So Much For Lightening The Load

I work in customer service and was hired when they were doing some reorganization. Because of some lack of communication, some people they had planned to take on for a little longer weren’t planning to stay, and suddenly, I was alone in handling a whole country only weeks after starting out. My boss was also entirely new to the position; he’d worked with the company before but came to this department after I did.

It became stressful and too much. It had been horribly handled, and my boss knew this, as well. Together, we started setting up new routines while he desperately searched for someone who could help out. In this work, we found trust and an understanding for each other.

Then, the day finally came when he hired a new girl. Hallelujah! It was busier for me at the start, handling the work and teaching her at the same time, but slowly, I could start giving her more work to do, and I was careful not to give her too much at once so she could ease her way into the job and learn it properly.

Eventually, [New Hire] talked to my boss, saying she had nothing to do and that I was so stressed, she felt like she should take on more work. We gave her more work to do. Among these new tasks, she got to handle some special orders for a very important customer where certain items needed to be tagged specially in a separate delivery for legal reasons.

Things went wrong, which was fine — everyone can make mistakes — but then my boss called me in. 

Boss: “She says you won’t let her do any work and that she has nothing to do.”

Me: “If I give her more work, I won’t have much to do myself.”

Boss: “Really? She said you seemed stressed.”

Me: “Well, I’m not, but if she has more time, perhaps she should make sure to get those orders right and double-check them.”

Boss: *Happily* “Right, well, good. It seems we’ve gotten that workload off your shoulders, then.”

However, the issues with the orders continued. After a chain of mistakes, the customer was getting angry and extra action was implemented. I was to double-check the orders before [New Hire] saved them, since two pairs of eyes are more likely to notice mistakes.

I did so. I wrote down the mistakes and told her to fix those before saving them. About a week later, my boss came to me when she wasn’t there.

Boss: “Did you check her orders?”

Me: “Yes, why?”

Boss: “It was wrong again. She says she checked it with you and that everything was fine.”

I panic a bit; did I miss something?

Me: “Let me check.”

Looking through the orders, I saw that all the things I had written down for her hadn’t been changed at all.

Boss: “The customer is really angry. I’m putting you on this task again. Can you try to fix it?”

Of course, I did. However, [New Hire] did not take it very well, wondering why she got the blame when I told her it was good. She also started disappearing from time to time, leaving her phone behind so I couldn’t reach her. This started to impose on my lunch breaks, as we couldn’t leave the phones alone and I was back having the same queues as before she started. She could be gone for over an hour without any explanation other than that she went to talk to a friend. I told her she needed to communicate this and she said she was sorry.

It did not stop, though, despite my efforts, so I went to talk to the boss about it and he said he’d talk to her. After that talk, she came up to me in front of others.

New Hire: “I can’t believe you went to talk to the boss about me! I thought we were friends!”

Me: “Well, maybe you shouldn’t disappear from the job.”

New Hire: “You could have talked to me about it!”

Then, she stormed off.

The next time I had a meeting with the boss, I couldn’t leave because [New Hire] wasn’t by the phones, even though I had reminded her several times. Half an hour later, when our meeting was supposed to be finished, my boss came by.

Boss: “[My Name], we have a meeting now.”

Me: “I know, but [New Hire] hasn’t come back.”

My boss looked angry. I had never seen him angry before; he was always happy with a big smile on his face.

Boss: *In a scarily dark voice* “Shut it down. It is on her. We have a meeting.”

When I came back, [New Hire] yelled at me for leaving the post and I told her it was the boss’s orders. The panic on her face as she realised the boss had caught her disappearing made me smile on the inside.

Soon after that, my boss said he had found someone else to hire and that he would let her know [New Hire] would not be staying with the company. The next day, she let us all know she had decided to resign. Most people were sad to see her go, which makes me wonder what I missed.