittington*

    I was working for a charity in central London (UK). We hired someone as part time receptionist because we needed Thursdays covered. She’d been rejected by another team for saying she was available when they needed her then saying she wasn’t after she’d been offered the job.
    On her first day she told us: “I’ve had some computer training but I need a refresher on things like copying and pasting”
    Last I heard she’d got a job on the IT helpdesk of the Metropolitan Police.

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      Every time I see comments like this I laugh, because I have an uncle who leads a whole dang IT implementation department (and does it really well) is absolutely hopeless with keyboard shortcuts. The man can handle a database like nobody’s business but is more comfortable right-clicking and dragging than using ctrl + copy.

      But he’s a rare exception.

      1. ecnaseener*

        Sounds like this receptionist didn’t remember ANY copy-paste methods, not just the keyboard shortcut.

        1. Lady Knittington*

          Yup, it seemed to be the whole process of copying and pasting that she had problems with. I left that job after she started yelling at me for being late in relieving her (she always wanted to leave early, so I actually wasn’t that late) after I’d been in a phonecall with somebody asking advice after a child had been run over.
          Management refused to do anything as there weren’t considered any witnesses (The cleaner didn’t count as he was employed by a subcontractor and it would have been too difficult to ask for his account). They then put ran conflict resolution sessions/dealing with agression at work for everyone and put me in the same session as her.

      2. Kuddel Daddeldu*

        With (at least older) IT guys it’s more commonly the opposite – great on typed commands, not so familiar with mouse gestures. I happen to fall into that demographic; I know several particular graphical user interfaces just enough to open a command window.

    2. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      Weirdly, I am seeing an ad on this page for jobs with the Metropolitan Police. I live in the U.S.

  225. S*

    New employees at my job are featured in a periodic newsletter, where they describe themselves in a short paragraph. One of them shared that she and her husband were trying to conceive.

    Okay!!

  226. Troy Morris*

    Intern
    I am a medical social worker and had interviewed a grad school intern for the following Fall. I gave her an overview of the work and a bunch of materials to read over the summer to prepare. She was from my alma mater so there was no reason not to accept her. On her first day in the Fall she plopped down next to my desk and said “Oh by the way, I didn’t get a chance to read any of that stuff you gave me.” I said “Well, now we know what you’ll be doing today.” I’d like to say it got better, but it didn’t.

  227. Goldenrod*

    I don’t have any good stories, I just want to say THANK YOU ALISON for these running these “ask a reader” topics as a regular feature.

    They are always massively entertaining!! :D

  228. JTG*

    We had a long-term substitute teacher hired during Covid because she was the only candidate willing to teach in-person; the teacher she was subbing for had been teaching from home and was on maternity leave.

    During lunch on the first day, the sub got into a graphic description of vaginal birth, including gestures, and was telling us about the advice she gave to the teacher she was subbing for.

    It was the tip of the iceberg. Long-term sub had to be let go with two weeks left in the school year because of a confidentiality breach in front of students.

  229. Heffalump*

    At my current job new hires don’t necessarily have to use HR as their first point of contact with the company. I networked my way in through two former peers who now work there. But HR does get looped in on all new hires.

    One guy wasn’t even interviewed, let alone hired, and in a minute you’ll see why. He’d owned a successful machine shop for some years, had recently sold it, and was looking to get hired on somewhere as a machinist. He may have been aware that HR would be looped in, because when he emailed the hiring manager, he said something about “the girls in HR.” (Our HR department is indeed all-female.) I gathered that his application ground to a halt at that point.

  230. Leaving for Paris*

    I was a store manger for a large company with store all over the US. We were in district by region with a district manager. We would have a yearly meeting where all mangers and above spent a week at our corporate HQ planning for the next year. My district had a new district manger that was an external hirer and our first time meeting her would be at this meeting. Some of the highlights from her first and last 4 days.
    -someone let her know that a tag was sticking out on her shirt and she said “I know I am going to retuned it after wearing this” mind you we manage stores that sell clothes and have a department dedicated to preventing this type of loss.”
    -Getting so drunk at a dinner that she passed out.
    -Making moves on multiple male employees and trying to grab their butts.
    -bumping and grinding with the VP and trying to make out with him in front of the head of HR.
    She was fired after 4 days and I still wonder how she was hired she would have had multiple interviews with HR and company executives.

  231. KCMC*

    New Hire comes in for his first day, makes a very standard impression. He’s a conventional looking, slightly-nerdy, skinny white guy – glasses, short blond hair, khakis-and-button-up. He gets taken around and introduced to everyone – seems pleasant and friendly, if a little reserved – we’re happy he’s here looking forward to working with him etc etc. That was Oct 30.
    This company was pretty serious about parties and the Halloween party was the most important bash of the year. Well the new hire, not only got the message, but clearly understood the assignment. Multiple people confronted the swaggering, long haired, tattooed, abundantly pierced, chains-eyeliner-and-combat-boot-wearing rocker dude who was clearly crashing our party. Winning the costume contest on his 2nd day of work made a delightful first impression.

  232. Sharpie*

    A recent one that comes to mind isn’t as WTF as some of these, and I guess gets a pass for being an interview rather than the actual first day of work but…

    I work in a warehouse. They are interviewing people because one of the office staff is leaving for pastures new, and they’re down two candidates, one of whom can’t come onsite due to COVID. So, the CEO brings this lady down to meet the warehouse staff. Warehouses are not famous for nice smooth quality carpeted floors, and this lady is wearing four-inch stilettos.

    Which is one thing on an interview, but she got the job and still dresses as sharp as anything, stilettos and all, in an environment where everyone in the office dresses maybe a degree up from the jeans and T-shirts we warehouse people wear.

      1. Sharpie*

        It was something to behold! The steps to get from the office area into the warehouse are grating steps, even though there’s rubber matting at the edges. Her coordination mist be second to none!

  233. grapefruit*

    I met my now-husband at work, a few jobs ago for both of us. On his first day (after a period of unemployment, so he was very much in need of the job), he started feeling sick right after he showed up, as he was filling out his HR paperwork. Things didn’t improve over the course of the day, but he desperately wanted to stick it out because he needed the job and wanted to make a good first impression. Finally, toward the end of the day he asked his supervisor if he could leave a half-hour early. Well, things didn’t improve from there…over the course of the evening, it became clear that it wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill stomach bug or food poisoning. He went to the ER in the middle of the night, where they diagnosed him with appendicitis in need of emergency surgery.

    His dad called the office the next morning (because he was either in surgery or still under anesthesia) and talked to the HR rep. My H was in the hospital for a few days, and it was at least a week, maybe two, before he was able to come back to work, but the whole time he was terrified that this whole episode would cost him the job. The company was actually pretty understanding (which…was somewhat unusual for them), so everything worked out fine in the end on that front.

    Meanwhile, the rest of us at the office were wondering what happened to “new guy,” who had shown up for his first day and then promptly disappeared. Most of us hadn’t actually met him and doubted that he’d ever be back. Eventually, we did hear through the grapevine that new guy had appendicitis. Little did I know I would end up marrying “new guy” four years later.

  234. EmilyAnn*

    I supervised a group of summer interns at a Congressman’s office on Capitol Hill. I had all four of the interns start on the same day. Three showed up on time and we began getting badges and computer log ins. Two hours after the expected time the fourth did not show. I finally called. He sounded like I was bothering him by asking about his whereabouts. He eventually shows up all smiles and apologies. I let it slide. Many things happened but he ended up being fired halfway through his 6 week unpaid internship after no-showing or three days and forging a doctor’s note.

  235. Grandiose spacecat*

    Oh i got one! This one is about me

    Started a new job as a temp engineer to full hire, and on the second week i told them i needed the next week off for a sudden trip to California. No, it wasn’t a vacation, i was escorting my terminally ill mother to see her family one last time before her next surgery. Not sure what they made of that, but didn’t impact keeping the job, but yeah i would have quit on the spot if they said no.

  236. East Coaster for life*

    My family owned a seafood exporting business outside of a small university town in Eastern Canada. We were seasonal with our busy period perfectly in line with summer break at the University, so we had a lot of students working for us. The thing is, most of them were from away…i.e. big cities and without a clue as to what they were getting into. To give a bit of an idea, the day started with shovelling approximately 500-1000 pounds of herring, or other assorted partially rotten bait, into trays to bring out to the harbours around the region. Much of the job required workers to unload boats at harbours around the region (long hours sitting on a wharf, in the middle of no where, in zero degree weather, interspersed with manic unloading of boats).
    At the beginning of every year it was hilarious to see the city kids arrive, and then we’d take bets on how long they would survive. There was always one person a year who would show up in business casual, leather shoes and trousers (despite being told exactly what they should wear i.e. oil pants and a heavy sweater that can be tossed at the end of the year, and that the floor of the holding facility had 4 cm of water covering it at all times) with a light jacket and a golf shirt. By the end of the day their footwear would be ruined, their clothes soaked through with fish blood, salt water, and other assorted bodily fluids (tears…), and the will to live gone from their eyes.
    While I am happy that we no longer have the business, and my life has gone the way of Academia; I think back to those years sitting on wharves of little fishing villages in Eastern Canada, learning to smoke cigarettes with the weathered regulars, and chuckle thinking about the newbies covered in fish guts, shivering away.

  237. kitryan*

    I was working at a mailbox/shipping store. We had a new hire who was assigned to sort mail into the boxes w/me. The space behind the boxes is quite snug and there’s a lot of passing letters back and forth as one person will have access to the right set of boxes and the other to the left. So if two people are doing it, they’ll necessarily be in close proximity with a small amt of unavoidable contact- shoulders and hands touching mostly. Nothing unexpected when working in a space only a couple feet deep, if that. We sorted the mail while chatting casually and that was that.
    The next day I was told that new hire had reported that I’d invaded their space in an upsetting way and basically cautioned to take care in any further interactions w/her. I said that nothing strange had happened from my perspective and that I had no idea what her issue was but I would be extra careful.
    That day she was assigned to sort mail with S. instead, a 60ish man (I was a female recent college grad). The next day (day 3 of this whole thing, still in her first week at the store) the new hire made the same complaint about personal space regarding S.
    After that she was quickly let go.
    Complaining about me was one thing. I’d only been at the job for 6 months or so, though I’d been well regarded thus far. However S. was (though new hire wouldn’t have known it) the father of the franchise owner and also the absolute nicest and most courteous person imaginable.
    While it was not clear exactly what the deal was with the new hire, whether she was stirring up trouble or if she was just highly sensitive, it was for sure that she wasn’t going to do well in a store where you had to work in close quarters with other associates.

  238. HannahMiss*

    I was training a new hire for a photography job. No experience needed, as it was for a tourist destination. The new guy let me know that as a kid, he’d had all his fingers broken in some sort of accident and had no grip strength, and would not be able to use the tripod (basic requirement that would have impacted whether he could be scheduled evenings, and he was hired to work evenings). Later in the day he also informed me that he was allergic to the latex of the camera grip. So basically he wouldn’t be able to touch the camera, or use the tool that would make it so he didn’t have to hold the camera. I think he thought the job would be a good fit since he was studying filmography. His filmography studies had not taught him how to take non-crooked photos. I handed him off to a leader to discuss potential accommodations and took my planned vacation the next day. Didn’t see the new guy again, because it turns out holding the camera was a critical job function.

    I also had a new hire who I was training on some more advanced skills. I had been warned that she had already needed additional training on the basics, and that the day would probably be rough. She showed up and said she was very tired, and asked if she could nap for a bit. Tbh, I was so astonished that after offering coffee and the option to stand and move through the presentation, I let her rest for about 10 minutes. The rest of the day was filled with arguing, refusing to take feedback, and complete failure to grasp the concepts behind the skill, much less perform the skill to any quality standard. Two years later and she’s still with us.

    1. ferrina*

      Just….why? Why would you think it’s a good idea to do a job where you can’t do the main function?

  239. MocKing*

    Two memorable ones spring to mind;

    Frank spoke about Frank in the third person. If you asked Frank about his experience, Frank would say something like “Allow Frank to give you an example of when Frank delivered for Frank’s customers”. A shame he was less than Frank about finishing the masters he claimed on his CV

    Another one put a link to their personal blog in their CV. I dutifully followed it and clicked around (I don’t generally stalk social media, but if you put it in your CV it means you want me to look at it). It was the most unhinged vitriolic anti women in the work place diatribe I’ve ever seen. I still remember the headline, something like “more men would stand up and be gentlemen if more women would sit down and be ladies”… absolutely mad thing to draw attention to

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I hope you tell this story all the time and always pull out that less than Frank joke because I’m dying and you would be my best friend if I heard this at a party

      1. MocKing*

        Heh. I do! For it is a legal requirement as a dad to make dad jokes like it. Which is why I couldn’t change the name for anonymity.

        If you’re out there and reading this Frank, stay true you beautiful weirdo.

  240. ferrina*

    We had a new hire who claimed proficiency on PowerPoint, which we use frequently and a job requirement. Turns out he lied about proficiency. It was bad. He took 2 hours to make a pie chart (it had 3 categories!!) and still couldn’t get it right. I was his manager, and two weeks in I had to put him on a remedial training plan.
    The first day of his remedial training, he skipped the training to pull my boss and HR into a meeting to complain that I was holding him to the requirements of the job and telling him what to do (oh the audacity of a manager assigning timelines!). Little did he know that my boss was already aware of his performance issues and was already thinking of cutting him loose- the remedial training had been my idea to try to give him one last shot. He was gone before his third week.

  241. TechWorker*

    Not SUPER outrageous but we had an intern who in their first week, sat amongst many experienced people they could have asked, somewhat bossily told intern #2 that they were doing GitHub WRONG and they needed to use some very specific commit comment format.
    1) they didn’t
    2) the format he was insisting on duplicated information that was already there

    Bossing around your peer isn’t great even if you’re right, but do it when you’re wrong and I judge hard! The intern was not asked back.

