We’ve All Had Jobs We’d Like To Forget, But…

I work in internal IT for a retail company. One day, I get a call from a user; he says he’s a new employee, but none of his accounts work. I do some digging, and I think I’ve found the problem.

Me: “Hmm… You said you’re a brand-new employee, right?”

User: “Yes. I started two days ago.”

Me: “Are you sure? I see an account with your name from about a year and a half ago. It looks like it was only active for about a day. Did you have to decline a job?”

User: “No, I’ve never worked here. That’s so weird that someone has the same name as me!”

Me: “Well, if this is a different person, it looks like someone thinks that both accounts are you, and they’re trying to merge the accounts. When you’re a rehire, they try to give you the same account information so that it’s easier for things like customer communication and emails. I’m going to send a ticket to our Human Resources team and have them take a look at it. The team will respond through the ticket, so I also added your manager to the ticket so they’ll get emails and be able to see any questions.”

I put the ticket together, note what I find, and end the call.

This first call happened mid-morning on Friday. The following Monday morning, I get another call from the same user.

User: “Yeah, I talked to someone last week, and they said that my issue would be fixed the next day, but no one ever called me.”

Not only do I remember the call, but I would never say anything would be fixed the next day.

Me: “You were actually talking to me about that. Let me check your ticket really quick.”

User: “Oh…”

I pull up the ticket and see that it was assigned to one of our HR techs. There aren’t any notes, but that’s not completely uncommon.

Me: “This ticket is still within the team’s SLA, but I added a note to the ticket asking for any updates.”

User: “Okay, so what am I supposed to do? That other account isn’t me.”

Me: “Right now, you’ll need to wait. Based on what I saw last week, the accounts were already in the process of reactivating the previous number, and as it’s an automated process, they likely have to wait for everything to finish before they can go back and undo it.”

User: “Okay…”

[User] sighs heavily and ends the call.

I end up posting in the HR team’s public channel on our internal chat system, just to try and go the extra mile.

Me: “Hi! Can someone please take a look at [ticket] for [User]? [User] is a new hire, but it looks like we had someone with the same name working for us at one point, and now the system is trying to merge his account and thinks he’s a rehire.”

A few minutes later, I get a response.

HR: “Hi, [My Name]! So, we already spoke with [User] and his manager about this. He is a rehire; we confirmed this with [personal information]. He accepted a position but then had to decline, so he only worked for a day. I’ll reach back out to him and explain again.”

Me: “Oh, thanks!”

I face-palmed when I read that. I’m not sure why he wouldn’t admit to having applied, let alone started, even if it was for a day. I mean, we get it; life happens. But the fact that he also apparently forgot that HR had already told him that it was his account is kind of scary.