His Prospects Don’t Seem High

While we had a bit of slow time in the office, I made an off-hand comment that ended up giving my coworker a near-spit-take before he started laughing his butt off. He then relayed this story I apparently missed out on when it happened.

[Coworker] and I started working here about a month apart. A couple of months later, when we were already in the swing of it, [New Guy] started. He was… unique. He was quick to pick up certain things, but other things he seemed to almost consciously refuse to learn. He was very polite and jovial, but he also had a light-switch-grade temper when he got upset. He self-medicated with a CBD vape, both for the above and for general anxiety; he literally couldn’t seem to go for forty-five minutes without stepping out to take a couple of puffs. The work he DID do was generally top-notch; it was just getting him to do all his work that was the issue.

One part of our job at the time was being backup for the receptionist; if for any reason an incoming call rang more than three times, it auto-forwarded to our group. We also rarely got direct calls in; it was usually people calling in to answer an email we asked them to respond to so we had the answer in writing.

One day, [New Guy]’s phone started ringing. He didn’t answer right away because he thought it was the auto-forward. [Coworker] pointed out that it was just [New Guy]’s phone. [New Guy] stopped, leaned in, and looked over his phone.

New Guy: “I don’t recognize that number.”

And he just… went back to whatever he was doing.

My coworker said he had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from bursting out laughing at how absolutely ludicrous it was, while the manager laid into him about the need to answer the work phone.

[New Guy] didn’t last long, eventually being terminated for getting into a shouting match with Human Resources when he came in with a 101-degree fever and a heavy cough, but “wasn’t infectious”.

The kicker? The whole story was brought up because my cell phone went off with a number listed as “possible spam,” and I said something like, “Don’t know, don’t care.” Then, I was terribly confused when my coworker started laughing like it was the funniest thing I’d ever said in my life!