Professional Darwinism: Update to OP on p.74

[JustCallMePat]

Some people seem inclined to commit professional suicide!  Our project team is located in one building, and we sometimes need to travel to another location about a mile away to work on other IT systems located there.  (Because of the nature of our work I have to be just a wee bit vague here... so please understand.)  Anyhow, today Bob says he's headed to the other building to do some work.  From my workstation I can sometimes see who's online, but today didn't see him.  A few of my co-workers are active on Facebook and check frequently for updates during the day.  They've also all befriended each other there.  One co-worker IM'd me to come to his office where he had his Facebook open, and there is an update from Bob saying something about FedEx having just dropped some new XBox game and him spending the day trying it out... and it was posted an hour earlier!  Busted!!!  

What boggles my mind is that our line of work is very hard to get in to, and working for the customer we do is even harder.  It took me two years of enduring investigations to be accepted for work here.  To risk it by doing this and then announcing it on Facebook seems like tempting fate a bit too much!  

[DCGirl]

At one of DH's previous jobs, an employee walked a laser printer out to the parking lot and put it in the trunk of his car in the parking lot that was in full view of the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows of the office suite.  So, his action was witnessed (and narrated) by 15 or 20 people.  "Is Fred putting one of our printers in his car?  Is there a printer missing?  Oh, yes, over there by Joe's office..."  Then, when confronted, he lied.

[Queenie]

When will people learn?  I truly don't get how people can be so dumb, it's not like FB and work being iffy is a new concept it's been talked about for years now. 

[rose red]

Yowsa.  You sound like you work in some scary high security big-brother-is-watching kind of place.  How can silver and gold medalist be so dumb?

[Miss Misha]

Thankfully I didn't have a mouthful of tea when I read this thread or I'd need a new laptop.  The honorable mention one is priceless!

[Nurvingiel]

My Dad watched some professional Darwinism over his career. He and his coworkers had great careers and received salaries that were not stingy. But yet, some people would risk getting fired to file fraudulent expense reports... for $20. And some people were warned the first time, tried again, then got fired! Why!?

I feel like sometimes people feel like they are entitled to that money, and will flagrantly break rules to get what they feel they deserve. But I just don't get it.

[KimberlyRose]

My Dad watched some professional Darwinism over his career. He and his coworkers had great careers and received salaries that were not stingy. But yet, some people would risk getting fired to file fraudulent expense reports... for $20. And some people were warned the first time, tried again, then got fired! Why!?

I feel like sometimes people feel like they are entitled to that money, and will flagrantly break rules to get what they feel they deserve. But I just don't get it.

Guess that's what happens when you're not hampered by those pesky morals and ethics.

[LeeLee88]

My Dad watched some professional Darwinism over his career. He and his coworkers had great careers and received salaries that were not stingy. But yet, some people would risk getting fired to file fraudulent expense reports... for $20. And some people were warned the first time, tried again, then got fired! Why!?

I feel like sometimes people feel like they are entitled to that money, and will flagrantly break rules to get what they feel they deserve. But I just don't get it.

I've seen the same exact sort of junk too, it's just idiotic. 

All the medalists are incredible, this is a very juicy thread!

[Balletmom]

Here's my silver medalist:

Coworker manages to hit "reply all" when responding to her colleague who forwarded a message from another colleague who happens to be her child's teacher. Coworker talks about the original sender in a negative way, and it's obvious that she didn't mean for the original sender to see this. When given the graceful way out, "Perhaps you didn't mean for me to see this" she says, "Oh, no, I meant for you to see it, we are okay, right?"

So, having hit "reply all" onced and got herself in hot water, the coworker then does it again.

She complains about the principal's right hand man to another staff member. She then manages to hit reply all--again--and sends it straight to the principal.

Hitting reply all once, a mistake. Doing it twice like this? Professional Darwinism is a nice way to put it!

[Sirius]

Back where I used to work our squadron superintendent was court-martialed and lost a stripe when convicted of statutory rape - and as soon as he was convicted his wife filed for divorce.  He already had a bad reputation for sexual harassment even before this happened; my boss told me she told a new sergeant in charge of our section (female) to never allow any of the young female airmen to be summoned to his office without her going along.  Boss also wouldn't allow him to be in our office alone with any of the young female airmen.  She told me that she wasn't worried about the civilians; we civilians were all over 35 and none of us had any compunctions about flattening the guy if he tried to get friendly with us.  What was also interesting was that Mr. Sirius worked for a completely different squadron, and even he had heard that Sergeant Stripeless had a bad reputation for sexual harassment.

[Hanna]

I'm giggling here.  If anything you are saying actually occurred, then yes, you are doing professional darwinism properly.

[AnnaT]

A very long time ago when I worked as a secretary to a divisional manager in a bank - one young man telephoned in sick to the boss who was very understanding and sympathetic until, when he asked if he had caught the flu (which was going around the office) the young man replied "nah - I just had too much to drink last night".   

It was a very quick trip in to the office and then a very long chat with the divisional manager!

[Miss Unleaded]

Wow.    Some of these posts are shockers!

I'd like to report about the database guy who used to have regularly mid-afternoon 'telephone conferences' in one of the meeting rooms at the back of the building.  One day someone went in to give him a telephone message and found him asleep in the comfy chair.  I can't really say it was a case of Professional Darwinism though, as he never got fired.

[ShadowLady]

I've also seen articles online in some newspapers about people who would post their activities on Facebook when they called in sick, and been fired for it.  You would think such things would get around and people would know NOT to be so public with their "cheating the system".   

[USC1972]

I work in a large ER, so lots of patient and family contact.  Clothing choices are pretty reasonable: scrubs, uniform from an EMS or transport service, or business attire. 

This *very petite* woman showed up wearing an extra-large hoodie sweatshirt with a mens dress shirt over it, the hood hanging out the back of the dress shirt, what looked like her husbands large dress slacks, rubber, athletic flip flops, a baseball cap, and sunglasses. 

As if that didn't make her look silly enough, she also had a row of about 5 brightly colored, cartoon character band-aids on one cheek.

When we asked her to take off the ball cap, she told us she couldn't because her hair was pulled through the back to keep it out of her face.  We offered her a rubber band, but she said she wanted to keep her hat.  The sunglasses, we were told she couldn't take off, because she had bags under her eyes.  As for the band-aids, she told us her cat had scratched her face and showed us a very minor, very thin scratch.  When we suggested some thinner, flesh colored band-aids, she whined that Spongebob was her favorite and she didn't want to take them off.

We told her that if she couldn't modify her attire, she would have to go home, thinking that of course, no one would take that option on their very first day.  Nope, she told us this was good, because she had somethings to get done that day.  Needless to say, she was then told to go home and not bother coming back.

The weird thing is that this woman had experience in a related field.  I can't imagine how she didn't see that she looked like a clown, and didn't know that you certainly can't wear flip flops, the ball cap or the sunglasses in a setting like this?

We thought maybe she really didn't want the job, but she called later in the week, to ask when she would be put on the schedule.