I will tell some fun employee stories...
The first one didn't technically report to me at the time... I was the Team Lead, not yet a Manager, so my boss made the hiring decisions for my team.
At the time we were short staffed... me and two people who were too new to be 100% effective.
I had one of them partially trained, and the other was one of those button pushers who never got beyond the point where they could run something, then scream for help if it didn't go perfectly.
So I was running 60-70% of our IT operations, while training/supervising these other two.
Then we hire a new guy, older but not too old, like late 40s/early 50s.
I interviewed him and didn't think he was worth hiring, but my boss was desperate to fill the seat, so he hired this guy.
New guy starts the week of our office holiday party, like literally a day or 2 before.
That year we split the office into 3 teams randomly, and did a scavenger hunt thing... it was more fun than I expected.
New guy was not on my team, but he was on the team a work buddy of mine.
So we do the scavenger hunt and meet back at the office and I find out from my co-worker that their team never ventured more than like a block from the office, because new guy said he couldn't walk very far... which seemed odd because he wasn't disabled or anything... not in the best of shape, but to ruin the whole activity for your team by refusing to walk more than a block seemed odd to me.
After the scavenger hunt we waited a bit for our transportation to arrive to take us all to a restaurant for dinner.
Meanwhile new guy's fiance arrives.... the dinner was made open to spouses and such, so that's fine.
His fiance was real weird though... one of those really intense people right off the bat.... as soon as we got to the restaurant she was demanding explanations about the food and drinks because she and him were on a very specific diet and she had allergies as well.
I made sure to avoid their table, but the one semi-effective guy on my team got stuck at that table and told me about all the intense diet demands the next day.
(This will continue to get more odd, I just want this context so you understand the next part)
Ok so fast forward to the following week... new guy's first real first week starting Monday.
New guy comes in and I suggest we go out to lunch as a team as we hadn't the previous week when he started.
No, he tells us, he has a strict diet his wife wants him to stick to.
Well what's the diet... surely we can find somewhere with items that conform...
No thanks, I brought my lunch, he tells us.
Ok... weird, just flat out saying no to having lunch with the team.
Next day, me and my buddy go out to lunch... decide to go to the Wendy's down the street from the office... and sure enough sitting in the Wendy's, face buried in a triple cheeseburger, is new guy who refused to break his diet to have lunch with the team... he made eye contact with us as we got in line to order and sorta returned my wave, but had finished and hurried out before we got our food.
Weirder...
His third day with us, he doesn't show up to work... my partially effective team member is his training buddy and takes the responsibility of trying to figure out where this dude is... calls and leave VMs... nothing all day.
We tell our boss, who also calls and leaves VMs.... and apparently he called our boss later that evening to say he had been sick... but just decided to not come into work or let us know.
Getting even more weird...
He comes in the last 2 days of the week, and he really isn't getting much of anything done... he's being given the simplest of tasks with help sitting 8 feet away and nothing gets done.
Great so he's weird and useless...
Monday the following week new guy's training buddy is on PTO, so now he's my responsibility for the day at least.
He doesn't show up.... I tell my boss, I'm not calling him... I have tons of work to do.
Tuesday training buddy is back, but new guy still hasn't shown up to the office, so once again calling and leaving messages for him. Finally he picks up a call around 10:30am and I overhear the conversation vaguely. Training buddy gets off the call and looks at me and goes:
"He said he can't come in today..."
I ask why.
"He said his car won't start..."
Doesn't he walk to the CTA and take the train over here? He did for his interview.
"I... yeah... idk man"
Again we tell our boss who calls new guy to tell him this isn't acceptable behavior.
Wednesday new guy hasn't shown up once again and training buddy calls him and again he doesn't pick up until like 10:30 or 11am....
"He said he can't come in again"
I ask why.
"He said... he was talking to the CTA train... and he fell down"
Is he hurt? Like in the hospital?
"No... he's fine... he said he fell down and decided to go home and not come in to work"
This is some next level weird...
Thursday he comes in.... he seems to be trying... has to know he's on the verge of being fired.
Friday training buddy is on PTO again, but new guy does come in and attempts to do his job.
I am going to pause and explain a tiny bit of how we work for this next part.
We remote into a Windows Terminal server where all our operational code/packages and all the data sits that we work with or ingest/output.
When you remote into a server it opens a session... that session belongs to your account.... this is how Windows works.... you have a My Documents folder... you have a My Pictures folder.... you have a Recycle bin.... they are all tied to your session. This is pretty brain-ded basic Windows OS knowledge people in IT have had to know for a good 10-20 years at this point.
Alright so new guy is working on importing some files for a client's monthly data load that came in the day before.
You need to grab them from where they land from our SFTP and place them where our packages expect to find them to import them.... literally navigate to the folder, select all, cut... paste to import location.
I vaguely notice new guy is suddenly agitated... and I ask what's wrong.
"All the files are gone...."
The new stuff? They aren't in the landing spot?
"No... the entire client folder including that landing spot and all their history, the whole thing is just gone."
My boss hears this and comes out of his office while I start looking it over.
Sure enough the client's entire folder is gone.... I check if he moved it somewhere... nope it is 100% not there that I can find.
My boss is looking at it with new guy trying to figure out wtf happened as new guy exclaims one minute it was there and the next it wasn't... he didn't do anything.
I go to worst case and go download a Recuva to see about restoring the deleted content... I am in the middle of installing it when my boss says:
"Is this their folder, here?"
New guy doesn't say anything immediately, so I step over and sure enough there it is.... sitting in his Recycle Bin.
"Well I didn't delete it!" new guy exclaims.
My boss looks incredulous.... "Well it's in your Recycle Bin...."
"That's not MY Recycle Bin!" new guy replies.
At this point my boss looks over at me like "Is this real life right now?"
New guy continues, "That's the server's Recycle Bin! It doesn't belong to just me!"
I am just trying not to laugh at this point.
My boss replies with a stutter... "But... but it is..."
Together we explain how Windows sessions work and we even had him recycle a file and show him how it didn't exist in my Recycle Bin, only his, so the only answer was that he had accidentally deleted the client folder to the Recycle Bin.
He remained adamant, it wasn't his fault... someone else must have done it.
Which was odd because we were prepared to just say "Dumb rookie mistake... no harm no foul, be careful in the future"
Sadly he stuck around the following week and then my boss gave him the axe.
To this day "I can't come in, I fell down and decided to go home" still cracks me up.