    1. TechWorker*

      (To be clear; this was the tip of the iceberg, the remaining 7 weeks also gave plenty of reasons not to hire them)

  242. alt ac*

    While I was in both undergrad and grad school, I worked full-time as a legal assistant to a managing partner. A new associate was coming in, probably only 5-ish years older than I am, and after my boss introduced him around, she asked me to show him the ropes, as he had not been assigned an admin yet.

    I finish showing him everything and get back to my desk, and he’s calling me. Pick up the phone, and he says: “Hey sweetie, could you scamper on down and get me some coffee?” I explained calmly that I don’t “scamper” anywhere, my name is alt ac, and reminded him where the coffee was.

    Apparently he had his speakerphone on, and the associate next door, a good friend of mine, heard everything. She walked next door laughing and was like…”Dude. This isn’t the 60s. What were you thinking?”

  243. Margaretmary*

    When I worked retail, we got this new guy – I guess he was about 40? – who just creeped me out for reasons I couldn’t quite identify. He’d probably been there a week or two when an 18 year old coworker started talking about quitting because he’d been making advances to her. I don’t know the details, but she was definitely scared of him (he was also married, not that it would make it any better if he were single). She was advised to go to the manager or deputy manager and as he was still in his probationary period, he was let go.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I realize you probably meant to nest this but I love it as just a general reply to all the stories

  245. La Triviata*

    Sometime in the late ’70s, I was working in an office of a large international firm and one of our clients turned to a VICE PRESIDENT and, because she was a woman told her to get him a cup of coffee. Being a mature and professional woman, she told him she’d have her secretary get it for him.

    Another company, one of the higher-ranked women was from Viet Nam. She had an accent, but English was her third (or fourth) language. She once had someone visiting tell her she had to be dumb because she had an accent. jeepers

  246. She was also the CEO's sister*

    The head of my department at a new job worked at a different office and I’d only communicated with her by phone/email. Our location had a glassed-in conference room right off the office entrance. In one of my first staff meetings, a woman entered the office, walked up to the conference room wall and started making funny faces, culminating in pressing her mouth up to the window and doing a blowfish. I must have looked at her like she was crazy. Then my manager introduced her as our grandboss.

    She’d behaved appropriately on the phone, but was abrupt and rude to me the rest of the time I worked there. She got fired from the company while it was being investigated in multiple states for consumer fraud on behalf of for-profit colleges.

    1. She was also the CEO's sister*

      Edited to correct: she was the *new* head of the department at my job.

  247. Anonymous technical writer*

    Long before I joined my company, There were someone who made a name for herself by being unable to find the bathroom four days after starting, despite it being 60 feet away in a facilities column that was line of sight from her desk.

      2. Anonymous technical writer*

        She asked her manager for directions 3 times a day for almost a week!

  248. SBC*

    I was working as a consultant and this client was a company who used to be my employer. I was feeling pretty sick one day, but they had a last-minute meeting they’d called me to be on, so I decided to hop on Zoom, hair in a ponytail with a sweatshirt on – not my best look, but nothing inappropriate. I’d worked at this company for years and had great relationships and again, I was sick.

    There was a new hire on the zoom who I hadn’t met yet (she was in her second week) and the first thing she says to me is “geez, you could’ve dressed up for our first day!” (it was the first day with students). I tried to laugh it off and responded that I’m an external consultant working remotely so it was just a normal Tuesday for me. She doubled down at that point saying “Even more reason to dress up! We’re your client – you should be impressing us!”

    At this point, her grandboss (who I knew quite well from working there) jumped in as she was mortified. She shut it down with “Serena doesn’t work for us and she saved our butts by agreeing to take on this project, so she can dress however she wants.” I added that I was sick and squeezing in this call before quickly shutting everything down and heading to the doctor. The new hire was not one bit embarrassed and to this day, I cannot believe the audacity to comment on a stranger’s clothing during your second week at work.

  249. HappyDaze*

    This one happened in about 2013 when I was taking part in interviewing people to replace me at my former workplace. (I was transitioning from that workplace to another position within the company in a completely separate division.) We were interviewing an older woman, and my boss asked her to “Describe a time when you had a conflict with a coworker or another employee and how you resolved it.”

    “Well,” she said, “There was a toxic person on the team I supervised who was a lot of drama. I thought if I just left her alone, the situation would resolve itself, but it just kept getting worse and worse, and eventually two other employees quit because of her antics and we had to have a complete restructuring of the department, and at that point she was fired. So I guess it did work itself out in the end.”

    My supervisor and I basically sat in stunned silence for a beat or two before moving on. Obviously, she didn’t get the position, and I went on to use that exact scenario in the new position while teaching people the importance of preparing for certain interview questions and answering in a positive way that can acknowledge weaknesses while still showing a journey of growth.

    1. ferrina*

      Oh my. This is such a lack of awareness. And she basically answered your question with “yeah, I don’t do ‘resolving’ “

  250. CA HR Dude*

    In college I worked for my county’s election department. During the months leading up to an election we would hire a large number of temps to work the election, teaching them how to enter voter registration information, serve as poll workers, work the front desk to answer questions, etc.

    At this point I’d been with the department for several years and through several election cycles (including the governor recall election that got us the Governator). It was the 2004 general presidential election and so there was a lot of interest in it, requiring us to hire a lot of temps, and one of them had some interesting ideas about her role, such as:

    – For some reason she got it into her head that she was a “temp supervisor” and would spend time telling other temps what to do. She wasn’t and had no authority to do so.
    – Once tried to give me her work, after she’d been handed a stack of voter registration cards to enter RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, and tried to tell me to enter it.
    – Once tried to lecture another temp on the proper way to do something in the office. Loudly. In front of other people. In the most condescending tone. And everything she said was wrong.
    – Was told to not work the front desk because she could not keep her personal politics to herself (we had a department policy that we were apolitical in the office).

    She is the only temp that I can remember ever lobbying to be let go. At the start of the meeting when they were going to let her go, she apparently took the initiative to bad mouth me to my manager, unprompted, before my manager could even get a word in edgewise.

  251. PrincessClutter*

    I was a young assistant manager in a national chain, and my new-to-the-company manager were assigned to a store reeling from the (overdue) firing of the previous manager.

    My first shift with one of the staff members, she told me that she a) didn’t like serving customers, b) didn’t like making *item we made*, so wouldn’t, c) didn’t like to clean the store, and d) refused to empty any garbages.
    Thankfully, she was still in her probation period, and we could let her go. But neither my manager nor I had fired anyone before, so I was asked to be in the conversation. Said staff member stated that she had been fired in every job she ever had, put her head on the table and subbed. I asked her to consider the common denominator, and asked her to leave.

    I’d handle that all much better now, but really, if you refuse to do all the tasks at a job….how would you keep said job?

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      You didn’t handle it professionally but you lived a dream many of us have had, hold that close to your heart.

  252. HollyQueen*

    I got food poisoning at lunch my first day and had to go home about 2 pm. Called in sick the next day. Apparently my coworkers laid bets on if I would ever show up again.

  253. Decidedly Me*

    Bit of a different situation, as it was a crowd sourcing job, which were all independent contractors (ICs) that could work as much or as little as they wanted on their own schedule. You had to be 18 to sign up and there was an application + a test of some kind. A lot of the end users of the service were under 18, so a fair number would sign up on the worker side as soon as they were old enough. Many of them would come straight to the worker forum with a first post along the lines of:

    “I’ve been using the service for 3 years and couldn’t wait to make it better because I’ve got to say, you guys are really bad and need my help! Here are problems X, Y, Z that I had and clearly, you should be doing A, B, C instead. I can’t believe you haven’t figured that out. Me and my friends think you’re such a joke with how bad you all are”

    They would then get a crash course from their not too happy co-workers on why those things occurred (procedural issues and automations, not quality issues with the ICs – quality standards were really high for them)

  254. L. Ron Jeremy*

    We hired a new mechanical engineer who just graduated from college and she is assigned a cube right next to mine at a Biomedical startup. We report to the same Engineering manager. Margaret proceeds to settle in and spends most of her time corresponding with contacts in China via email, to the point where other work she is assigned seems to take a back seat.

    Trash, food wrappers, containers and paperwork start to fill her cube, to the point where it is overflowing the desk surfaces. Margaret dosen’t seem to mind and continues emailing most every day for hours on end, ignoring her tasks assigned during the weekly team meeting.

    But by week number four her appearance starts to change and she starts looking progressively unkempt, with obvious dirty hair and fingernails. She also is now emitting a strong body order, which is hard to ignore as I sit in the next cube.

    But what really grossed me out is when she came to work in a camisole, which displayed her back and a full array of black and white heads in various stages of growth, which I unfortunately saw as I casually glanced into her cube as I passed by.

    I mentioned my concerns about Margaret to my manager, who was apparently clueless regarding her deteriorating appearance and lack of progress on her assignments. I still remember him saying “but she graduated from the top of her class from Stanford!”, as if this was the only qualification needed to do the job.

    It took several more weeks before Margaret no longer showed up to work. I assumed she was terminated; her dirty cube took several more weeks until someone mentioned that it should be cleaned for the new hire who was coming in to replace her.

  255. Summer Day*

    First week at an entry level job and things aren’t really going that well with Bob but he seems completely unaware of this. He told me his plan to do something grossly unsafe the next day and taking a (far too) gentle approach I gave him some background material on what he was planning to do and told him go go away and read up on the process and we would go through it before he had to do it the next day. When we met I asked what he had found from his reading. And he said- to his astonishment no one made mention of the process he was going to implement. I asked what that told him, and he in all seriousness replied “I think I’m on to the next big thing in teapot manufacturing!” At this point I absolutely expressively forbid him from touching that particular machine without direct supervision and upped the level of supervision in all areas. Bob lasted another week before our lack of understanding of his brilliance led him to pursue other opportunities. To his surprise we accepted his resignation with good grace, paid him out immediately and didn’t require him to work out his notice period!

    1. FoxInABox*

      I desperately want more from this. Can you share some details about the field or at least what kind of task was involved or why the proposed process was unsafe?

      1. Summer Day*

        I was working in a health care profession at the time that uses electro therapy. Their plan involved putting an electrode on the front of the chest wall and the electrode to complete the circuit on persons back making the most direct electrical pathway through the heart. I feel like I don’t need to explain why this is a bad idea! This was to treat a shoulder. Obviously when someone is working at this level of incompetence there were other safety and commonsense concerns. But this incident was by far the most memorable!

  256. Jo*

    A new guy was starting on my team a few months ago. He was NOT my choice, but the team he would be supporting specifically picked him. We had our team meeting and each member is introducing themselves, what their job is, how long they have been with company, etc. After each person introduced themselves, he countered with a bizarre one upmanship or name dropping said “connection” who hired him. When I did my intro, he jumped in to tell me how great it was that I am “trying” analytics and to let him know if I ever need any tips or help. I am a 10+ year veteran at the company and the most senior ranking analyst. He had a job previously in retail. He just graduated from college. Also, his intro to the engineering team was by way of going in and “fixing” projects he was 100% not involved in.

      1. Jo*

        Still there!! And it is not going well for that team. I stuck it out for all of 6 weeks with him on my team. After multiple instances of him taking others’ work, talking over people, a weird Christmas meltdown, and just being an all around braying jackass I told the director to remove him from my team (be it firing or reassigning). His “friend” who is a manager in a different business unit agreed to take him on. He has thoroughly alienated that team as well.

  257. LesinWI*

    After a couple of great interviews and positive reference check, I hired a new medical receptionist and went over the office dress policy with her, which was what you’d expect of a medical receptionist– conservative-ish casual, stuff like a sweater and slacks. I didn’t dream it would be an issue because that was more or less how she was dressed for her interview. First day on the job, she shows up in a completely sheer blouse with a push-up bra under. I asked her to please wear her jacket at the desk and to come more appropriately dressed the next day. Next morning, she shows up in a completely backless halter top and flip-flops and proceeded to spend the better part of the morning in the bathroom. I sent her home at lunch and then found what appeared to be cocaine residue on the sink in the employee restroom. I called her to let her go that afternoon, and she did not answer her phone, so I left a message to call me back, please. Then I discovered at the end of the day that she had emptied the cash box out of $150 of patient copays. She never called back and we never saw her again.

  258. Glad I don't think work there*

    I worked for a company that chronically underpaid people. They also had a referral program where you got I think $2K if your referral was hired. A new employee placed a Craigslist add soliciting resumes from people and then submitted them as his referral. He was found out pretty quickly, and was let go. One his way out he sent a nasty note to our CEO that included pictures of other employees sleeping at their desks. Basically the entire 3,000 employee company found out because we had an open email system where anyone could read the executive email (it was supposed to promote transparency).

    1. SBC*

      Sorry – an open email system for anyone to access the executive’s email!??! Please say more. I have so. many. questions. Like, how many times did people find out things they shouldn’t have? Did external people know their emails to the exec could be viewed by anyone and EVERYONE?!

      1. OP for thread*

        Actually, for many many years, their entire email system was open. You could read anyones email. For non execs, it was tracked. So I could see if Bob from accounting looked at my email. For execs, it wasn’t. It was wild what you could find out.

  259. planetjoopiter*

    Not a new hire, but a new intern. Her first day we had an all-department meeting where her task was to take notes on the discussion. She sat at one end of the long conference table, so most of my co-workers were facing her. She whips out her laptop, opens up the cover, and we find ourselves staring at the giant sticker she decorated it with that said “TREAT YOUR GIRL RIGHT” – except that the TR in TREAT was deliberately a much lighter color than the rest of the text.

  260. Fried Eggs*

    We had a destination company picnic (we all traveled there on a bus) with a food truck and a beer truck. The vegetarian fare was not very filling, and a lot of people got a little drunk. One guy who had JUST started that week got more than a little drunk. He had to be helped onto the bus, and spent the ride home making out with the graphic designer, who was also intoxicated and about a decade older than him.

