Tales from the Cube-Farm: The Collections Curse pt.2

By belle💕beckford on May 1, 2014 • ( 4 Comments )

As the world turns, our Collections Department remains in a crisis.

So far, we’ve lost 3 people in 6 months.

The Hot Latina was now in charge and we had to re-establish the team. After some seriously slim pickings, we settled on three persons: Anna, Fraggle, and Marathon Dave.

Anna was an interesting character. She was a few years older than me with young adult children. She appeared to want to work, but never really made attempts to do so after she got the job.

She was a constant complainer. First it was Microsoft Outlook that wasn’t working properly and she complained that all her emails kept disappearing. She moaned that all her “sent mail” was not available. She complained that she couldn’t access the files on the network or the collections application that she and others worked with. The IT department rep would dutifully come over and check her settings and show her where all her sent mail was, where the files were, and where the application was.

Then two or three days later, this would happen all over again.

She had the same training as everyone else in that department, but she took exception to hers.

“No one is showing me anything!” was her constant refrain.

And for a new employee, she was always taking time off. In three weeks, she had doctors appointments for herself, her mother, her grandson, her grown children.

All kidding aside, I can comfortably say that she was unfit for this job. She wasn’t attempting to collect on delinquent accounts, and that was her primary job function. After having several discussions with her about the standard of her work, no improvement was forthcoming.

Seems like she caught wind that the ax was about to fall because, just a few days short of one month into her contract, she didn’t bother to come in. She called HR and said she was stressed out and her doctor said she had panic attacks and she couldn’t come to work. She was going on disability.

Yes, readers, that’s what I said. She was going to stay home and collect disability insurance for her panic attacks.

Now, I, myself, suffer from panic attacks ever so often. It can be very terrifying and if it comes on when I’m asleep, it’s almost like I’m drowning. But I was completely unaware that I could file a disability claim for this. Why didn’t someone tell me??

So, she promptly stopped coming to work. She didn’t call her supervisor (The Hot Latina), instead she only communicated with Human Resources. All we could do was contact the agency that sent her and advise them of the situation.

I will spare you the legalese that followed. Suffice it to say, she was away from the office for another 4 weeks with no pay. During that time, she filed her insurance claim and the state promptly denied it. Imagine that. I guess I can’t file that claim after all.

She returned to work after this hiatus like nothing had changed. Like somehow, her absence wiped away her prior incompetence.

Two weeks after her return, she was given her walking papers. End of another short and bitter relationship.

So, that’s 4 gone in 7 months. I dunno. Maybe it’s our hiring practices? Are we not screening properly? Maybe people keep lying on their resumes about their work experience and can’t hack it? Or maybe we’re really just cursed!

Stay tuned!

 

Categories: humor, life, Office Labrish, The Cube Farm, Workplace

Tagged as: co-workers, collectors, cube farm, cursed, fires, hires, hiring, office, office politics, panic attacks, terminations, workers, workplace