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Friday, November 21, 2008

How To Put Your Job In Jeopardy

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One of our new engineers, a rather arrogant guy fresh out of college, got invited to play at a charity golf tournament in Florida along with his boss, his boss's boss and some very important clients. He was definitely excited about this chance to kiss up with the big boys and score those all important brownie points. But before he got a chance to play, he turned a sweet opportunity into sour grapes.

Instead of waiting to put his golf clubs on the plane with his other luggage, he shipped his golf set to his sister in Florida so that she would bring it to him when he arrived. You're probably thinking it was a smart move. I would certainly trust a shipping company with my clubs more than I would the airlines. But the stupid thing was that he sent them at the company's expense -- $300 round trip. Compare this to the extra baggage fee of $60 that the company paid for two golf bags of his boss and his boss's boss.

Between the time our young engineer mailed his golf equipment and the day of the charity event, the company sent him to Michigan on business. While he was up there, his boss gave him a call and told him not to bother flying on to Florida. This new employee said he was told that they suddenly decided to cut back on travel expenses and that they didn't need him to play. We're all pretty sure that the new VPs heard what happened and let their displeasure be known.

What surprised me in this entire incident was the reaction of this newly hired, college educated worker once he returned here at work. He angrily told us that he was tired of being told what to do and was looking for another job. What?! Has this guy never had a job before? Even so, he knows very well about the penny-pinching mode that our VPs have us under right now. How he thought he could spend $300 instead of 30 is beyond me. Oh well. Either way, I guess our new recruit is teed off now...

UPDATE: Surprisingly (or not), he was fired two weeks later as part of the new downsizing. I think the nail-in-the-coffin moment was the week previous when he become extremely belligerent with the VP of operation during a meeting. Good luck, Eric. You might want to take a Dale Carnegie course or two ...

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