    To everyone’s surprise (including his, he later revealed to me), he overcame that less than stellar first impression and worked at the company for several years. All subsequent company events were dry, though.

  261. Tasha*

    I read these and think, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?” For the most part, these aren’t stories about people who haven’t had exposure to professional norms; they’re people who don’t know how to be decent.

  262. Annoyed*

    We had a person just disappear for weeks 3-4 of their job. Everyone was so confused where they was but their supervisor was hands off. Supervisor finally said in a group meeting that everyone was expected to be in the office. They started showing up but complained to another staff member that they had blanket approval to work remotely whenever they wanted (they didn’t) and were mad they had to come in. They still work here, do less than I do, are generally confused about everything, and make more than I do. It’s great.

    1. Rose*

      I spend a lot of time wondering if I tried less and acted dumber if I’d get promoted and make more because this seems to be a super consistent pattern whenever I talk to my friends, who are objectively very smart people.

  263. Bright Lights*

    We hired a new employee for our reception desk to replace a person who had been promoted. The day “Pam” started she came in in sunglasses and didn’t take them off as “our lights were too bright”. She told us all about her boyfriend who was “a huge rockstar” who had played at Wembley Stadium, but that she couldn’t tell us his name due to stalkers. After about an hour she said that she was concerned that she had to use the computer so much and that she hadn’t realized that that was part of the job. Then she left at lunch and never returned leaving her water bottle, reading glasses, and a book at the desk. We never heard from her again.

  264. RedinSC*

    We hired in a Senior position ( chief operating officer) and on his first day, meeting with one of his new staff members, he said to her, “oh, you’re my fetch it girl, aren’t you?”

    she was front desk, no fetching involved and the guy was just a creep. He lasted only 2 more weeks after that.

  265. Bager*

    One of my colleagues was at one of his first company after hour drinks. After a few drinks, he sits down and looks intently at another (rather good looking) coworker from another team for a few seconds, and loudly asks “I’m sorry; ARE YOU GAY?”

    The entire table goes completely silent. This is the first time most of the people there have heard this guy speak.

    He apologized for this later that evening and everything’s good. It’s still hilarious.

  266. merula*

    My work has a development program that was at the time targeted at new college grads. We were all meeting as a group for the first time, and this one dude was like “I went to the best business school in [Region], [private school you probably haven’t heard of]!”

    There was no one in this group who ACTUALLY went to the widely-acknowledged “best business school in [Region]”, but more than half the group went to the top-rated business school in the state. (Same state as private school.)

    Everyone sort of silently stared at him for a couple of seconds and then someone thankfully changed the subject.

    I wish I could say that he didn’t last long, but unfortunately he lasted over 5 years while doing very little work and causing problems for those who worked most closely with him. So really, maybe his alma mater was onto something?

  267. Lemon It's Wednesday*

    I was 18 and hired as a seasonal worker at a popular local attraction. Everyone was required to do a full day NEO, where they would go over basic information, how to speak to guests, safety, etc. We were being paid to be there, and this technically counted as our official first day of work. One girl kept laying her head down on her arms and eventually started falling asleep. The HR person running the NEO stopped, asked her to pay attention and/or take a break if needed, and continued with the presentation. She continued to put her head down and close her eyes several times during the presentation. He asked her a couple more times to pay attention and reminded her that she was clocked in. The last time he asked, she ignored him and just put her head down again. He stopped the whole presentation, told her to get up, and escorted her out. We heard him fire her outside the door. When he came back in he acted like she’d never even been there.

  268. Not playing your game anymore*

    We hired a person who seemed quite suitable. The day he was scheduled to come in to do his initial paperwork, we got a call about 20 minutes after he was expected. Someone claiming to be his wife. So sorry. He left town last night. Family emergency. Sick parent.
    Oh sorry to hear that, have him call us to reschedule his starting date.
    Oh, well, his Dad should be dead by Friday. Would Monday work?
    Uh. Have him call us.
    Never heard from him again. His “wife” called. Wanted his paycheck. WTF?

  269. MeepMeep02*

    New hire at a law firm. Her first-ever assignment, she turns in a declaration that has the wrong client’s name on the caption. This was after she’d spent about 3 times as long on the project as we would expect someone to spend.

    She didn’t last too long after that one.

  270. Not So Little My*

    Back around year 2000 (I remember this because I worked at a software company), a new hire came on to the programmer team and we all went out for lunch the first day. New hire proceeded to talk at length over lunch about his service in a branch of the military, and badmouth members of a different branch of the military (even after another programmer said that he had served in that branch). One of the new hire’s favorite derogatory insults was an anti-gay slur beginning with F. When we came back to the office, I decided to take one for the team and walked over to him and politely said that our staff was diverse, including several members of the gay community (not outing myself specifically), and that we didn’t use language like that in our company. He didn’t come back the next day and we never saw him again.

  271. fair*

    I started at a large, wealthy, but old-line tech company. They were trying to prove they were young and hip so gave out hoodies at onboarding. I put it on to demonstrate enthusiasm, but took it off pretty quickly to meet my teammates, since it did not fit with the much more formal office vibe.

    Unfortunately, it left me entirely covered in thick, black lint. I had to be a hairball at my very formal office for my entire first day. Even a kindly co-worker’s lint roller could not save me.

  272. legallyblech*

    They just let a support staff employee go yesterday after only about 90 days since the hire date. They were part-time & scheduled to work Tues-Fri, 8:30am to 5pm.
    Their first week went well, the usual new-hire hiccups, etc.. she didn’t stay until 5pm any day that week.
    The second week they missed a day, maybe two, b/c one of their kids was sick and single parent problems.
    The third week she didn’t show up. Like, at all. Literally no call, no show.
    When she returned the following Tuesday & behaved as if nothing happened, she was asked “so, what happened last week?”
    Her explanation, “I’m PART-time????”
    YOU DON’T GET TO CHOOSE THE PART! lol

    1. Order of the Banana*

      ASLDfjlksad “You don’t get to choose the part” has me absolutely dying!

  273. Moonie*

    I had an amazing interview with a candidate a few years back. She was everything we were looking for and more and I was ready to get into a bidding war to get her. She accepted our offer and her first week was great, totally matched her resume and interview, she was killing it. Her second week on the job our company was hosting it’s annual event – black tie, all of our donors and sponsors, $250.00 a ticket, and about 1,500 people in attendance. She showed up an hour late, already hammered, with her husband and 7/8 year old son (this was not a plus one or child friendly event). She then proceeded to drink one of the complementary bottles of wine at a donor table, fall on the floor, moon everyone around her, and tell one of our interns that she would leave her husband for him and then graphically described what she would do to this poor 20 year-old kid. All of this in the span of about 10 minutes while our office manager was grabbing security to remove her. The next day she came to work like nothing happened and said what a great time she had had the night before. She was promptly escorted out.

    4. Cat*

      She showed up with her husband (and kid)… and announced she would leave him for the poor intern… in front of him? What was he doing while this was happening?!

  274. Robi*

    When I was in college, I did a program where taught a class at a local high school. I was 20 and pretty nervous about teaching kids who were only a few years younger than me, so I dressed really carefully to look professional. Anyway, while walking there, I sneezed – and somehow, a huge amount of snot came out and got all over my shirt. I panicked and ran into a coffee shop and splashed water all over my shirt to get the snot off. But they only had paper towels so I couldn’t really try it. I tried again when I got to school but the bathrooms only had paper towels again. I didn’t know what to do so I went to the office in my wet shirt and explained way too much of the situation and a nice older lady escorted me to the gym locker room where there were blow dryers I used to blow dry my shirt. I showed up to class the first day flustered and ten minutes late – but not covered in snot or wearing a wet shirt, thankfully.

  275. Azure Jane Lunatic*

    The new hire who did hundreds of dollars worth of body damage to my car when backing carelessly out of their parking spot was certainly memorable. It was a crappy call center job, and they didn’t return.

    1. tex*

      oh noooo, that’s terrible. I witnessed a new hire damage one company vehicle, and one coworker’s vehicle, in his first week. he was banned from driving on the property after that.

  276. tex*

    this wasn’t witnessed by me, but was reported to me by the manager who then tried to hire this person-
    we worked in a customer-service-heavy position – lots of incoming phone calls while also working a line full of customers waiting at the desk. it wasn’t uncommon for the phone to never stop ringing from 8:30am – 2pm. Potential New Hire is in the front, waiting to be called back for her interview, and sees the front desk employees struggling to keep up, especially as one gets called outside, leaving just one person to answer phones and help the line. So, Potential New Hire grabs a sheet of paper from the printer tray and starts answering phones – just taking names, numbers, and what they’re calling about, on and on for each incoming call. When the manager calls for her, she hands him the sheet of paper of calls needing to be returned. He’s impressed. She then continues to nail the interview. He offers her the job that afternoon. But something pops up with her background/education check and HR says she can’t be hired. He was so disappointed. What a way to make a first impression.

    1. Despachito*

      Wow, I must confess I’d be afraid to do this (as a complete stranger, I’d think it would be quite a risk that I’d mess up)

  277. JustaTech*

    The tale of the strange temp:
    We hired a temp to cover a coworker’s maternity leave, doing a bunch of reasonably basic lab work. I didn’t work directly with this temp (slightly different group) but I had heard that he really, really wanted a permanent position (which we would be hiring for after the lab head got back from leave).

    So one afternoon I’m in the lab watching my instrument go for probably an hour and a half. I can’t leave it (it’s too old and finicky) and I didn’t have a laptop, so it was just sitting and watching dots wiggle on the screen. The temp is sitting at the next instrument over, doing basically the same thing. So we start chatting, and before I know it he’s talking about how terrible his twin toddlers are, and how he wishes he could just duct-tape them to their beds because they just won’t go to sleep. (In this time his wife calls to see when he’ll be home because she’s ordered pizza and he’s all mad because “that’s not diet”.)

    And I’m just sitting on my stool aghast that someone would say something like “I want to duct tape my children” to a person who is essentially a stranger. Now, I did not for one minute think that he would *actually* do that; I know enough parents of little kids to know that the “go the F to sleep” thing is real and very frustrating. But he didn’t follow up with a “but I’m joking haha” or anything like that. He just said it.

    He was not hired after my coworker got back from leave (for a lot of reasons but poor judgement was one of them).

  278. Dinwar*

    Maybe not astounding, but one that will probably forever stick in my mind: I had two fresh-out-of-school geologists show up on my site one day. One was in skinny jeans, a fancy mustache, and a tailored shirt. The other was in regualr jeans, a t-shirt, and looked like your typical field geologist (read, a bit grubby). I thought “Oh, we’re going to break Skinny Jeans.”

    By lunch I realized just how wrong I was. The second guy, who looked like a field worker, was afraid to cross knee-high grass. He showed up hungover and three hours late one day. (I don’t really mind the hungover part, that’s his problem, but late is not an option.) He was banned from the site after his first event. Skinny Jeans? One of the best field guys in the region within 18 months. Fast learner, willing to work, understands how to apply safety to field events, understands the importance of thorough documentation, etc. I’d buy a microbrewery myself if it meant I could get another 4 people like him!

  279. Agatha Christie Fanatic*

    It was July in Washington DC so a very hot day for my first day at a new job. I left with plenty of time to get to the office using the Washington subway system. Part way to work, power outage! I was stuck underground in a dark, crowded, sweltering hot subway car in a dark tunnel. Since it was my first day, I was wearing a suit, heels, stockings, the works. Did I mention that I suffer from claustrophobia? I normally get through subway rides by putting my nose in a book and ignoring my surroundings but I couldn’t ignore this. After about half-an-hour, I was a mess. Sweaty, barely keeping from a panic attack from the claustrophobia, full of anxiety about showing up late on my first day. And the crowds in the car were starting to get very restless. This was during the days before cell phones so I couldn’t call in. Every so often, we would hear from the driver that they were working on the problem. Luckily people on the car started talking and cheering each other up. That was the only thing that kept me sane during the ordeal. After what felt like forever, the car started moving. Very slowly but gradually getting to a station and then gradually to my station.

    I arrived at work, running, a total mess, practically hysterical, and over two hours late. I couldn’t imagine what kind of first impression I would make on my co-workers.

    Except no one had even noticed. The power was off in the office building too. After an hour or so of sitting in an un-airconditioned building, they had sent the employees who had made it in home. The big boss had stayed to let late-arriving employees know that they could go home. So my first impression was a good one — I had managed to make it to work despite the city being basically shut down. And my first day ended up being the next day. (I drove in the next day!)

  280. OklahomaMama*

    Back in the early 90s I worked for a married couple, a neurologist and a neurosurgeon.
    We had a revolving door of receptionists (one who went to lunch on her first day and…just didn’t come back)
    But my favorite one was on the phone with a male patient who was referred to us for cervical issues. This woman argued with him for far too long saying that he could not possibly have cervical issues because *smacks forehead in disbelief* because he was a man and did not have a cervix. Loudly and angrily I might add!
    She did NOT make it past the 90 day probationary period to the surprise of nobody!

    1. ThursdaysGeek*

      Um… back in the early 90s, was transgender surgery a thing? Common like now? Because, while I wouldn’t be loud and angry, I can understand the confusion, especially if he said he was male.

      1. Doctors Whom*

        It shouldn’t have been confusing at all since the practice was owned by neuro docs. A call about cervical issues would clearly be about the parts of one’s *neck*. Which is had by all humans, regardless of gender identity:)

        1. Dragonfly7*

          I learned something new today then! Only ever heard the word cervical in reference to cervical cancer.

      2. A Wall*

        It was common, people just didn’t talk about it. But I don’t think that’s what happened here– this is a neuro practice. The top part of your spine (including your neck) is the cervical spine.

      3. Anon today*

        Sexual reassignment surgery was pioneered in the 1930s, according to Wikipedia, and there were some prominent cases in the 1970s. I’m not sure how common it was though.

      4. Jerusha*

        Just to close the loop for those who are wondering why we use the same term for such disparate portions of the anatomy – the full name for the gynecological structure is “cervix uteri”, which means “neck of the uterus”.

