Threats

Another new employee from last week is gone: I worked one day with him and knew he wasn't going to work out. At that point it's stupid to waste time training him further, but Boss said, "Give him a chance." Well, I did. I gave him a chance to do what I said, then when it wasn't done I gave him another chance, then I had to remind him a THIRD time of what he was supposed to be doing. He was polite enough with the customers, but extremely lazy and didn't know much about our specialty area.

A few days after he began working for us we seemed to be short on a certain item. Hmm….what timing. I ran an inventory list of what we should have vs. what we did have and unless the items got up and walked away on their own from the employees-only area, then it looked like the new employee was to blame. I expressed my concern to Boss, knowing that she might tell me I wasn't giving the new employee a chance by making such an accusation. But I was careful of how I phrased it. I showed her the inventory shortage and suggested keeping an eye on that particular item and perhaps that employee because the shortages began occurring just after he started work.

She agreed that it was suspicious and that we should be more alert.
We informed the other managers of the problem with that specific item and asked them to be particularly watchful, especially of new employees. No names were used, no accusations made.

A few days later the problem took care of itself. The employee came in to work in a foul mood, did a poor job all shift, then started an argument with a co-worker over an extremely petty matter. Luckily a manager saw the whole thing, including the part where the new employee threatened to harm his co-worker. You can't do that! You're fired!

The co-worker who was threatened wasn't at all at fault…..the petty matter wasn't anything he did wrong. When the new employee began shouting, it was clear that he wasn't logical or anything…..the co-worker kept silent in an attempt to diffuse the situation. While that didn't work, the fact that there was no physical contact is pure luck.

(May I note that I did not hire this guy or the people in the two previous posts? That's right, someone else did.)