18. Oh boy, did I ever.

We’ll call him “Roger” for the sake of giving this individual some plausible deniability, should he read this.

Roger was hired into the development team for an in-house group of programmers by the HR department. He passed the screenings, came well-recommended and seemed like he’d be a good fit for an entry-level position. He knew more than most of the other people we’d interviewed (at least, the ones who hadn’t priced themselves out of the job) and seemed friendly enough. I should have known better. When I met him after his final interview, he was wearing a suit that fit like a garbage bag. The dude was a very typical “neckbeard”.

I mean, he had a literal neckbeard. He was at least a hundred pounds overweight and no matter what he was saying to you, he had this tone that made you feel like he was talking down to you.

That was “red flag number one”.

Number two came in training/orientation. While going over the systems, Roger looked like he was going to fall asleep at any given time. He was clearly not paying an ounce of attention…and that’s difficult considering it was just me and him in the room.

He looked like he was pissed off at me for explaining the systems he’d be working with.

We started him out easily enough, writing simply class logic that was already laid out in a spec.

But as soon as we gave him an ounce of creative freedom, he fell apart at the seams. The dude had no idea what to do unless it was spelled out for him. But instead of asking and learning…he just didn’t do anything.

He would spend his days trolling the internet and ignoring repeated reminders. It was about two weeks after he started that we kicked him out of development and sent him to work with the techs at the help desk.

They were none too pleased to have him, either.

They gave him simple assignments. “Roger, there are 40 printers in the building and the boss wants a spreadsheet listing the information for each one.”

How long should such a task take? I mean, he’s going to each one and writing down the model, make and support info. For each printer, we’re talking about 5 minutes of work. With travel time included, you’d expect that all of the data-gathering could be done before lunch. Then, maybe take the afternoon to put it all in a pretty little spreadsheet.

Two weeks after the task was given to him, the boss of the department came around asking where it was. He started giving excuses…meanwhile, a My Little Pony fanfic page is open on his monitor, full view of the boss. It’s not even close to lunch, it’s maybe 20 minutes after he got there.

I’ve heard people get reamed out before, but that time was special.

At that point, the department had more than enough of Roger and everyone agreed to make it their mission to have him fired. He was given simple tasks over the next week, and he failed each one, and was written up each time. At the end of the week, he was escorted out by security.

That was the only time I’ve actually smiled to see someone get fired.

– rugtoad

19. I used to work at a funeral home.

There was a worker there who, whenever she caught a glimpse of a dead body, would nervously snort-laugh.

We found this out the hard way when, the first visitation she worked, she let out an obnoxiously loud chortle with the entire family sitting and crying a few feet away.

The family gave her some dirty looks, and after apologizing profusely the manager just made her work in the back the rest of the shift.

I asked her if anything was wrong and she told me she was terrified of dead people.

Bewildered, I asked her why she took a job at a funeral home in the first place, to which she responded the money was too good not to pass up (we pay $14 an hour). She also thought that she’d only be doing clerical work. Since she was in the back now, I deemed the situation “A-OK” and continued working. Bad move on my part.

During funeral visitations, people often order flowers, which get delivered during the service. We then put the flowers on a pedestal next to the casket for the family to admire.

So this girl gets a flower delivery, and decides to brave the fear and put them next to the casket. Sure enough, she starts snort-laughing like a banshee. The family looks disgusted once again.

Then, to make matters a million times worse, being right next to the casket she caught a super close glimpse of the deceased. This swiftly prompted her to puke directly onto the deceased.

The girl gasped. The family gasped. The employees gasped. There was dead silence for at least 15 seconds.

One family member cried. Then another joined in. And another. It was domino-effect hysteria like I’d never seen before.

The chick was obviously fired on the spot – and she ran out without saying a word.

– Jesters