  282. Kali*

    Making chit-chat, a colleague told him where she’d gone to school (a very respectful university). He immediately proclaimed, very loudly, that this was a “cow college” and went on making “hilarious” jokes about this, including asking her, over and over, “Are you a cow?” Fwiw, I later learned that he went to a for-profit school with a terrible reputation. I’m not even sure it’s accredited.

  283. RJC*

    I was out sick for a full week when a new hire (junior to me, assistant level) started. I was supposed to be training her, and I got a few texts from coworkers that she was already causing issues, but I was committed to going in with a positive attitude.
    When I met her, her first words were “Hi, nice to meet you. We need to talk about some problems I’ve been having with the other staff members. Like Bob seems really sensitive to negativity. And he isn’t informed. He doesn’t know [very niche fact that Bob does not need to know].” She proceeded to complain about every coworker, complain about our budget, and complain about the general organization. None of the complaints were legitimate. One complaint was that a staff member was using two tables (instead of one) to prep some materials. There were five tables open and no one else was working.

    She left after a couple months.

  284. WG*

    We had a temp-to-hire in an office setting that seemed normal in a short interview, but the crazy came out strong in her first week. She was stressed out her first morning about having left her bird home alone all day. She talked about having connections to the mob. She also spent a fair amount of time complaining about the work she had to do – which was exactly the tasks and responsibilities discussed in the interview.

    And then about day 3, she said she was a medium and told a coworker she had a message for them from a dead relative, but would only relay the message if the coworker went to lunch with her. A little emotional blackmail anyone?

    Fortunately, she only lasted a week. But what a week it was!

  285. BurntOutAF*

    In my case I was the new hire and the bad first impression was my new employee. I was hired above him as his manager. He was at least 10 years older than me, and a man (I was a 26 year old blonde woman). He immediately made weird comments about me not having kids and being young. He would not check things with me, ignore my requests, etc.

    Then he used air quotes around my title on a *video call* with me. He said “I guess you’re my “manager” in that regard” with air quotes around “manager.” I was planning to fire him in the following week but he quit with three days’ notice on a job he had for six years. He also either withheld info from me or was so bad at his job that the info he gave me was all wrong, don’t know which would be worse.

    I found out later from a higher up that he had applied for my role and not gotten it, which explains why he wasn’t involved in my hiring process and why he was so salty. Wish they had told me earlier.

  286. Clementine*

    This makes me think about my first day at my first job out of highschool working at an animal shelter. There were four new hires starting on the same day. Three of us had arrived on time and were seated in the conference room. We’re still just sort of chit chating, our boss is handing out some paperwork, we really haven’t gotten started but its about 5-10 minutes after our start time. Fourth guy comes in, appologizing for being late. Our boss immediately says “There’s no need to sit down. You are done here.” She straight up fired him on the spot for being late. Did not want to hear about his car troubles (which yes, I know could have been a made up excuse). I realize it was more her who made the big impression, but it was definitely memorable for me.

  287. KatieA978*

    I used to work with my Dad in a freight (like sea and air freight) company, and we had a receptionist start. She sat at a desk near the front door, but there’s not partitions or anything between there and the rest of the office. The team had the general sort of “buzz” that most offices have – conversation noise, typing, someone usually had some quiet music playing.

    She called my Dad into a meeting at the end of her first week and quit because “this place has the atmosphere of a morgue.”

    I am still unsure what she thought we should be doing… cartwheels? Boxing? Disco lights and sirens?

  288. Never again*

    A couple of decades ago, I worked in an arts program in New York City and was assigned to work with one fourth grade teacher who was related in some way to the principal which meant he could do no wrong. The arts program received a grant to hold programs, I should add. We were not Board of Education employees. I planned a photo assignment around the perimeter of the school building to keep it simple and because the school said parents were not required for such a short trip. Okay, fine. All of a sudden, the teacher takes off with 30 students behind him crossing streets, not even looking back. The kids followed over two blocks behind him with me in the rear. I had no choice but to follow and herd as many kids along as I could. Our trip ended at a Bronx waterfront area -not yet developed with no fencing to protect anyone and no direction from him. The kids wandered around junked cars. When I found the teacher, I told him this was not safe and we must go back. So we did. The same way that we came. He walked quickly through the streets, not looking back as we crossed against red lights to get back to the school. As soon as we returned, I called my supervisor, explained what happened, and said I would never return to that class. I still shudder at home unsafe that was.

  289. Ruthy Sue*

    I work in public service. Several years ago we let new HR member start a day earlier than planned, prior to his background check and reference checks coming through, since there was a new hire facility tour on Friday. HR figured the report would come in on Friday and then everything would be good and he could start his regularly assignments on Monday. Some red flags – he drove a Maserati and wore a VERY nice suit to a mid-level individual contributor role in local government, and was very cagey about where he came from when asked by new coworkers. After the “welcome our new employee” email, several employees googled him. Turns out he’d been charged recently with embezzlement o millions of dollars by at least two of his past employers! Someone quickly informed HR, the background and reference checks came in to corroborate, and they had to go collect him from the tour and escort him out.

  290. Nat*

    I made one myself by having to tell my new employer that the night after I quit my old (terrible, no good) job I’d been tipsily dancing while making a cup of tea & slipped, landing on and breaking my right wrist (aka the one I use for writing/mouse work/most things), so I ended up taking my two week’s notice as sick leave & turning up the first day unable to do half the tasks they’d hired me to do. Also I worked there for 7 further years & the story followed me til literally the day I left, like it was brought up in the speech my boss gave at my leaving presentation. Absolutely do not recommend!

  291. Crazyoboe*

    At one school I worked at, a new hire (TFA) had a rough first day, and his class was a bit out of control. Nothing too unexpected for a new teacher. He was called into the principals office the 2nd morning. We don’t know what the principal was going to tell him, other than offer words of encouragement or some advice. Instead of going to her office, he just left the building, got in his car and drove away. We never saw him again.

  292. Rose*

    I accidentally openly made horrible racist comments during week 1 at my new job.

    I worked for w company on the RI/MA boarder where 1/4 of the employees lived in providence and commuted north and 1/3 lived in Boston and commuted south.

    My partner and I had just moved to Providence and, because it was summer, we sublet from some Brown undergrads while we looked for a place to buy. We thought being Ivy League upper class man they would be mature and worldly and we were… very wrong.

    These women were idiots. Having now interacted with a lot more college students, they were especially bad. They left the place absolutely disgusting. They left their trash in SEVEN huge bags in the living room and when we asked them about it they said “we assumed you’d take that down if you wanted it gone.” We asked if they’d have certain things (ie a couch) in the house so we would know if we should store ours because although we had a couch the living room wouldn’t fit two. We explained this reasoning clearly. They said there would be a couch, took the couch, then insisted we pay an exhorbatant amount for their disgusting couch, and were angry when we said we’d just get our own out of storage. They asked us for a ride to the airport after these interactions. Our upstairs neighbors, also Brown students, got hammered, blasted music, left bottles and cigarettes in our year that they were too lazy to ever clean, and peed on the sidewalk about 4x per week.

    A member of my team asked me how the saga was going at the end of my first week. Several in the group had had similar experiences and egged me on as I started lightly ranting. I knew most of them from a previous company and people were laughing and nodding so I didn’t hold back.

    “Ugh, these Brown kids are so awful, they’re disgusting, they’re dirty, they pee everywhere like freaking dogs. I thought Browns kids would be smart but they honestly seem so dumb, and loud. God they’re all so loud. They like the worst music and they blast it all night.”

    Half way through this, another coworker who I didn’t know yet had walked up. I suddenly stopped when I noticed his face was going from shocked to furious. I figured he must have graduated from Brown and then I realized…

    He turned on his heel and I had to chase him half way down the hall to tell him I was having issues with the Brown University students living in my busing, not people of color. He looked incredibly relieved. I still wonder what would have happened to me there professionally if it got out that I was blatantly calling people of other races loud, dirty, and disgusting in my first week.

  293. Mel*

    I worked as a designer in a factory with another fellow, and we got a new bloke in to replace us. First day he asked us for our portfolio websites, and told us we’d never get hired without a portfolio website. After a week we discovered he just really loved taking every chance to take down to us migrants.

    Anyway he did not last long in a factory full of migrant workers. Also, he was a terrible designer.

  294. Lady Knittington*

    Talking with friends reminded me of working for a hospital based complaints team. I was training a new guy (let’s call him Nigel) who came to where I was sitting at my desk.
    He knelt down at my feet and said “You’ve been getting me into trouble with my wife. I’ve been saying your name in my sleep and she wants to know who you are”.

    1. EvilQueenRegina*

      That reminds me of my old temp job, where there was one particularly difficult man, let’s call him Lex Luthor, who used to ring up and kick off at people. One time, there had been some incident involving him, where my one coworker was getting it in the neck from him, and the next morning her partner said to her “Who’s Mr Luthor? You kept shouting out in your sleep last night, ‘I’m terminating this phone call now, Mr Luthor!'”

  295. WoodswomanWrites*

    I was hired to work at a government agency. For security reasons, there was no public access to my floor. This was back in the days before electronic key cards, so I was given a key that was required to pass through multiple doors to enter my department’s office. On my first day when I used the bathroom, I somehow managed to time everything so that pulling up my pants, my key flying out of my pocket, and flushing happened simultaneously. After waiting in the hallway for someone to let me back in, I had to tell my manager on my first day that I had just flushed the key to our secure area down the toilet. I put the new one on a cord around my neck after that.

  296. Picky*

    I got to watch this unfold. In my country (maybe in yours too, I have no idea) when elections happen temporary workers are given a day of training to assist the permanent government employees who oversee voting places. The temporary employees are told at least ten times, as well as on every piece of writing, even in the job posting itself, that from the time they arrive in the morning until vote counting is complete, you cannot leave the voting place. You must bring your own food, water, medications, anything you need to be there 13 or so hours. I worked at a city facility that was rented out as a voting place and was tasked with arriving early to let the government and temporary employees in to set up. I arrive 6:30 am, help them set up, then the doors open at 7:00 for voting, and one of the temporary works says, “Okay, now that’s it up and running I’m going to run out for breakfast.” That’s right, half an hour in to her 13-hour shift. She has no water bottle. She has no food. The government official overseeing the crew shows her all the places it was explained on the work papers that she signed. She bursts into tears. I get her a glass of water from our staff kitchen because I’m nice, but she was gone by 10 am.

  297. Ali*

    In college, I got a part time job at a local sandwich place. First day, I end up skipping breakfast for one reason or another. 10 minutes into my lunch shift, I finish ringing up a customer while my manager is making salads on the passthrough part of the counter that opens upward for access to the register area, feel nauseated, start to lean against the counter in front of me… and wake up on the floor with my manager on the phone with 911, coworkers trying to help, and salad greens all over the place!

    I ended up being fine! It was just a blood sugar thing from me not having eaten that day. Thankfully we were a sandwich shop, so I was ordered to eat a free meal and take it easy (thankfully this place actually cared about their employees!). Two days later, at my next shift, I introduced myself to a coworker I hadn’t met yet, and he goes, “Oh right, you’re the new girl who passed out on her first day!”

    (I went on to have many drama-free shifts at that place until I got a full time job later on.)

  298. Wenike*

    During new hire orientation for a multi-service provider, all of us were going to be put on the phones once trained and this training was generic to the company, not specific for our various clients and was taught by HR. Third day of class,we were having a discussion about how our own expression can come across in our tone. A gentleman in the back was not participating so the moderator asked him about his thoughts. His response: “I’d be happy if you stuck me in a corner and forgot about me”. He wasn’t back the next day.

  299. No Dumb Blonde*

    A dozen years ago I worked for a health insurance company in the compliance department (HIPAA and other federal regs). We were a department of two. My manager created a new person to handle data entry and mundane tasks such as organizing provider network agreements. A woman who previously had run a local nonprofit applied and convinced my manager she was perfect for the job, because she was ready for something less intense. It was clear right away the job was a bad fit, but that’s not what got her fired. Despite being given training on the importance of privacy and data security, within her first week it was discovered that she let her husband into our passcode-protected workspace after hours so he could make changes to her system while logged into our private network. He was himself an IT manager at another organization and should have known how inappropriate this was.

  300. Port*

    Entry level comm dude met someone from a likeminded organization while networking. Invited them to a meeting to discuss partnering with us. Did not tell manager, did not tell the committee that exclusively works on such partnerships. Took the 1:1 meeting in our shared office so I couldn’t do my own work. Did not seem to understand how far outside his role he’d stepped.

  301. KatieA978*

    I do have a weird one from when I was 17 – I had been working at Target (I’m in Australia, so it’s a little different to US Target, but that kind of retail), and my supervisor was a nightmare, so I looked elsewhere and found a new pizza restaurant (fancy, sit-down gourmet style) place opening in the same shopping centre, applied, and got hired.

    I turned up on my shift, mid-afternoon, started sweeping and prepping, and the owner comes out and starts chatting to me, “so, what did you get up to today?”

    “Oh, I just had school, so I came straight from there.”

    “Which Uni do you go to?”

    “Oh no, not Uni, just . I’m in Year 12.”

    “Oh… sh*t…”

    Turns out he’d not twigged that I was 17, and so couldn’t be front of house serving patrons (as there’s alcohol). I was there less than an hour and thankfully had not quit my Target job yet!

