Unfiltered Story #105424

(During my senior years in school I worked at a gas station in my village on weekends. We are a small community, so if there was an opening, our bosses would interview applicants and would decide without work trials or anything. This meant no one saw the applicants in action until after they were hired when they started training. One day we got a new coworker, a woman in her late 20s that would work fulltime. She had just moved here recently, but i’ve met her befor: On our annual rose-monday-party she befriended my mom and her friends and partied with them. I remember her as a very outgoing, over the top cheery and loud person, in a negative way. But as that party was full of alcohol and the same description would have matched many women there at 2 AM after a few too many cocktails, i thought nothing of it.

However, it turned out that her behaviour that night was not due to being drunk, but a perfect representation of her normal behaviour. All of us work the majority of our shift alone without a coworker or boss present, but we soon started getting complaints about her from customers. She acted unprofesssional, was rude to regular costumers and when she messed up, she left us to figure it out and pick up the pieces without even an apology.
For example: Back then there was a famous commercial for an online clothing store, where women would freak out and start shrieking when the postman deliveres a package from the store. Our gas station had a small postal service desk. One day a elderly male customer brought a package from the online store in to send it back. When our coworker saw the store box, she started jumping up and down, shrieking. The customer left and later told our boss that he would never come to us for gas or postal service again due to her unprofessional behaviour. As we are one of many gas and postal stations in a sparsely populated area, this was not something we took lightly.

Another time i was working the late shift after she had the morning shift. We only counted the register once at the end of the day, and this day it was over 30 Euros short. It was an odd number that was missing, which rules out that one of us gave out an extra bill on accident. After some searching i discovered the reason: We had paper gift certificates that our register treats as cash. When customers use a certificate for less than it is worth, we noted the amount they used the certificate for and the amount left on it in a field that is between the line that stated the value of the certificate and the line that stated the date of issue and name of the worker that issued it. As you always had to check both lines befor accepting a certificate, there is no way to not see if a certificate has been used befor. In the register that day, there was a gift certificate that used to be worth 50 Euros, but several previous purchases brought its value down to 13 Euros. Not only was the certificate expired, the reciept of that transaction showed she accepted the certificate for the whole 50 Euro.

Several other things happened and we all got fed up with her behaviour. Then one weekend i was scheduled to work sunday, i got a call on saturday at 11 AM.)

Boss: [My name], could you work the late shift today?

Me: Sure, no problem. Normal late shift, starting at 2?

Boss: Well, would you mind to start at 12? I will come and relieve you an hour early tonight, but i cannot come in at noon and [coworker 2] is not feeling well, so she asked to leave early to go to the doctor.

(I lived close to the station and had no plans for the day, so i took the shift and relieved [coworker 2] at noon. Checking the schedule, i saw that [coworker] was supposed to work the shift i took over. Curious what caused the last-minute rescheduling, i asked my boss what happened when the relieved my from my shift.)

Boss: Well, as you know, [Coworker 2] asked to leave early. I called [coworker] to ask if she could come in early. She told me not only would she not come in early, she would not come at all, neither today nor for any other shift she is scheduled for! Apparently she found another job she will start on monday!

Me: What? Did she tell anyone she was quitting? What about giving two-weeks-notice?

Boss: She did not! She did not even tell us she was not comming in today! Thank god i called her this morning, or we would not have known until after her shift started and [coworker 2] would have had to stay longer until i had found a replacement!

(While none of us were sad to see her go, we were all shocked by her ignorant and insolent behaviour. She has not changed a single bit since, both professionally and in private.

She went on to jump from job to job, alienating everyone in the village with her behaviour. Eventually she convinced her husband to sign over his family home to her, then threw him out and filed for divorce two weeks later, letting her boyfriend move into the house the day after.
After the experience with her, our Bosses implemented work trials with both them and one of the other workers befor they would hire anyone. We all rather worked extra shifts for weeks than risk hiring anyone we were not convinced would do a good job.)