Part of my job is to take the complaints made by customers and prevent them from reoccurring.  This can be as simple as stopping the packing guys from dumping their breakfast wrappers in the boxes going to the customers or as complex as helping devise a new machining method to improve the accuracy of parts.

A major complaint comes in from the main customer; potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds of stock are affected by an issue that’s almost impossible to detect after it leaves us. We should be catching it, yet they are finding more and more issues. This could be serious.

I quickly find that the root of the issue is the way the guys are checking the parts. It just isn’t good enough and it’s the reason why we kept sending bad parts through. I call the team together.

Me: “Okay, everyone. We have had some major issues reported by the customer. It’s affecting potentially thousands of parts, it’s about the height of this part.”

I can see several of them not listening and rolling their eyes. One is chatting at the back.

Me: “Can we pay attention, please? If this isn’t resolved quickly, we could have a massive issue; if they send all the parts back, it could close us down!”

They begrudgingly start to listen.

Me: “The new way to check these parts is with this new tool and doing it this way.”

I demonstrate.

Worker: “That will take too long! I don’t have time for that!”

Me: “This is the new process. If we don’t do it and we keep sending scrap to our customers, you will have all the time in the world, as we won’t have jobs! Everything is described on this single page, which is laminated and stuck to the machine. I have placed a tool at the machine and with the team lead. Understood?”

They just stare at me in apathy. They don’t care that this is such a huge problem, or they don’t believe me. I decide to check on them in a week’s time.

Me: “How is it working out?”

Worker: “Yeah, okay.”

Me: “This is the old tool. Why are you not following the process?”

Worker: “The new one got lost.”

Me: “So, you didn’t ask or report it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. I found a replacement tool and removed the old one from him. 

I decided to check on him in a few days and found him using the new tool but the old way. After another few days, someone had ripped the instructions down and “lost” the tool again. 

The customer kept finding more and more issues, even on the ones that we said should now be good. The next year, the customer didn’t renew their contract, and the company slowly collapsed as no other new work came in.

I found a new job before it went completely under; some stayed to the end. I later saw a newspaper article about the company closing. The same faces were there saying they were devastated the company closed, blaming the company for not doing more, etc. Some people will find blame anywhere but themselves.

One of my coworkers has survived for years just by being difficult to deal with and not great at his job but not quite bad enough to fire. They left him with little work to do and no real responsibilities. He came close to being fired several times but just found better places to hide — out of sight out of mind.

Coworker #1: “Has anyone seen [Difficult Coworker]?”

Me: “Have you looked out the back?”

Coworker #2: “Or in the toilets?”

Coworker #1: “Yeah, he’s not there.”

Me: “In the plant room?”

Coworker #2: “No, he doesn’t hide there anymore. They said they would get rid of him if he did.”

Me: “Best check his boss, see if he is on holiday.”

Coworker #1: “I’ve just come for him; that’s why I’m looking for him.”

They disappeared. We found out later that [Difficult Coworker] had quit WEEKS ago and not told anyone, not even his boss. He had just left an unclear voicemail with the Human Resources team.

He then applied at the sister company, but the two companies share the same HR team. Needless to say, [Difficult Coworker] didn’t get the job.

I arrive early for my CAT scan and sit in the waiting room. [Tech #1] comes out of the back.

Tech #1: “Is [Man] here? [Man]? [Man]?”

Receptionist: “Who’s [Man]?”

Tech #1: “His wife is back there and too dizzy to walk. I’m looking for her husband.” *Louder* “[MAN]! [MAN]?!”

[Tech #1] disappears for a few minutes and then he’s back.

Tech #1: “[Man]? [MAN]?! [Receptionist], would you page him?”

Receptionist: “What’s his last name?”

Tech #1: “Just page [Man].”

Receptionist: “I can’t do that! There are lots of [Man]s!”

Tech #1: “I don’t know his last name. Just page him!”