  302. Ash*

    Not as extreme as some of the other examples here but about 15 years ago I was teaching in Japan and I was shepherding some new teachers to the immigration office to deal with some paperwork. We were all 20 somethings from either the UK, America or Canada. Despite telling the newcomers that they should wear business casual one British guy decided to wear jeans and a tshirt from an old British comedy ‘Fawlty Towers’ with the main character looking like Hitler and the caption ”Don’t Mention The War”.
    Yeah not a good look. Here’s the tshirt if you’re curious https://www.ebay.com/itm/BASIL-FAWLTY-DONT-MENTION-THE-WAR-Fawlty-Towers-Comedy-Heavy-Cotton-T-shirt-/163519605217?_ul=IN

  303. Software Update Failed*

    I was an IT manager of a team of system administrators at a large public university. We hired students as junior admins as well, and they’d often get passed from other teams if they didn’t fit the role but might fit elsewhere. Our web team interviewed a guy and passed him along to me because they thought he’d be a good sysadmin. We interviewed him and he seemed pretty bright (you’d have to be to be in the degree program he was in), so we hired him. The first day, I showed him to his desk, he was in an office with two other student workers. I helped him log in and gave him an idea of the projects we were working on. I showed him where he was to use version control and share his work. He seemed to understand the role.

    Problem started when I checked in on him a couple hours later at the end of his shift. He was using his personal laptop (which he closed quickly as soon as I walked in) and the work PC was at the login prompt. He said he was happier working on his laptop. He said he was working on the project and had made a lot of headway but wasn’t ready to show his work. This repeated every time I stopped by his desk, he’d close his laptop quickly and say he was working on it. After he left, I asked some of the other students in his office what they thought of him, and they said all he wanted to talk about was cryptocurrencies, which was getting on their nerves. He apparently planned to make it rich buying and selling cryptocurrencies.

    After a week, I asked for a demonstration. It looked ok on his laptop, he clicked around the web interface, so I thought he was making good progress. I asked him to check in his code so I could take a look at it, and he agreed. He never did.

    So, after a couple weeks of not sharing, odd behavior with his laptop, and annoying his fellow students, I sat him down and demanded that he share his code, take out your laptop and do it now. I didn’t have time to look it over (at the time, I simply had too much work to do and not enough time), but I did ask him to write up a progress report for the rest of his time there that day, to help me understand his work.

    I checked it over later and it was a mess. None of it worked. He clearly didn’t understand source control so there were dozens of duplicate copies. His demonstration looks like it was something he cobbled together from examples online, with no actual functioning backend. At best a couple hours work, not the 10-15 hours per week he has been putting in timecards. I’ll admit, I should have been tracking him closer, but he seemed to be busy all the time and he kept showing updated demonstrations when I’d look over his shoulder.

    The next week when he came in, I sat him down and asked him where the rest of his project was, what has he been working on. Turns out, he was working on his crypto-broker web site. He actually said he had brought it online a couple times but people kept being able to steal from him so he had to take it down. I had to explain to him that we weren’t paying him to work on his personal projects, he was hired to work on university projects. He seemed unfazed and said he’ll work on the backend.

    I basically asked our HR if I could just fire him, I didn’t have time to babysit him. Turns out the guy was dating the IT Director’s granddaughter, had really impressed the Director when he met him at a picnic, and refused to fire him. He never ended up finishing any projects, and I basically threw out all his code at the end of the summer.

    Oh and if you were wondering why he was always closing his laptop every time I walked in? He was playing video games.

  304. Posilutely*

    A trainee came to us for a work placement with a chequered history from previous placements. On reading her past evaluations, her clinical skills appeared to be passable but she was close to failing to qualify into our profession due to her attitude and social skills, which are much harder to quantify and objectively evaluate.

    She was assigned to me as I had a lot of clinical and mentoring experience and, while I was made aware of her history, I was prepared to give her a completely clean slate. Relevant facts: she was around twenty years old. I was thirty-two and six months pregnant.

    At the start of our first shift together I began a one to two minute explanation of our medical observation charts, standing in front of one together and pointing at the relevant areas as I was speaking. Approximately fifteen seconds into this she sighed hugely, turned her back, slouched off across the room, flung herself into a chair designed for parents and reclined her feet, saying ‘Don’t you get tired doing all this standing up? I get SO tired.’ We were, at this point, ten minutes into a twelve hour shift.

    I said ‘No, I’m fine thank-you – could you come back over here so you can see the chart and tell me if you have any questions?’

    She ignored my request and instead responded by pointing at my pregnant abdomen and saying ‘Do you even WANT your baby?’

    The clinical setting? A neonatal intensive care unit. You know, where compassion towards babies is kind of important.

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I need to hear the follow-up to this story. Did you march her to HR and immediately fire her or did you have to suffer her for longer? And did you, in fact, WANT your baby? (Totally kidding on that last one. Jeez, who ASKS someone that 10 minutes after meeting them? Or, no, wait, EVER?)

  305. Anon for someone else's story*

    An electrical engineer friend tells this about his first job in manufacturing. His supervisor had him open a piece of high voltage equipment to show his wiring skills. He had the maintenance manual with all the colors marked, and he was being extra careful with the hot wires in front of his new boss. But they didn’t tell him a previous employee was color blind …so what he thought was neutral was hot.
    They called him Sparky for months.
    And for decades he has treated every wire as hot until tests show it is not. That’s what his supervisor wanted to teach him … but what a crazy dangerous way to do it.

    1. BongoFury*

      I know it’s unfair but you should NOT be an electrician if you’re color blind. Even the tester would be hard to see if it’s positive.

  306. Alice*

    The shortest time someone lasted was when I worked at a dysfunctional startup. Our programmer quit to get a PhD and he recommended an acquaintance for the job. We arranged for an interview. Guy showed up 20 minutes late and didn’t seem very apologetic about it. I got a bad impression overall (unmotivated and not very bright), against my advice the owners hired him on the strength of the recommendation.

    On his first day, guy sauntered in 30 minutes late. Owner just told him not to bother to take off his coat because he wasn’t needed after all. I had to reach out to ex-programmer to let him know what happened and he was extremely apologetic, he knew this guy had issues but he needed the job and ex-programmer hoped he’d take it seriously. Yeah… apparently not…

  307. Not Today*

    We had the police show up asking for a new hire. On his way in, he evidently had some road rage, waived a gun at someone who he felt wronged him, and then continued on to the office. The person had recorded his license plate, noted where he parked, and called 911. The police showed up and interviewed him about the incident. At some point, the officer asked him if he would take a breathalyzer. He agreed, failed, and was arrested for drunk driving. He also agreed to having his vehicle searched and did indeed have a gun in his car. He was charges with drunk driving, brandishing a weapon, and something related to having a loaded weapon while intoxicated.

    While I have moved on to a much better job, he still works there! He was able to plea it down to 30 days jail time and they were so desperate for an employee with his skills who would accept their low pay and terrible benefits that they gave him unpaid time off to go to jail but didn’t fire him.

  308. Eclecticism is a Virtue*

    Many years ago I was the fill-in accountant for a small company. I had zero training in accounting, but the owner, who himself was a CPA, could not keep an accountant on-board for long, thanks to lots of micro-managing. One day a new accountant starts. I train him during the morning, seems very promising, then he goes to lunch and never returns. On his first day. Once again, thanks to lots of micro-managing. Yes, even on day one.

    For my part, I quit a few years later via voicemail. Not good, but it took me years to re-learn a lot of professional norms because of that job, especially that a closed door does not always mean, “You’re about to be yelled at.”

    1. FoxInABox*

      I’m dying to now how much micro-managing could have happened on not just day one, but the MORNING of day one :O

  309. Alice, of the angry variety*

    At a cafe job a few years ago, I was training a particularly inept new guy. I excused myself (OR SO I THOUGHT) by saying “time for a bathroom break!” As I went to close the door to the one-room bathroom, I realized he was behind me. He thought I meant we were BOTH taking a bathroom break. I still laugh at that from time to time.

    (The guy was really nice but didn’t last long.)

  310. LittleMarshmallow*

    I had a new temp sleep through his entire first week of training. Every trainer complained to me about it separately and then he did it in a safety review in front of our H&S manager. He only lasted a week.

  311. HBJ*

    There’s the people who are fired before they ever work a day. A relative works in an industry that does mandatory pre-employment (and random) drug testing. Now, I know plenty of people on this site are opposed, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is federally mandated in many industries, and, no, relative is not in a position to change that.

    You would not believe how many people fail the pre-employment. It’s not random. When you’re hired, you agree to take this test. It’s scheduled at a time convenient for you. You know it’s coming up. And so many people still fail it and don’t get hired. It’s unbelievable.

    1. Trawna*

      Well, I believe it. Many people who smoke pot don’t realize it stays in your system upwards of a month.

    2. BongoFury*

      I work with a vendor who is constantly, constantly hiring for an admin assistant for his office. He can’t hire one because his office is just a branch of the main office, which is based in Texas and extremely conservative. But vendor’s branch office is in Colorado, where if you’re paying less than $15/hr you really shouldn’t be drug testing.

      He’s told me many stories of begging interviewees to be honest about if they need to “study” for their drug test and take a few extra days. Not explicitly directing them to how to deceive the test but also not not doing that.
      75% of people will breezily say “No! it’s fine!” and fail.

  312. Grig Larson*

    I had a guy show up dressed like a wealthy pimp for an IT job: purple suit, gold chains, gold rings, no tie, open chest, silk shirt, and a glittery hat. Everything but a cane and goblet. I mean, no lie, that getup must have cost a fortune. Like some weird 1970s movie stereotype of New Orleans. BRIMMING with confidence, too. He “picked and chose” questions to answer, and if he didn’t want to answer them, he said, “Come on! Give me something challenging! Your questions are uninteresting!” with a wide grin on his face. He demanded approximately two times the normal salary for the position. I kept wondering if this was a guy on a dare or
    we were on Candid Camera. Completely over the top.

    He did not get the job. We told him is was the salary qualifications, but frankly, he was pretty intimidating, and definitely made an impression.

  313. 1099, 1098, Whatever*

    One of my coworkers came in one day, furious. She’d nearly been run off the road by a guy who’d flipped her off as he passed her. Then our new hire walked in. Yep. It was him.

  314. Mary PopTart*

    I once hired an office temp for a project who managed to tick off the entire team so quickly, I was asked to fire her within about 2 days. She was mainly incompetent in her duties, but had been making a lot of demands about special supplies, like a foot rest and her name plate.

    So imagine my surprise about a week later when her COMPANY NAME PLATE showed up at the office. She had managed to figure out how to order it… and it ended up being her lasting legacy.

    Oh, and by the way – the rest of us were all external consultants, so none of us knew anything about internal ordering processes. And none of us had name plates.

  315. Tiffany's aunt*

    Over decades of training staff, I have lots but here are three:
    1. First day, new secretary hire asks where white-out is (pre computer days). I point to standard bottle (<1oz) on desk, she says she means the real bottle. Come to find out her old employer bought it regularly in 32oz bottle for her especially. This was a real clue to her typing accuracy/ability.
    2. First day explained to new clinical secretary that our 12 doctors had to always be paged for all medical calls if not in the office. They carried pagers (pre cell phones) and max page was only 15 sec duration. I did first 4 or so to demonstrate and then watched dumb founded as she tried to leave a 3 minute one. By lunch, 4 hours in & over 20 attempts & more demonstrations, she had still not been able to successful do a 15sec page while having nothing else to do, I suggested she consider talking to HR for reassignment as this function was the job's simplest task and was meant to be 5000 staff, many of which came daily to one or more departments housed on our floor) to be sure she could find 5 vital departments (like post office, equipment maintenance, print shop), she would say good morning & how are you to each person we passed – literally dozens within the first 100yds. When my amazement wore off, I explained this wasn’t doable as no one had time to more than nod at most. She said it would be rude so would continue (we were both central urban Florida born & raised so it wasn’t cultural). I told once she was on her own I didn’t care but it couldn’t cause excessive delays in running errands & to expect strange reactions. Within 3 days, I started getting asked by other departments who the weird woman was – little did they know it was the tip of that iceberg.
    These were oldies but there are plenty more up through 2019 when I retired. Hallelujah!

    1. Tiffany's aunt*

      Sorry part of this was dropped, right before 5000 in no. 2, but think is still readable.

  316. A Wall*

    At an old job they hired a new writer who had many years of pretty prestigious experience. When I was introduced to her, our boss explained the process by which she would get specs from me, write the assignment, and send it back to me for editing and/or approvals to publish. She, completely straight faced and without any particular inflection, turned to our boss and said “oh, I don’t want anyone reviewing my work.”

    I laughed because I thought it was a joke. It was not.

    It was silent for a while then our boss asked her to explain what exactly she meant by that, and she elaborated that she did not want anyone to edit or approve her work, ever. This was not, like, creative writing, she was hired to put together detailed technical documentation that necessitated at minimum technical reviews by actual experts. She said she would not allow that.

    When our boss explained that he would in fact be requiring her to have her work reviewed and why, she eventually relented that he could maybe look over her work before it was published, but she kindly let us know that she would absolutely not be working with me at all. Our boss reiterated that this was also required, and she was basically just like… “No.” She was totally unemotional and bland about it, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  317. withans*

    My first proper job, I had a 15-min cycle commute to get to work. On my first day, there I was, dressed in my Smart Young Professional outfit, out the door in good time, feeling very proud of myself. And then about 5 minutes into my cycle, the heavens opened, just an utter deluge. I was sailing pretty speedily downhill at that point, and turning round to go back up the hill and change seemed like it would take too long, so I arrived nice and punctually at work… soaked to the skin from the waist down, where my coat hadn’t protected me. I’m still not sure what people made of it as I squelched round the building being introduced to everyone.

    I quickly invested in some heavy-duty waterproof trousers after that.

  318. KoreCob*

    I had just gotten hired at a local branch of a well-known non-profit after 18 months without a job. I pulled into the parking lot, and while trying to center my car in a parking space I managed to hit the rear bumper of another car.

    Absolutely mortified, I was buzzed into the office and I immediately confessed to hitting someone’s car to the two individuals working the reception area. I hadn’t yet even let my new boss know I was there.

    It turns out the car belonged to one of the reception folks. He came outside with me to look at the damage, then laughed and told me not to worry about it as his car was, in his own words, a beater, plus his brother owned a body shop and could take care of it if he even bothered to fix it. He said if I hadn’t said anything, he probably never would have noticed another dent on top of all the damage that was already there. He also refused to take my insurance info.

