Confidence Is Good. This Is Asinine.

My promotion still hadn’t gone through, and the last guy in my new position hadn’t officially left it yet, despite already working his new role. He couldn’t stop meddling with my new job, including agreeing to transfers into my team without telling me. 

I found out that [New Team Member] was transferring in, and while I was furious, he had gone behind my back and it was already official. There was nothing I could do until she had at least a few months to “prove herself”.

[New Team Member] appeared one morning with a big box of her stuff and began unpacking. It wasn’t long before the team started to chat with her and asked her why she had taken the transfer. 

New Team Member: “My last manager was a d**k, useless, and didn’t know what he was doing. He constantly picked on me. So, I had to move.”

Team Member: “Wow, I would have never realised he was that bad.”

Me: “Yes, that’s surprising.”

I had met him several times and his team all seemed really happy.

New Team Member: “His loss. I think he will struggle; I did most of his work for him, too!”

Team Member: “Wow, impressive. Welcome to the team.”

Me: “Yes, welcome! Great to have you with us. Someone said you worked in the warehouse, too?”

New Team Member: “Oh, yes. Completely sorted that place out. Shame I had to transfer from there. But the manager there was a perv and an idiot.”

This same pattern carried on; every manager she had was useless, and in every department, she apparently sorted out all their issues for them. Alarm bells were ringing; it didn’t seem true at all.

Me: “Okay, [New Team Member], can I show you what you will be doing with us?”

New Team Member: “I think I should wait for [Old Boss].”

Me: “He is away with a customer today and most of tomorrow. I can show you.”

New Team Member: “Well, he is my boss.”

Me: “For the time being, yes, but I can teach you.”

New Team Member: “I’m going to wait.”

Me: “So, what are you going to do for two days?”

New Team Member: *Shrugs* “I dunno. Not my problem.”

Any attempt to show her anything was useless; any intrusion or rationale was useless. When I did manage to get the old boss to try to instruct her, she moaned and complained, making snarky comments about how he should be more organised and how she didn’t want to be trained by us.

Eventually, I took over the role officially. Still, [New Team Member] complained and got things wrong but would complain that it must be us doing it wrong. She tried to change everything and said that “she knew what she was doing; she had done this in other departments.

I transferred her out and put all her “fixes” back to how they should have been. Good luck to the next guy.