What's the jerkiest thing a (former?) employee has ever done?

DanHolohan

I was just thinking back on the story @JohnNY told about the guy who javelined the pipe into the van and hit poor John in the head.

What's your story?

Paul Pollets

One employee tried doing side work using the company's invoices and having the customer make the check to himself. When the work was never completed, I got the call from an angry customer wondering why the work wasn't finished.

DanHolohan

😳

STEAM DOCTOR

Showing up

JohnNY

This was that day…

DanHolohan

Ouch!

JohnNY

Yeah. Pretty much.

JakeCK

That could have been a lot worse. :S I don't know how big of a pipe it was but it looks like that was a glancing blow. I'm imagining a 10' stick of 3/4" black pipe hitting someone in the head and the result wouldn't be stitches at the hospital but rather an autopsy at the morgue.

EdTheHeaterMan

This guy hit the Trifecta

I hired a guy that needed a job. One of the local oil dealers that I was doing service calls for had a daughter. She was going to get married to this kid. He needed training and I sent him to technical trade school for oil burner service. I paid for the school and he signed a note for the total amount of the tuition. The note would be null and void after 3 years of working for me.

I hired a girl down the street from my office to do some filing and and answer the phones. For about a month the two of them would hook up after work. I found out because the oil man's daughter caught him leaving her apartment one evening. The future father-in-law told him he could not work for me anymore ...and it was less then 3 years.

He tried to get an oil burner job with others and also do some of the future father-in-law's customer burner work (that didn't work out very well for some). I asked him for the tuition in monthly payment. After 2 payments, the money stopped. I took him to court and the Judge required him to pay monthly payments. After 3 more payments, the money stopped.

During this time the technician and the oil man's daughter stayed engaged and got married. They had a great wedding I was not invited.

I also was not happy about being stiffed on the tuition money so I called the Sheriff's Department and they attached his bank account. It just happened to be the same bank account where all the wedding gift money was deposited. I got a check from the County Sheriff for the remaining balance of the unpaid tuition. They got a surprise when they returned from the honeymoon.

Now he is a pretty good HVAC technician, and he is divorced from the oil man's daughter.

Trifecta...
Cheated on the fiancé
Married anyway
Lost the wedding money

his only saving grace was the divorce LOL

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

We did a lot of remodeling work and accumulated lots of scrap copper and brass until all the bins got full and my shop boy would take them down to the scrap metal dealer. One time we had about 300# and my shop boy split the load and pocketed his half. He didn't know that the scrap metal dealer was a guy I knew from the gym. He gave me the money back and then a few weeks later filed for worker's compensation for workplace stress.

I also had an apprentice who we took in who had a history of abuse when he was growing up. We sent him to the PHCC apprentice training program and encouraged him whenever we could, but we couldn't keep him away from drugs. He ended up killing a guy over a drug deal and then threw them into a dumpster. I think he's still in jail. Haunts me to this day.

Is that jerky enough?

I am proud to have made it to the other side of owning and running a plumbing contracting business without becoming an alcoholic, going bankrupt or having an early demise.

DanHolohan

Wow, what a story! You’re a good man, Ed. You did it right. Thanks. 

DanHolohan

Alan, I’m also glad you made it. Gosh!

SlamDunk

How about the jerkiest thing a boss has ever done?

Like, cancel my long planned vacation at the last minute with a lie so I can cover for a co-worker while they both went to SC to play golf for a couple days? The guy was so unethical, he was bound to run out of rope.

Eventually, he did something so egregious, criminal even, that, on my word and with indisputable evidence, the company fired him. I learned more about management from that **** of a boss than I ever learned from my best bosses.

DanHolohan

Bad bosses are often inspirational. They lead you to better places. Thanks.