    Despite the really inauspicious beginning, that job was the best I’ve ever held. The character of the guy who’s car I hit was indicative of all my co-workers, and they, and that organization, still hold a place close to my heart

  319. Dr. Tiredofalltheseshennanigans*

    Several stories: newly hired receptionist for animal hospital. First day on the job. She is shadowing an experienced assistant who is also the reception staff manager and they pass through the room where I am monitoring anesthesia. (I am the owner of the practice.) I ask the assistant if she could either put my frozen lunch in the microwave or monitor the anesthesia while I go do that. The employee says she’ll heat up my lunch for me. When the two women get to the break room the new hire says “I hope they don’t expect us to be their bitches.” The assistant is horrified and reports that comment to the office manager who calls the new hire that evening and unhires her. Her father calls the next day demanding to know why she was terminated.

    Another newly hired receptionist has left the reception desk, gone into an exam room (fortunately leaving the door open) and is talking to a client and giving him absolutely incorrect and potentially damaging information. I interrupt to correct the information and say something along the lines of “that would usually be fine but not for this particular animal because “reasons.” Then I ask her later to step into the back office where I tell her that she doesn’t have enough training about veterinary medicine to answer medical questions and tell her she needs to transfer any questions to a more experienced staff member. She quits by email because she doesn’t think I should have interrupted her while she was talking to a client and she didn’t like my tone.

    Final one – yet another reception new hire. She takes the job and tells us she has no conflicts with the proposed schedule. A few days later she notifies us of two days she will need off in the next month. For court. Where she is facing a felony domestic abuse charge. We accommodate the days off. The following week she calls out on Monday after her shift has started because of car trouble. The next day the car is not fixed. She calls (again after her shift starts) and says she will be late because she has to get a ride. One of the other employees (scheduled to start later) also calls and says she will be a little bit late because she is giving #1 a ride to work. #2 shows up FOUR hours late to her shift, without #1.
    Turns out #1 lives way up in the mountains. #2 gets up there (gets lost on the way) and #1 is not dressed. #1 runs in and out of her house, getting dressed as she goes back and forth. #1 lives with her family and there are numerous adults and vehicles present at the property. Finally #1 gets in the car and they start down the mountain. While driving #1 gets a call that her grandfather has died. She becomes hysterical and demands to be taken home. #2 drives her home and eventually gets to work. #2 then tells us that #1 called her and told her that the practice manager authorized #2 to be late in order to drive #1 to work.
    We talk to #1 and explain that she can’t ask her co-worker to drive an hour out of her way to give her a ride and that she will need to be at work the next day and on time. She says she has no means of transportation. We explain that if she misses another shift she will no longer be employed by us. She says “Uh, then I guess I quit?”

  320. call_me_impressed*

    I have a story of a great first impression. We were “encouraged” to hire the daughter of a VP for a co-op. On her first day, we are getting her all settled and trained. About 11am her Dad barges in and asked her why she hasn’t called him to tell him how it is going/how she is doing/does she need anything? She looks at him, and says “dad, you told me not to use my phone at work, so I’m not.” He leaves and never “checks-in” on her so openly again. I was so proud of her and she turned out to be an amazing co-op.

    1. Seeking Second Childhood*

      This may be my favorite — possibly because it gets the bad taste out of my mouth of all the other bad impressions.

  321. Megacorp Funzies*

    The first hour of my first day at MegaCorp, sitting in orientation with all the other new hires, watching a video that takes us on a little virtual tour of the office and gushes about how awesome everything is. The video includes a brief snippet of the cafe, which is beach-themed and has a wall covered with a photo of a typical beach scene (people playing volleyball etc) on the wall. After the video, HR asks if there are any questions, and one of my brand new coworkers pipes up:

    Coworker: Did you know there are naked people in that video?
    HR: Excuse me?
    Coworker: In the cafeteria bit. There were naked people on the beach.
    HR: Oh, you mean the people in swimsuits in the photo?
    Coworker: No, they were naked.
    HR: I’m sorry if you were offended, but they were wearing swimsuits.
    Coworker: Oh no, I’m not offended. I’m just surprised that they were *naked*.
    HR: No, actually, I’m pretty sure they were not. Moving right along…

    Mr Naked lasted about three months. Still haven’t found any naked people in the cafe though.

  322. Anonymousclerk*

    I had a new hire call in sick her third day of work. I had spent her first two days training her on everything. She kept saying she would be back the next day, then the day after. We all assumed that she had just quit.

    Four days later, she showed back up, claiming that she had been extremely ill and bedridden with a fever for days. When I went to get her started on what we were doing before her absence, she laughed and breezily replied, “Oh, I was sick, so I don’t remember anything from my first two days!” So I got to train her all over again.

  323. BeachMum*

    My husband’s company starts early. In all ads we note that the day starts at 7 a.m.

    I do the hiring, and always mention the hours for the job so as to ensure that people understand that they will need to be at the office at 7 a.m.

    I sent two candidates to be interviewed. I liked one more than the other, but that’s above my pay grade (even though it’s my husband’s company). They hired the other one.

    She was late four out of the first five days (by 30 minutes or more) and, on Friday, quit. She said that she wasn’t really a morning person.

  324. Okee dokee pokee*

    This happened when I was working as office manager for a public relations firm in a major city in the 90s. The receptionist position in our office was like the assistant position on a TV show that was popular at the time called “Murphy Brown” — it was a “revolving door” of new hires, each one uniquely bad.

    The absolute worst was a woman who arrived late, then started smoking at the reception desk (by then smoking had been taboo in many corporate offices for a number of years). The firm’s owner and an another exec and I were debating what to do — the position had been almost impossible to fill so we wanted to give the new hire some leeway.

    Then I heard her on the reception phone telling someone at a TV network that she was calling on behalf of our PR firm and was calling to offer them some free products from our clients. I specifically remember she mentioned that we would give them “a fur coat for a viewer giveaway”. The receptionist had zero authority to give any products from any of our clients to anyone!

    As soon as I told the owner, he grabbed a bunch of twenty dollar bills, marched to the reception area, stuffed the bills in her hand, and told her she was fired. She was gone before lunch.

  325. Dodubln*

    Back in the day (1990) I was the manager for a fast food restaurant. Hired a new employee. First day on the job, a woman came up to his register to place an order. She had a very large chest, and it just so happened that the height of the counter where customers would place their orders corresponded oddly with her chest height, so that as she was placing her order, her breasts were resting fully on the counter.
    This prompted my new employee to say in Spanish, to another employee who also spoke Spanish: “Look at the watermelons on that bitch!”
    To which the customer said: ” I speak Spanish, I want to speak to your manager right now!”.
    And I, as the manager, just wanted to die at that point. I am pretty sure I did. But not before firing the new employee, and apologizing profusely to the customer.

  326. Expiring Cat Memes*

    Followed up with my freshly hired coworker on the first job he’d been assigned, which had since become overdue. Clearly irritated, he told me he’d get to it and had more important jobs to work on. Those more important jobs turned out to be… his private freelance work. He’d been doing that all week, right under the boss’s nose. Saw absolutely no issue with it and was indignant that he wasn’t allowed computer access to download files before getting walked out of the building.

    He later tried to sue the company for unfair dismissal.

  327. WeJustSay*

    At the end of a very routine day one orientation with me, during which I reviewed standard HR paperwork and company policies, New Hire emailed the CEO (who he had never met) with the subject line “I am a new Company employee and I am already being mistreated.” In the long message, New Hire claimed that an unnamed Company employee was taking “huge legal risks” on behalf of Company, resulting in them being treated as a “second class citizen.” They didn’t give any specifics but requested a meeting with the CEO to discuss their concerns. This was passed on to Head of HR, who met with New Hire the next day. It turns out that despite my company email address, being personally introduced to New Hire by Hiring Manager, and spending all day in orientation together during which I shared that I had been with Company for several years, New Hire couldn’t tell if I was actually a Company employee and thought that I was an outside recruiter trying to keep his hiring bonus for myself because I “refused” to give him documentation of the bonus and also asked him to sign Company’s mandatory arbitration agreement. For the record, I didn’t refuse to give him documentation. He had simply asked me if there was any paperwork needed for him to get the bonus and I told him no, it’s paid automatically. This got twisted into me forcing him to sign an arbitration agreement so that when I keep his bonus for myself, he will have no legal recourse. Not sure how logistically I could steal the bonus, because we don’t keep it as piles of loose cash in the office, but logic is different for everyone I guess. We decided it was in everyone’s best interest (but especially ours) to end employment… If this was the reaction to a very regular orientation day, I can’t imagine what an actual longterm working relationship would be like.

  329. Lonely Aussie*

    I worked at a blue collar, male dominated industry, employer who basically just wanted warm bodies, highlights include;
    Naomi; who’s mention by name only because she introduced herself as “I moan” to basically every guy there on the first day. She later quit/fired after showing up drunk to the work chrissy party after calling out sick that day. The following day she drove up to the site office before work, told the manager on to suck a particular peice of (male) anatomy and quit before he could get a word out to fire her. Terrible coworker, probably would have been a fun friend.

    Son of the Pedant; second or third son of the most pedantic, patronising and evangelical guy on the place. Somehow managed to be more pedantic, patronising and evangelical on his first day, which was even more obnoxious to deal with, because at least his father had 40 something years experince in the industry. Spoke of saving for a two day trip to visit his families OG hometown in Europe. TWO DAYS. (We’re in Australia, Dude was planing on spending more time on a plane travelling than there) Also said he didn’t have to lisen to me because I was female (which wasn’t that uncommon but like, usually, I got that from old men, not barely legal teenagers) did not like being told that if brought up my genitals again we were going to have a problem HR could sort out. Sulked. Lasted until his trip, unsure how long he went for.

    The Inventor; had never worked in the industry, had never worked at all really. Spent his whole first telling us what we could be doing better, how if we did this we’d get better results. Lasted two weeks. Was highly amusing to watch other people deal with, rather annoying to deal with.

    Return of the Inventor; we later hired The Inventor’s younger brother (I think they might have been family friends of one of the managers?) who lasted slightly longer than the OG Inventor. He was both better and worse, better in that he kept his mouth shut, worse in that he liked to “fiddle” with things. And by fiddle I mean he pulled apart a very expensive dosing machine to “improve it” among other things. I think he made about a month?

    The Heir; son of one of the managers. Felt it this was reason to be a boasty arse to all he encounted. Failed to realise that at least half the employees were ralated or married or in some way connected and no one cared he was third generation in the industry. Lasted all of week.

    The Hair; another manager’s son, actually a decent coworker, friendly, helpful and polite. Had very long blond hair his father was always complaining about. I think I loaned him a couple of hair ties over his time there.

    Bonus intro on my first day:
    The Lawyer; this guy was a manager when I started and at introduction asked if I’d read the contract before signing it. I said I had, he said he’d read his and no where was the word “work” mentioned in it. He was probably one of my favourite managers to work under tbh. Probably one of the few, work hard, play hard types, we were free to do whatever as long as the stuff that needed to be done was done.

    Plus the usual violent dudes, peeps who didn’t like mornings, peeps who didn’t like working weekends, dudes who hated being told what do by women, peeps who found the job gross and so on.

  330. Chuck*

    Working in disability care we had a new casual start. He came in driving a souped up sports car and blasting music whilst vaping furiously. Within an hour of meeting him he let me know:
    -That the issues with our faulty microwave were caused by ghosts and he knew this because he can see ghosts
    -That mental illness is caused by demonic possession. We work with mentally ill clients.
    -That disabled people were useless and would amount to nothing. Again, in the industry of disability support.
    -That he was going to apply for a permanent position because our job was easy and he was going to demand more money because he would be better at it than any of us.
    Then he followed up by giving me unsolicited diet advice.
    Second shift he lost a client in a shopping mall because he was outside vaping instead of supporting them and we moved him to our “Only if no-one else is available” list.
    Then COVID hit and of course he turned out to be a conspiracy theorist and was removed from our call sheet

  331. quizlacey*

    After a few years in my job, I travelled to our head office in Switzerland to participate in a sales training program as part of my development. Most of the participants were new hires who would undergo an intensive program to become new sales managers; I was doing a part of this, to take on a hybrid role.
    The new hires were a great team, and we did a lot of bonding during our time there. I rejoined them a few months later for a further workshop, and following this, the new hires would transition to their new roles permanently. All except one, who completed the training, then announced she was leaving.
    A few months later, I found out that she was asked to leave. Officially it was due to lower-than-expected performance during the training program, but unofficially, her fate was effectively sealed the day after I left them for the first time.
    The new hires had gone to meet the senior sales directors, people who would be their grandbosses. This particular person had decided to get to know her grandboss by quizzing him at length about if he had ever cheated on his wife while he was on the road for the company.

  332. Anon for this*

    I was in charge of hiring a new receptionist for a small office. We found a candidate we really liked, told them they were hired, and set a start date a week or so in the future. Apparently they posted about it on social media, because the next day we received an anonymous email telling us that they were a terrible, awful person and we shouldn’t have hired them. Of course we disregarded this advice, but on the employee’s first day, I had to break it to them that someone out there had a serious grudge against them. They were very distressed and it was not a great way to start things off.

    They weren’t a good fit for the receptionist position and we parted ways after a year, but they generally seemed like a smart, decent person who tried their best. I still have no idea what the anonymous person had against them.

    1. Okee dokee pokee*

      Oh no, what a terrible thing it must have been to hear that on her first day of work! I can only imagine how painful that must have been, wondering if it had damaged her reputation with her new employer. I’m so sorry that someone made you tell her that on her very first day.

  333. BureauTier*

    New hire, male, mid-30s, in a very hierarchical firm. Second week, becomes obsessed with desk sizes, exchanges his assigned desk with that of a more female junior colleague (who is vastly more experienced and qualified than him, but junior), throws a tantrum when called out and states ‘I don’t have to listen to anything a [junior colleague’s job title] says, I am superior, there is a reason my desk is bigger than yours.’