[Tech #1] disappears again. [Tech #2] comes out of the back pushing a woman in a wheelchair.

Tech #2: “Someone’s supposed to transport this woman to the lobby.”

Receptionist: “Park her over there until they come.”

[Tech #2] parks the woman and goes into the back.

Tech #1: “[Man]? [Man]?”

Transport Nurse: “Where’s the woman in the wheelchair?”

Receptionist: *Waving vaguely* “Over there.”

Transport Nurse: “I see the wheelchair, but it’s empty.”

Receptionist: “That’s odd.”

The transport nurse leaves.

Receptionist: “[My Name], we’ll get to you in just a few more minutes.”

Me: “That’s just fine. You’ve lost two people in the ten minutes I’ve been here, so I’m really overwhelmed with confidence at the moment.”

Someone else behind the reception desk calls out:

Employee: “Don’t ask me! I’m on lunch!”

Tech #1: “[Man]?”

They did eventually find [Man]. They never found the missing lady. And my CAT scan went on without further incident — whew!

I have to perform two certain tasks in the morning. One is crucial to get the workflow of my department started; the other is a very complicated task for one single client of ours. Since performing both tasks makes it take longer for me to join my department in the workflow, my supervisor wants management to put someone else on task number two. Apparently, this is very hard for them.

In February, I have a talk about it with my supervisor.

Me: “Still no plan, I guess?”

Supervisor: *Almost laughing* “Well, there is a plan, actually, but I doubt it’s going to work. They want [Coworker] to do it.”

[Coworker] mans the warehouse, and over the last months, his enthusiasm for his job has visibly diminished. Still, I have to train him.

Coworker: “Who decided that I have to do this? [Supervisor] probably, eh?”

Me: “Not really, no…”

Coworker: “They want me to do more and more, while I barely have time left for my actual job! Oh, well, what the f*** do I care? I’ll learn it and then drop it and take a job somewhere else!”

He keeps acting like this throughout every morning I train him. He seems like he’s trying to learn the job, indeed, but he keeps claiming that he’ll learn it and then leave.

Me: “You’re really gonna do that?”

Coworker: “H*** yeah! When I say I’m gonna do something, I always mean it!”

His constant moaning and anger suck my motivation to train him out of me. I have some talks with my supervisor about his behaviour. She’s fed up with his bluff and his lack of work ethic, but since he answers to another department, she can’t discipline him for it.

Supervisor: “You know, he would actually have time to perform his main job if he wouldn’t take smoke breaks every two hours. Or if he wouldn’t get out for an hour to buy lunch.”

We have half-hour lunch breaks.

Supervisor: “But I have spoken to [Coworker’s Supervisor] and he also thinks we shouldn’t take his threats of leaving too seriously. It’s a bluff.”

It probably is, I admit. Still, weeks go by while I am training this completely unmotivated guy to perform this quite complicated task. Then, one morning, I come in and hear my supervisor on the phone.

Supervisor: “Yeah, it’s quite clear to me that someone here is being blatantly selfish. Thanks for telling me.” *To me* “That was [Coworker’s Supervisor]. [Coworker] just called in sick. I’m sceptical.”

[Coworker] stayed home for quite some time, claiming burnout. Meanwhile, I kept performing the task myself. By April, someone from a different location was transferred to our office and learned the task from me… only to get a transfer again by June. Finally, after summer, I trained a more motivated coworker for the task. By then, [Coworker] was reintegrating, while showing a complete lack of motivation.

By the end of the year, I had put in my notice, not because of this weird history, but simply because I found a better-paying job with more career opportunities. [Coworker], meanwhile, was still there, doing his job to some extent, while being disliked by virtually everybody now. So much for his claims that he would leave as soon as possible. Being dissatisfied is one thing; digging your own grave because of it is another.

I overhear a fast food worker on their phone when they should be working.

Worker: “Do you have to put in two weeks notice if you’ve only been there for a week? I’m done here, but I want to use them as a reference, so I want to make sure I do it right.”