I know the last one was the last one but we’re back due to lukewarm demand (think T’Pau reunion or Police Academy 7). Admittedly, more “Bof” than “Encore” but I’ve been encouraged to share the story of the worst grad ever.
A long long time ago in 2010 I inherited a truly terrible junior team member. She had worked for pretty much every team in the company to universal failure but I arrogantly, stupidly and incorrectly though I could make her better.
It was not so much that she was bad at her job it was more that she was never there to do it. Strangely she was very visible (and indeed, audible) at social events but was thwarted in any and every attempt to pop into the office for a bit of work with increasingly implausible obstacles.
Such obstacles could pop up at the damdest moments and her chair would remain empty. In her first week she got lost while going out to get lunch. Luckily she found her way home and while her boss was of the opinion she should stay there for the medium to long term, just to be on the safe side, HR stepped in to demand she was given another chance.
One day her chair was empty and we had long since moved from counting her sick days to counting her present days to save time. Two things worked against her.
1.She was a terrible liar
2. She was very unlucky.
Imagine if Ferris Beuller had routinely posted photos of himself at the baseball game before crashing the Ferrari though the wall of double physics.
On this occasion she had emailed in to say her father was very sick and she had to visit him in hospital. Now the odds of Daddy Beuller turning up at reception that very same day were tiny. Who’s parents drop in to see if their kids want to have lunch?. Nobody’s did. Not even hers. Any other day.
We congratulated Dad on his miraculous recovery, much to his confusion and then had to have a horrible conversation with her the next day which was very unedifying for all involved. We all got strapped in for the explanation. Are you ready? Here we go. She explained that there was confusion of who was in hospital and that she had found out it was actually someone else’s Dad when she got there. That cleared that up.
But we still couldn’t fire her.
She once phoned in sick from Glastonbury. She didn’t think to leave the field and while the voicemail she left included some fantastic coughing and groaning the sound of Orbital and tens of thousands of fucked people in the background detracted from the performance.
But we still couldn’t fire her.
She left work early because “she had to get a piercing done”.
But we still couldn’t fire her.
As time progressed and we saw less and less of her, the stories had to get more fantastic. She had clearly done a bit of research and discovered that simply saying cold or period every time would only keep her going for a couple of months so she had to get creative. And get creative she did.
She didn’t show up for work one day and that afternoon emailed us to say that she had disturbed a burglar who had knocked her unconscious (hence why it was afternoon because of the unconsciousness you see) and stolen her company laptop. She hadn’t been able to get in touch because she was unconscious. And she wasn’t able to email because…oh shit she’d emailed in proof that her story was bollocks. Our emails had a different signature when not sent from the laptops our company provided. This also left us not doing our duty if we didn’t send her to the police to tell them about a non-existent burglar and left her with no option but to destroy or keep the laptop. Realising that her cheeky lie-in had elevated quickly to larceny via perjury she enthusiastically resigned (via email!!)
The story has a happy ending though as the bugler left the laptop on reception – people can change!
Diaries Of Media 