Skipping work for 15 years - what's your story?
Discussion
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56822571
A hospital employee in Italy has been accused of skipping work on full pay for 15 years, local media report.
I always like a good story about someone managing to not attend work for a long time. What's yours?
For me:
A hospital employee in Italy has been accused of skipping work on full pay for 15 years, local media report.
I always like a good story about someone managing to not attend work for a long time. What's yours?
For me:
- One of my previous employers had someone skip work for a number of years. They still didn't know until the guy contacted them to check his pension contributions.
- About 10 years ago, I transferred to a new role in my company. My new manager at the time was US based, and said "Hey devnull, welcome to the team. So i'm going on a round the world trip for the next month or so, so you know what to do. Get networking, go visit customers etc etc." And he f
ked off for 2 months. All of my team mates were global, we didn't have a regular meeting, we just fell under this manager. I literally could have done nothing for the next few weeks, and it was evident thereafter that there wasn't any follow up on it.
- I once did some work for a rather large telecoms provider, on one of their larger sites. Got given an office for the week which was underground, and was told 'youre sharing the office with Bob. Bob went underground 5 years ago and never returned. He still has a desk upstairs. He could die down here and noone would ever know'. Which was nice. Was also told later on in the week by said employees that they would take it in turn to see how long they could get away with not doing any work, it was basically a game for them.
I went on holiday for three weeks without telling anyone at work. Nobody knew, and nobody noticed.
As an aside; when I left the company I (falsely) accused the HR Director of constructive dismissal, purely to test thier exit management process.
She signed off my leaving statement in full, without even discussing it with me.
As an aside; when I left the company I (falsely) accused the HR Director of constructive dismissal, purely to test thier exit management process.
She signed off my leaving statement in full, without even discussing it with me.
I used to work for the nations favorite telecoms company who had a 6 months full pay sick leave policy
Unsurprisingly there were many who would perform an Oscar at their doctors, get a ticket and not be seen for a while
I believe this practice is popular with civil servants and council employees too
Unsurprisingly there were many who would perform an Oscar at their doctors, get a ticket and not be seen for a while
I believe this practice is popular with civil servants and council employees too
Also, the obligatory "forgotten employee" story, which is an entertaining read https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/
Had a guy who worked for me at a major NHS trust who wouldn't do anything because they knew they were too expensive to be got rid of and HR were scared to do anything (I was a contractor so no power to do it myself).
I returned on a different contract 10 years later and he was still there.
Also knew a contractor working two different contracts simultaneously. He just used to leave a jacket over his chair at both offices and pop into each on different days. Went on for about a year.
I returned on a different contract 10 years later and he was still there.
Also knew a contractor working two different contracts simultaneously. He just used to leave a jacket over his chair at both offices and pop into each on different days. Went on for about a year.
When I worked for an electricity company I was told the story of a group of workers at a power station somewhere on the south coast that was being decommissioned. They were invited to a meeting with their managers who told them the plan to transfer them to the new power station not far away- they pointed out, rightly as it turned out, that their contracts stipulated that they had to work at their current site only and they couldn't be dismissed. In the end the company installed a portacabin on the derelict site and the workers spent every day watching tv and playing card games until they retired.
After that the contract of employment issued to new recruits was carefully rewritten.
After that the contract of employment issued to new recruits was carefully rewritten.
bristolracer said:
I used to work for the nations favorite telecoms company who had a 6 months full pay sick leave policy
Unsurprisingly there were many who would perform an Oscar at their doctors, get a ticket and not be seen for a while
I believe this practice is popular with civil servants and council employees too
I work for an energy supplier who have just changed their sick policy from 6 months full/ 6 half pay to 3 months full 9 months 67%. It works out same over the year but I suspect it’s to reduce the instances of 6 month sicknesses.Unsurprisingly there were many who would perform an Oscar at their doctors, get a ticket and not be seen for a while
I believe this practice is popular with civil servants and council employees too
As for disappearing from work, I couldn’t. I probably have 3 things that at any time can track my GPS co ordinates. (Van, tablet, and lone worker alarm)
I was working on a project for a customer and one of their employees on the team managed to spend a year telling two different project managers (whose projects were on different sites) that had was busy working on the other one's project full time rather than splitting his team between the two projects.
He'd come into our office about once a month for a day to check on emails/post/etc and presumably did the same on the other project, and then did Lord Knows What on the other days...
When caught he claimed a mental breakdown and was sent for treatment rather than sacked, so hopefully some good came of it for him.
He'd come into our office about once a month for a day to check on emails/post/etc and presumably did the same on the other project, and then did Lord Knows What on the other days...
When caught he claimed a mental breakdown and was sent for treatment rather than sacked, so hopefully some good came of it for him.