  334. Squidhead*

    The new hire who asked our pregnant co-worker (they had never met before) if she could be the godmother of her baby. She didn’t work out for unrelated reasons, so we didn’t find out what would have happened when the baby was born.

    The new manager of our unit (transferred from a different unit, so not unfamiliar with the policies) who chose to come around and meet all the staff while also getting their vacation requests for the upcoming season (the process is company policy). Except she did it wrong, imposing a bunch of weird rules that don’t exist, and then arguing about them. This is a seniority-based process with union employees…there is no quicker way to make all of your staff think you’re an idiot than to mess this up. She continued to be an idiot in other ways too, but I did feel bad for her that she chose to start herself off on such a terrible footing! (As usually happens, incompetence was promoted upward and we have a new manager now.)

  335. Sigh*

    I’ve seen a few new hires make such a good first impression on everyone, including the higher ups, that the idiot boss who hired them has immediately freaked out, felt threatened, and tried to have the bee starter fired.

    Yes, this idiot boss is crazy, and was finally demoted away from people management once the pattern was finally noticed. After more than half a dozen people fell victim to this. I wish I was exaggerating.

  336. The Other Dawn*

    She wasn’t a new hire yet, but she interviewed and the CEO hired her.

    My office was next to the front desk, just a few feet away, which meant I could look out and see people sitting in the reception area. We had a woman come in to interview for the office manager position. While she was waiting, she chatted with the temp at the front desk. No big deal, but she started giving out lots of personal information, like health problems, her relationship with a man 30 years older than herself, etc. She then remembers she’s chewing gum. She takes it out of her mouth, rolls it into a ball in the palm of her hand, and then comes into my office, tries to hand it to me directly, and asks me to throw it away for her. I held out the waste basket so she could throw it away–there’s no way I’m touching someone’s chewed gum.

    She went in for the interview with my bosses and they called me in when they were done so I could talk to her. My impression was that she was immature, rough around the edges, and was trying way too hard to sell herself. After the interview I told them both this, as well as her actions in the reception area while she was waiting, and they still hired her.

    And yes, she turned out to be quite the disaster and lasted about three months before she was fired.

  337. Kat*

    Years ago before I got into my current industry I was a server at a restaurant inside of a hotel.
    We hired a new girl to help with the morning rush on the weekends. She seemed good, but holy crow she was awful.
    Attitude issues, she refused to learn the menu, refused to do any cleaning, didn’t bus her own tables, just left them dirty, and had a horrible attitude.
    The finally nail in the coffin, which I missed due to taking a vacation day that day (I always miss the good stuff!) Was she dropped a full bowl of steaming hot oatmeal all over a woman and all over her luxury branded coat as well
    Dropping hot oatmeal was bad enough but to make it even worse, she dropped it, didn’t apologize, didn’t make any effort to help clean the woman up or offer to pay for dry cleaning..
    Nope, she just apparently turned on one heel, and bounced (I’m told she actually mostly skipped) back to the back of house area and acted like nothing happened.
    She was fired an hour later. She was with us maybe 2 weeks and we were better off without her

  338. Wait, What?*

    We had a new guy at our org who was hired aa a relatively low level manager rise spectacularly fast – his secret? His first task was being handed things like approving timesheets and other reports that the other managers never bothered to do correctly. He went to the admins who had to process these, learned how to do them correctly and within a week was saving the admins hours of work. They loved that he cared, and sang his praises to anyone who would listen — and the C-Suite noticed him right away.

  339. Josephine*

    On the new office manager’s, my boss, third day she asked me if I needed “a sedative or something” when I said I didn’t want to dress up and “do a dance” in front of the whole office at Christmas. I tried to say I did not want to and was not gonna do it and she kept saying she didn’t care and that I didn’t have a choice, so after a few tries I got a bit emotional because I really didn’t want “perform” and couldn’t believe that this horrible person was my boss. So she asked if I needed a sedative in a very condescending tone. She ended the conversation with saying “we’ll just have to give you medication then”

    1. ArtsyGirl*

      That is so horrible, I hope you were able to find another job or she was fired. I am 100% dancing publicly is not part of your job description.

  340. Zulema K*

    This possibly doesn’t count since it was an interview candidate – but my last job was at an agricultural NGO operating in a rural part of a moderately conservative developing country. We had flown out an American candidate for a final round interview in-person at one of our field sites to meet the team and complete a final performance task. She showed up to our field staff training wearing tight jeans and a crop top. The shady looks she received from our field staff, I will never forget. What’s worse, she assumed she was a shoo-in for the role and her entire trip kept dropping the names of the various leadership staff she knew from the head office.

    We determined it wasn’t going to be a good fit.

  341. BigSigh*

    I’m so glad comments are still open!! I have two, from the same former company.

    One man was added to the sales team. His first week people kept finding him face down, asleep at his desk. This was a small company, very open cubes. He was spoken to and some leeway was given as he said he had a new baby. He didn’t make any effort not to sleep though, and by the end of his first week, he’d stopped doing anything but sleep at his desk. Finally, the COO shook him awake and walked him out.

    We hired a very young man to answer the phones in a customer service/front desk position. Probably his first job out of college, though I can’t recall exactly. His first day, he showed up with a box of personal items to decorate his desk, including a giant 3D lion poster. His second day, he brought his bike into our small office instead of locking it to the bike rack out front. We’d just refurbished the whole office, new paint, new wall signs, I’m talking still under construction when he came in for his interview. First thing our COO saw when she came off the elevator was his bike, not only leaning against and blocking the view of all the new company signage, but he’d somehow dragged the bike against the wall and scrapped the new paint. He lasted maybe a month or two?

  342. Anon for this one*

    This person didn’t even get hired. Because they divulged proprietary information about a direct competitor in their interview. The interviewers thankfully ended the call immediately and that guy has been blacklisted at my company.

    1. BongoFury*

      We had an interviewee tell us in a group interview, which included the team boss, that she had her previous boss fired by saving inappropriate emails until it was “the right time to hold it over his head and get promoted”.
      She…did not get the job.

  343. This is so specific that any coworkers who read comments will immediately know who this is about*

    Do first impressions made ON new hires count? Because I once had a boss who, on my first day as a contractor along with several others opened with, “Hi, I’m (name). I’m highly allergic to strawberries and I’m a bitch to work for.”

    And, you know, looking back…she was nothing if not honest.

  344. I WORKED on a Hellmouth*

    So I am SUPER LATE to the party on this one, but back when I worked in property management at my worst ever job, my terrible boss hired a leasing consultant that… definitely made an immediate impression on the rest of us. Her first day she opened up with telling everyone that she encountered a very dramatic story about someone stealing her credit card and that she was “on the case.” On the second day she kept telling us all about how she “had sleuthed out” who she felt was responsible and had found her Facebook and was disgusted because she was a poster woman for a local hospital’s breast cancer programs. On the third day she was telling us about repeatedly driving by the house where the woman lived with her high school aged son, and also where the son went to school, what sports he played, and what his jersey number was. And about how the police “weren’t acting” on her “intel.” On the fourth day she found out that there was footage of the person using her card at Walmart, and she told us that it was someone who lived at the place she used to rent (completely glossing over it not being the woman she had reportedly been stalking). On the FIFTH day she was holding people at work hostage with stories about finding the person’s spouse on FB and how she was debating messaging them with threats. It was… a lot.

    She also was terrible at everything related to the job in spite of allegedly being “highly experienced”, lied about doing online trainings, had frequent meltdowns when using the computer for anything, threw some actual physical tantrums, and spent a good chunk of time talking using a Cartman voice. But because of that first week (and allllllll of the fraud and stalking stories that she continued to force onto everyone going forward) she was forever known as McGruff (as in McGruff the Crime Dog) to all of the employees.

  345. StressedButOkay*

    Oh my goooodness, we had a new hire years ago who was very young, just fresh out of college. I came into the shared kitchen to find her with her shoes off and her bare feet ON THE KITCHEN TABLE. She thought nothing of it until I firmly told her that she needed to remove her feet from the communal eating space.

    I scrubbed it down with every cleaning supply we had when she left after I gave her a small talk on office norms. She didn’t…last very long.

  346. NotYourDormRoom*

    Had a new hire, fresh out of college. We work in outpatient healthcare clinic. On the second day, she had a candle burning at her desk. I had to explain that was a fire hazard and was not allowed by the many regulatory agencies that oversee us, plus we have a number of co-workers that have strong fragrance allergies so try not to have strongly scented products used in our office. So then the next day she brings in a hot wax fragrance burner because “it’s just a lightbulb, not a flame.” Had to explain hot wax is still a safety hazard and again we have co-workers that have fragrance allergies. She also would leave her half eaten lunch out on her desk when meeting with clients and her headphones draped around her neck when meeting with clients. She just really seemed to think the office was her dorm room. She didn’t last long.

  347. InternDramaLama*

    I (F22) remember when an intern (M34) onboarded and I was tasked with showing him around as well as the ropes since I was also an intern and this was his first office job. As we walked around I asked him why he’d been drawn to our office and he responded that he didn’t really want to work here, he’d rather work in a completely different Department (think Law Enforcement versus Sales) but they weren’t offering interships. He proceeded to state that he felt “the work we did wasn’t really that important” as we rounded the corner and ran into our Vice President and Chief of Staff (COS). They didn’t say anything and kept walking. I didn’t really know what to say either so I didn’t really comment on it. Apparently later that day he also told this straight to the COS when confronted about it, and let it slip to a Deputy Director.

    He did stay for several more months, but you could tell that no one really wanted him here. No one mentored him, no one asked him out to lunch, no one helped him make those connections to move to the jobs he really wanted. Honestly, it would have been kindest to let him know he should resign to focus on school work.

  348. Sarah*

    I have, twice in my life, showed up for my first day at a job with an injury that I didn’t have when I interviewed.

    The summer before college I got a job doing data entry at a library. Interviewed on Friday with two working hands, got a major injury over the weekend, showed up on Monday with my dominant hand in a splint for 6-8 weeks. For a summer-long data entry job. To their credit, they were completely understanding and I got very good at data entry with my non-dominant hand, but it was definitely surprising!

    More recently I interviewed with two working legs. My last day at my outgoing job, I activated what turned out to be a long-festering knee condition. Showed up to work at my next job with my knee in a brace. Again, everyone was super understanding — mostly it just became a conversation starter!

  349. Michelle*

    I through this thread was going to list positive new-hire stories! Lol I start a new position next Friday and was looking for some inspiration, and so far I’m learning about what /not/ to do, ha!

  350. Choggy*

    My coworker was coming for an interview when our company was located elsewhere. When he arrived, for whatever reason, he was unable to get into the building using the normal routes, like the front door. What he did was to climb the fire escape and found his way into the building. He was 19 at the time, and some 24 years later, he’s still with the company and is a terrific coworker and all around good guy.

  351. Choggy*

    When I was working in higher ed, we had someone come in for an interview as an admin assistant. She fell on the way in but still showed up, ripped pantyhose and skinned/bleeding from the knee. She got the job and was a terrific person to work with, she led everything with humor and charmed everyone from the beginning.

  352. HS Teacher*

    At a toxic office I left several years ago, we hired a sales rep who was one of the most inappropriate people I’d ever worked with. He came into my office and proceeded to do the whole “F— your couch” routine from the Chapelle show. Of course, he did it using an exaggerated accent, which made me (a POC) extremely uncomfortable.

    That’s not actually why he got fired; he was fired for watching porn at work, quite loudly actually.

  353. Jack Straw from Wichita*

    I’m a volunteer coordinator, and this interaction with a new volunteer is… the worst. For context, I was having an elective hysterectomy the week after our largest event. When this older gentleman working his first shift with us overheard me talking about it with another longtime volunteer, he piped in with: “Oh, are you having weight loss surgery?”

    I replied that no, I was not. Did I mention that my hysterectomy was to remove a fibroid tumor the size of a volleyball in my uterus? After I told him that, in fairly graphic detail, he continued, “Oh, that makes sense. I wondered why you were so round.” WTF, dude. This volunteer did not work with us again.

  354. Cricket*

    My first encounter with a new coworker was when she told a story in the break room about being reprimanded within hours of her first day because she refused to make a delivery when she had just come back from doing one. We work in a huge hospital and the largest part of our job is delivering supplies to nurses as needed. It’s literally what she was hired to do, and refusing means essentially denying a patient medical care. New Hire told this story to a room full of coworkers as if we were expected to be sympathetic. She then asked if anyone knew how to report a case of discrimination because she believed she was being discriminated against because of her weight. To be very clear—we are upfront in our hiring process that the job is physical. You need to be able to lift and carry heavy things, and we regularly walk 10,000 steps in the course of an 8 hour workday. We have employees of all shapes and sizes who do their job well every day. This employee was not one of them. She was eventually let go for a culmination of bad things—Facetiming in patient care areas, refusing to remove artificial nails (another thing that is expressly communicated as forbidden), and generally never being within dress code.

  355. Fluff*

    I’m late to this. I was working working at an outpatient clinic and a new resident was seeing his patients there. Due to building changes several different specialties could be working there and this week it was GI. It was the first time we shared a hallway. We were working side by side and just exchanging friendly conversation typing away at our laptops between patients. I had asked him why he picked gastroenterology and he talked about the cool stuff like how the intestines absorb all the nutrients. The conversation continued as we walked the shared hallway to each of our next patient rooms.

    He then opened the door to his patient’s room, paused and dramatically ripped a super long fart – the ‘train toot’ never ending kind of fart – “because I have a unique understanding of the field.” He then turned, greeted his patient, closed the door like that was a completely normal event.

    I think his patient’s eye were as wide as mine.
    He did well and his patient loved him. I am sort of amazed.

