Is This a True Story - FINAL UPDATE (I hope)

She did show up to work on Monday.

Her story? This time she was in the hospital. According to the story, she was admitted on Thursday night and wasn't released until Sunday night. She didn't say what she was in for...which is surprising considering the amount of drama, suspense, and detail infused into her other tales.

And I would've liked to have taken the route that Ms. Pink Slip suggested and simply get rid of this problem once and for all. But the HR department wouldn't let me.

Instead, I issued a "final warning." One more No Call No Show (ever) and she's out. Anymore unexcused absences otherwise - for any reason in the next 30 days - may result in termination. Ability to request time off is limited. Arrangements to make up time missed must be made for any time off.

I'll keep you posted.

Is This A True Story - PART 2

So to provide an update from the previous post...

In good faith, I opted to simply give a warning for the wave of absences that had occurred. Naturally, the employee ensured me that she would be at work, as scheduled, going forward.

Now, just last week...

- Car accident - She got into a major car accident on Monday night, causing her to miss work Tuesday for a variety of appointments.

- Eviction - She has been evicted from her dwelling. She said that the reason for the eviction is because her boyfriend is black (the employee is white)...and supposedly, her landlord came out and stated this over the phone. Interestingly, the employee claims that she recorded the phone call, so she is looking into the possibility of pressing charges against the landlord. Who records their phone calls at home??? Predictably, this caused her to miss work Thursday afternoon so she could get her shit together.

- No call, no show - She didn't show up to work on Friday and didn't bother to call. Am I to assume that she got arrested again?

Action plan...
1. If she comes to work on Monday, I'll give her a FINAL warning. Any future occurrence (regardless of circumstances) will lead to termination.
2. If she doesn't show up on Monday, she's canned.

And so the plot thickens.

Is This A True Story?

I have an employee who was just hired a few months ago. One thing I distinctly remember from her interview is how she went on and on about how reliable she is (in terms of attendance). She went as far as to say that calling in sick at her last job was not an option...she always had to be there no matter what. And therefore, she was there every day.

Last week, she didn't show up to work and didn't call in. When she got a hold of me the next day, this was her story...

She was arrested. She was pulled over on her way to work for no apparent reason. At one point, the officer asked her to get out of the car. Apparently, she didn't do so fast enough, because he pulled her out by her hair and slammed her on to the cop car. She says she has bruises all over her body from this.

She claims she got hauled off to jail (and had to spend the night there) for drug possession...despite the fact that no drugs were found when the cop searched her car.

The next day in court, the judge ruled in her favor. She also added that, "the judge looked right at the cop who was involved, pointed at him, and said 'you're a retard.'"

Right.

Now she's consulting an attorney to determine whether she should sue the cop for his actions.

Fact? Fiction?

To give a bit more background, below is a list of the other reasons she has called in:

• Flu
• Daughter in hospital
• Abnormal pap results
  
• Anxiety attack
• Miscarriage
  
• Car accident

Dramatic life? Maybe. Good story teller? Perhaps. I'm honestly not sure.

Jumping the Gun Here!

So our company recently decided to roll out a new product line. It popped up very spur of the moment and its deadlines have been tight. About a dozen of us on the management team have been working our asses off to make this a reality.

Here's the short-term timeline we were working with:
5/11 - Product goes live
5/5 - Marketing efforts for the product begin
5/4 - I introduce my team to the product - training all day
5/3 - Summary meeting to confirm all details & finalize all arrangements
4/26 - Meeting to discuss final details that need to be completed over the next week & delegate who will tend to each of these details

Over the course of the past week that we've been working toward this, many questions and inconsistencies have been brought up. It was agreed that 5/3 would be the day to really pound this all out. As a result, some portions have been put on hold until this meeting.

What's happened in reality:
5/4 Morning - Beta version of the product will be released to consumers (note: my team, an integral part of it's success, will not yet be trained due to a lack of resources to enable moving training to an earlier time)
5/3 Afternoon - Summary meeting to confirm all details...details that should have been confirmed before rolling out marketing efforts
5/2 Around 5:00 - Marketing efforts for beta version of new product begin
5/2 Around 4:40 - Management team freaks out because there are necessary elements that are not complete. Any consumer who decides to purchase right away will run into problems.
5/2 Around 4:30 - Email is sent to management team announcing that marketing efforts for beta version of new product will begin in half an hour. On a side note, majority of management team had no idea that there was a beta version...let alone that said beta would be released before all details were finalized in next day's meeting.

There are two guys on the management team who are responsible for leading the implementation of this product line. Now surely, they had to have known for longer than 30 minutes that they were going to release a beta version. Perhaps if the remaining ten of us would have been enlightened as well, we could ensure that the product is fully functional for those impulse buyers who decide to make a purchase right away.

Arg.