Not quite in the same vein, but “Bob” remains one of my work heroes. He’s the software developer that outsourced his work to China for years; regularly got “best developer in the building” in quarterly reviews; and is thought to have been doing the same thing for several companies simultaneously.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/16...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/16...
A couple.
A fencing company i worked for had a salesman based in Liverpool, you could never get hold on, and only ever rang in, never responded to emails. Found out one day he been moonlighting as a Special constable, when he was supposed to be working,
Worked at a UK digger company, the factory manager was accused of fiddling the production numbers, basically booking out jobs that hadn't been done yet, it was a common thing really, at the end of the month as the manager got big bonuses based on production numbers, but he fell out of favour so they pinned it all on him.
As soon as he got wind, a fellow manager said go on the sick, so he did. Last time i checked, 2 years later he was still on the sick on full pay.
A fencing company i worked for had a salesman based in Liverpool, you could never get hold on, and only ever rang in, never responded to emails. Found out one day he been moonlighting as a Special constable, when he was supposed to be working,
Worked at a UK digger company, the factory manager was accused of fiddling the production numbers, basically booking out jobs that hadn't been done yet, it was a common thing really, at the end of the month as the manager got big bonuses based on production numbers, but he fell out of favour so they pinned it all on him.
As soon as he got wind, a fellow manager said go on the sick, so he did. Last time i checked, 2 years later he was still on the sick on full pay.
Years ago worked in a contract design company on shift basis (one week earlies, one week lates, and repeat).
Noticed while on the late shift that my immediate supervisor regularly disappeared early on a Friday without a word of explanation. Eventually found out he was knocking off someone else's wife. When he knew that I knew it was amazing how early I could bugger off home to the pub on a Friday evening with no complaint...
Noticed while on the late shift that my immediate supervisor regularly disappeared early on a Friday without a word of explanation. Eventually found out he was knocking off someone else's wife. When he knew that I knew it was amazing how early I could bugger off home to the pub on a Friday evening with no complaint...
A place I temped had 1 room in a warehouse, with 8 or so people. A manager who'd come in once a fortnight for the day. It was real basic work, grab a folder from the pile, do a few things and file it.
They expected 17 in 8 hours, in reality you could probably do 60-80, and we had to man the phones. I joined at the end, was only there for a few weeks, so I could only do 20 at a push as I was getting up to speed. But, the guys who'd been there for some time would come in, do their days work, leave the office, come back and clock out. Some went for 6 hours. Obviously if the manager was in, everyone was in all day and took their time. There was an unofficial rota for who was leaving for the day, and if anyone called in they were covered for.
we also done flexi time, so it was real easy for them to cover for each other, then just let them know when they weren't in, officially.
They expected 17 in 8 hours, in reality you could probably do 60-80, and we had to man the phones. I joined at the end, was only there for a few weeks, so I could only do 20 at a push as I was getting up to speed. But, the guys who'd been there for some time would come in, do their days work, leave the office, come back and clock out. Some went for 6 hours. Obviously if the manager was in, everyone was in all day and took their time. There was an unofficial rota for who was leaving for the day, and if anyone called in they were covered for.
we also done flexi time, so it was real easy for them to cover for each other, then just let them know when they weren't in, officially.
complete opposite but i love this story and wished it were true...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fake-parking-att...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fake-parking-att...
My first ever IT contract, I started on the same day as "Steve". I turned up in trousers and a shirt, "Steve" turned up in a 3 piece suit, expensive shoes, opened his briefcase, got out his leather folder and got out some business cards. I immediately thought "fk, I am well out of my depth here".
From what I understood, "Steve's" daily rate was double mine. Initially we were both tasked with fixing issues in their in house insurance/document management system. Within the issue log it was clear who had worked on what issue, after a few weeks I could see that "Steve" had looked at about 5 issues in the three weeks we had been there.
The contract was for three months and after six weeks I was told that I was going to be renewed and "Steve" wasn't. I kept this to myself and was surprised to see that "Steve" got renewed as well. In fact he got renewed multiple times and in the end was there for nearly 18 months until the outsourced the whole department.
I would calculate "Steve" got paid around £200K over those 18 months to effectively do nothing.
k, I am well out of my depth here".From what I understood, "Steve's" daily rate was double mine. Initially we were both tasked with fixing issues in their in house insurance/document management system. Within the issue log it was clear who had worked on what issue, after a few weeks I could see that "Steve" had looked at about 5 issues in the three weeks we had been there.
The contract was for three months and after six weeks I was told that I was going to be renewed and "Steve" wasn't. I kept this to myself and was surprised to see that "Steve" got renewed as well. In fact he got renewed multiple times and in the end was there for nearly 18 months until the outsourced the whole department.
I would calculate "Steve" got paid around £200K over those 18 months to effectively do nothing.
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