  356. Anon for this*

    I’m not sure what she thought, but I’m sure I made an unusual first impression on the library director at my current job. I got this job through a government job placement program after working at an overseas location, so had never met any of the staff until my first day. At lunch, I was just looking around the library and the person working the reference desk asks if they can help me. I said something along the lines of “No thanks, I work here now, just looking around”, not knowing who she was. Then we did mutual introductions. Still there now, so couldn’t have been too bad.

  357. Worker bee*

    I have so many when it comes to working retail. Here are a few.

    During the summer months, my company sells hot dogs on the weekends, with the proceeds going to a particular charity. One day, I walk into the breakroom to see my coworkers who staff this looking completely stunned. I ask if everything is ok and they tell me that a coworker, not 30 second before, stumbled in, ripped open the box of buns, ate two, then walked off. Turns out, it was his second day, he was an equipment operator, and was completely drunk. Thankfully, I was able to immediately alert his supervisor before he got back on the equipment.

    I’m partially at fault with this one and will admit I handled things badly.

    I was working two different jobs with the same company and we had transferred an employee from another location to help us train all the new people we had hired as cashiers, as I wasn’t able to train all 6 new people at once. I walked in on her first day to see her having my coworkers destroying our information binder. The company has a basic binder, but the location she worked at has a certain type of customer and mine had a different type of customer, so I had added some extra pages. I walk in and ask what on earth they are doing, so they all kind of stop. The new employee looks at me and says they are just cleaning, then introduces herself. I knew she was coming to our location, so I introduce myself, then ask again what is going on.

    I quickly realize there’s been a serious lack of communication, as she tries to set me up on a computer to start training. I’m confused and say I don’t need training, but she is getting hostile, saying all new hires need to be trained and is refusing to listen when I say I’ve been working here for 5+ years. I end up walking away when I hear a radio call and start to do my job. After I finish the call, she says she doesn’t want to, but she’s going to have to write me up for insubordination. I get a bit mouthy and ask her if she’s a manager and she says yes. Turns out, I had been told she was here to just help out with training, but she was transferred and was the new assistant boss.

    What was ridiculous about the entire thing was that, rather than her actually listening to what I was saying, she ignored me, assumed I was a new employee, then when I got huffy, she didn’t take me aside to address it. Instead, she called the GM at her old location, who called HR. HR comes up to talk to me and realizes that I was told this person was just there to help train, but was not a manager and that the new person was told that everyone who came in was new and needed to be trained. I told HR that I was put off by her disparaging comments about how terrible our store was run and that was why I was upset. HR told her to leave me alone and that I was not her employee to manage.

    Things never got better between the two of us. I resented the fact that she refused to work more than 5 days a week, as a manager. She had Thursday and Friday off, but would regularly be sick on Saturday. I can’t begin to count the number of days I was woken up on my day off by phone calls asking why I wasn’t at work, for a shift I didn’t know I was scheduled for. Let me be clear about this; it’s my day off and I’m getting these calls. When I’d refuse to come in, she’s let me know later that she did me a favor.

    I was delighted when she put in her two weeks notice and HR told her not to bother. She had told work she was sick, but her FB page said she has been in Mexico on vacation.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I don’t know that you were much to blame on that second one. Sounds like she was a terrible manager and when you were understandably confused as to why she thought you were a new employee she didn’t take the time to figure out that you were, in fact, a 5+ year employee. That right there is terrible management.

  358. A. Nonny Moose*

    Within the first couple weeks on the job, this guy said a bunch of bizarro things about how amazing he was (he worked in the job long ago, so thought he already knew everything) and got himself kicked out of the employee group chat for insisting on this point and arguing with other employees.

  359. AM*

    Since I am unable to reply to my original thread (https://www.askamanager.org/2022/03/whats-the-most-astounding-first-impression-youve-seen-a-new-hire-make.html#comment-3798995), I’m sticking up for myself here. This is for those who think professionalism isn’t important. I didn’t deserve any of of the vitriol directed at me. Just because my employer doesn’t do things they way you do them, doesn’t mean I’m wrong. This wasn’t an idiosyncratic culture thing. This was an intern who had trouble taken written direction situation and had trouble paying attention.

    Intern # 1 messed up and made a bad impression. The onboarding appointment was made to accommodate intern #1’s schedule. The appointment was for two interns together. The boss had communicated to the intern that the NDA was required for the position. Boss had told me to expect intern #1 to bring the paperwork with her. Intern was lucky I was able to print a new copy. Boss was not in the office at the time. I could not send her to a copy and print shop because that is a minimum 30-minute round trip. I have other appointments that day. I cannot delay the onboarding and inconvenience intern #2. Things could have been more awkward if I had to contact my boss on what to do. If there was not another copy of the paperwork available, then intern #1 would be sent home because no paperwork = I cannot onboard her. Intern would have wasted her time and embarrassed herself because of a careless and costly mistake she made. It’s called being a responsible person. It’s not a good impression that intern #1 could not follow/remember to carry out written instructions from the boss. The paperwork has never been a problem with other interns in past years. Intern #2 remembered to bring the signed paperwork. If it was more convenient for intern #1 to sign the paperwork at the office, she should have spoken up so we could accommodate her.

    I’m sorry to hear others had trouble with their transfer credits, but there was a lot about the intern’s explanation that didn’t makes sense. When someone tries to transfer credits, they would have been informed if the credits had transferred. When someone applies for graduation, they would have been informed if they were eligible. Intern didn’t contact her college until six months after she had graduated. The college handbook and even their websites say students are responsible for staying on top of their degree requirements. Even if the college was at fault, this explanation still doesn’t make the intern look good. It was terrible judgment on her part to offer this info when it was not required. Never give out information that can make you be seen in a bad light, even if it wasn’t your fault. Being able to edit your self is a must in life. Word vomit like this can make people think you cannot be discreet about work matters (such as business secrets) when you can’t be discreet about yourself.

    Forgetting about the paperwork and the word vomit were serious signs that intern was not reliable. Intern #1 performed so poorly, exercised poor judgment, and continued to word vomit so much that boss reconsidered the intern’s credibility and maturity. Intern was 24 years old. Boss even caught intern’s boyfriend at the office and boyfriend was sitting at the boss’s desk! Having your boyfriend visit you isn’t a big deal, but letting him sit at the boss/business owner’s desk and assuming boss wasn’t coming to the office is seriously unprofessional. The business also had security cameras for liability reasons because we have expensive property. Intern was caught on camera with her boyfriend hanging out for hours and distracting her from her internship. At the end of the internship, intern didn’t ask for a letter of recommendation. Did she forget? Did she know she wouldn’t get one? I don’t know. Boss definitely said that intern would not be eligible for a recommendation if intern did contact her for one later on.

    First impressions do matter. Be organized. Follow instructions. Err on the side of caution. Don’t give your colleagues or your boss reasons to doubt your competence, credibility, or trustworthiness. This is my TED Talk.

  360. lexi*

    So, in this instance, I was the new hire. I was walking into the interview, tripped, and knocked myself clean out. I came around pretty quickly and did the interview, got hired, and then fell down the stairs on my first day of work. I am a bit clumsy, but generally not that bad!

  361. LGC*

    I am probably going to get myself fired for this, but I don’t care…I still – about three or four years on – have not gotten over the guy that we hired that I was specifically instructed to keep away from women.

    Because apparently, when he was being shown around our office, he sexually harassed one of our HR reps.

    My boss wonders why I’m still wary about her judgment and this is a huge part of the reason why.

  362. Fur-ious*

    This person wasn’t my employee, and only a coworker in the farthest stretch of the word, but here’s one.
    Overachieving vetmed student on clinical rotation decided to do nail trims on every drop off appointment in the facility without being asked. Proceeded to quick every single one of my dogs nails while she was fully conscious.

    I was working as a dog groomer at a combined vet/boarding/grooming/training facility several years ago. I was vaguely aware of a few new people when I dropped my dog off on the veterinary side to get spayed, but I knew everyone on the surgery team that day and wasn’t worried about it. When I signed the drop off paperwork, including an itemized release for extra charges, such as pre/postoperative pain meds, nausea meds, etc. The only thing I opted out on? Nail trim.
    I had trimmed and filed her nails nice and smooth the day before, and I have absolutely no idea why anyone would have decided she needed a nail trim I specifically did not ask for.

    The student was asked to finish their clinical rotations elsewhere, and my dog eventually came to tolerate nail filing again after a year or so.

  363. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

    When I was a teenage college student, I made a series of dubious decisions that led to me driving to another state to sleep on the floor in the spare room of my ex-boyfriend’s apartment for the summer. (I drove his new girlfriend and all of her stuff down from the state all three of us met in. I believe I mentioned that a series of dubious decisions were involved?)

    Anyway, I needed to find a job for the summer in my new city, had no clue how to do that since I had worked a grand total of one paying job prior to this and that at a summer camp, and signed up with a bunch of temp agencies due to lack of better clue about job seeking. (My parents were not much help, as the last time one of them had gotten a job through something other than networking within their field was 1983.)

    This being the summer of 2000 in the SF Bay Area, before the dot-com boom had fully turned into the dot-com bust, I was, as it quickly became clear, actually one of the more reliable and competent people the first temp agency that took a chance on me had available for for office temp placements. My first job had been a same-morning call when the originally-scheduled temp did not show up for the second day of a multi-day job, and I finished what was projected to be 3+ days of filing backlog (due to an office move) within one day by applying a combination of sorting algorithms (I’d finished my second year of a CS degree and just taken That Class Where You Learn All The Sorting Algorithms) and common sense to the giant pile of random papers, plus using one of those flippy paper sorter tools that speed things up immensely if you know how to use them (which I’d learned how to use as a 9th grader when I had a hole in my schedule and got stuck as a library/office aide).

    This was enough to get me some better placements through that temp agency. The one I spent the most time in, I was also called in same-morning by this temp agency, and I was quite sick that morning (I had food sensitivities that were being aggravated by trying to live on a diet of pretty much nothing but Marshmallow Mateys and ginger beer to save money while a I found a job that would let me stop living on the floor of my ex-boyfriend’s apartment), but went in anyway. I’m pretty sure I had to ask my supervisor to unlock my purse, which was in a drawer of her desk, once an hour or so that entire day so I could go puke in the bathroom. (I no longer remember why I thought I needed my purse every time I went to the bathroom? I know I did this, but I have absolutely no recollection of why.)

    Amazingly, I did not win the Worst Temp They Had That Day Award, as a different temp was caught making unauthorized personal long-distance calls from the conference room and I was actually attempting to do my job whenever I wasn’t puking. They kept me on indefinitely, until I eventually had to quit several weeks to a month later to move back home because the whole “sleeping on the floor at my ex-boyfriend’s apartment” idea was not working out well and no one was offering summer sublets in the Bay Area.

    I wonder if that office still tells stories about me. I had no grasp whatsoever of office norms, regularly made myself PBJ sandwiches out of the provided free breakfast foods, dressed like the college student I was, and by the end I was living in a series of increasingly sketchy hotels, so I’m sure they saw me as this feral semi-homeless teen who was nonetheless the best available option to cover their (non-tech-industry) corporate front-office reception due to an unusual job market. (Among other things, they offered me access to their company gym locker room if I needed a place to shower.)

    (I have learned a great deal about both how to conduct my personal life and how to hold down a job since then.)

  364. Audacithai*

    More of a second impression than anything, BUT. (CW transphobia)

    Not long after the new guy joined, we had a company trip to Thailand where
    1) he invited me to play a game on the way to the train station—
    2) —guessing which of the women we passed on the street were cis—
    3) —and did not drop the subject when I said no the first time.

    (Yes he got fired, no not for this incident)

  365. Meg*

    I worked in accounting at a company of 9. Our CFO got promoted to head of the parent company so we set out to hire a controller. The first guy we hired seemed a bit aloof, but that’s normal. He trained for one week. On the Monday of his 2nd week the CFO who was training him was OOO. (However the COO was in)

    He arrived at our normal 8:00-8:30 start time and went into his office and shut the door most of the way. Around 10:30 we realized he was asleep in there. About 11:00 he woke up, passed the receptionist in his way to the bathroom and she realized he smelled like a distillery.

    He proceeded to go to his car and slept for several more hours (until about 3:00) in his car. When each of us got lunch we’d peer in to make sure he was still breathing. Lucky it was a mild day in the northeast. He then said goodbye and drove home between 3:00-4:00.

    …when my boss (CFO) came in the next day he had me print the guy one week’s worth paycheck on the spot. (I didn’t do payroll but we cut this check specially for him.)

    So yes, that’s the MOST memorable.

    Honorable mention goes to the new hire who was young and printed invoices to mail out, put stamps done the folded invoices (directly, without an envelope) and stuck the paperwork in the mailbox. They didn’t return to sender for weeks. He said he didn’t know you needed to put mail into envelopes.

  366. babysharkdoodoo*

    Accidentally posted this above, reposting here.

    I have a story about myself. I was in training for my first job out of college (accounting-adjacent) and my boss was going over the last year’s budget with me to explain the budgeting process. For some reason I decided to start asking pointed questions about the areas of the budget where we went over or under budget. To my boss. Who developed and managed the budget. I did not need this information, and she tried to shut me down a few times by explaining the need to be flexible, but I wanted to seem smart so I didn’t take the hint, and kept questioning her.

    Luckily that boss was fantastic and didn’t hold it against me. We’re still in touch and she is one of my best references.

  367. Serin*

    As I read through these, I began to imagine the categories you could sort them into for pie-chart purposes.

    – Didn’t Follow Instructions
    – Just Bad Luck
    – Profoundly Stupid
    – Bigot
    – Dunning-Kruger Effect
    – Moxie Malfunction
    – Intoxicants
    – Completely Inexplicable, May Involve Aliens

  368. ArtK*

    New manager for our team. Our first meeting and he’s introducing himself. For openers, he lets out one of my favorite(?) manager-speak statements: “Make me look good and I’ll make you look good.” Ugh. Later in the meeting, though, he said “If you want drugs, just see me.” He was gone the next day!

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