He Got ARRESTED Before His First Day… Then Still Asked for the Job [The Bad Hire Ep. 29]

00:00:00 He spent his entire first week of employment in jail. After eight hours on the job, he understood our business better than the people who'd been running it for years. Hey, minor logistics issue. I've been arrested. See you next week. He's literally hiding under his desk, vaping at it. That does not surprise me. He was fired before lunch on his first day. Oh my gosh. Pretty much how all these stories end. This is The Bad Hire, the show with the best stories about the worst employees. We fired him, of course. People are crazy. It's like an HR nightmare. Right. One bad hire stole all of it. Crazy stuff. She got what she deserved. Oh.

00:00:41 I'm your host, Ken Monroe, and every week we dive into real-life stories from the wild world of work and what can happen when the wrong person gets the job. These stories aren't just crazy. They're cautionary tales about lessons learned the hard way. Let's get started. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to The Bad Hire, the show with the best stories about the worst and most unfortunate employees. I'm back with Morgan and Emma. What's up, guys? Hey, guys. How are you doing? Hi. Good. Emma's not doing good, apparently. I'm fine. I'm fine. Okay. All right.

00:01:22 You think we're filming on a Monday, but it's Thursday. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like we're filming on a Monday. It does. It does. It does for me. It's the first time I've been in this week. Yeah. I was going to say, by the time, I don't know when this episode will get released, but this is about to be a good Friday, so everybody's ready to go. Oh, yeah. Weekend, you know? Yeah. Oh, everybody. Yeah. This is the last day of the week. Yeah. For us. Yeah. We take the day off on Friday. Yeah. Very exciting. Very nice. Well, you guys know the drill. Every week, we dive into the wildest, the weirdest, and some of the most jaw-dropping hiring fails from offices, job sites, organizations all over the country. And don't forget, we're running the $10,000 contest, so send us the best story of the year.

00:02:05 At the end of the year, we're going to pick one and give someone $10,000. So, we encourage you to go to thebadhire.com and find out how to submit a story to us, or even get on the show, do a segment like you see every once in a while, or pretty regularly now, I think, see a segment where someone tells a story when they're talking to one of our producers, shooting one of the segments. But, yeah, that's good. Yeah, for sure. I'm excited. Yeah. All right, well. Let's get into it. I'll start it off. All right, so here we go. So, I bring in a new hire.

00:02:48 First day, clean slate, fresh start. He walks in, looks around, takes it all in, and then almost immediately starts telling everyone, me included, everything we're doing is wrong. One of those people. One of those who, you remember the guy who nails himself as the smartest person. Yeah. I don't like these types of people. Sorry. And I don't mean a little constructive feedback or casual, hey, I noticed something you might want to look at. He walked in and treated his first day like he was a turnaround consultant, conducting a hostile takeover. Systems were broken.

00:03:29 Processes were inefficient. Leadership had no idea what they were doing. He'd apparently seen better operations at a lemonade stand. Oh. So, I listened politely for as long as I could, then walked him back to HR. Oh my gosh. And let him go. First day. Wow, bro. I am sure. This guy was stunned. He was like, I just gave you some of the greatest advice your company's ever going to hear. You know. There's no telling where your company would be if I hadn't come in here and told you everything you were doing wrong. We didn't fire him. I fired him, but on the first day, not for incompetence, not for anything dishonest, just

00:04:13 the completely unshakable belief that after eight hours on the job, he understood our business better than the people who'd been running it for years. Oh gosh. The infamous fired on the first day. She wrote, day one is orientation. Yeah. Not a TED Talk. No, that's so true. That's when you're just like trying to be as polite as possible and like be like, oh, like tell me about it. Like I want to learn. Yeah. You're always so nice to people on their first day. Yeah. So, I imagine people were just like, hmm. I'm like, okay, this is interesting. Yeah. So, the executives, the owner, the CEO, you think they're really like the dumbest people

00:04:56 ever to run a company? Yes, they are. I just need to be the CEO and it'll be okay. Yeah. Let's just promote me day one. I think I know how to run it. I'm looking to get promoted like yesterday. Yeah. Before we dive back into the chaos on the bad hire, this episode is brought to you by B-Checks. Hiring shouldn't feel like rolling the dice. Background checks should come with great tech, seamless integration, and customer service that delivers. That's B-Checks. Lightning fast results, unmatched accuracy, built in fraud prevention. We help you hire the right people.

00:05:37 Now, B-Checks plugs into over 100 HRIS and ATS systems. So, your background checks run smooth, fast, and backed by top-level service. Protect your team. Protect your reputation. Protect your sanity. Go to bchecks.io. That's B-C-H-E-X dot I-O. Looks like we have a story to react to, though, if Marcus wants to queue it up for us. It's called Moe is a Good Hire. So, Veruca. Which actually is weird because of my nickname. So, I was like, this is about me. Oh, yes, it is. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Moe is a Good Hire. But it's Tom again. We love Tom. What, Tom? I was working with Seton Hall University, and I was coming in to work with their top team.

00:06:21 And I drove on campus, and there was a security guard. He was at the front desk. His name was Moe. And as soon as I rolled down my window, and he said, who are you? I said, oh, I'm Tom, the guest speaker. His face lit up. I was like, ah, Tom, I heard you were coming today. Hey, he's like, listen, before you leave campus, make sure you go to Sally's Donuts. But make sure you ask her for this specific type of donut because it's not on the menu, but she makes it, and it's amazing. And oh, by the way, they probably told you to park in parking lot A. No, no, no. Don't park there. Park here. In fact, let me take you there. So, he goes. I'm like, Moe, this is amazing. Thank you so much. I go into the session. It's all the provosts, the deans, the VPs. And I start and I just casually say that.

00:07:03 I'm like, hey, by the way, who's Moe? The whole room lit up with excitement. And everyone had their Moe story. And that's another thing I tell people is that title does not equal level of engagement. Because Moe probably does more value for the – oh, actually, no, here. The VP of admissions for that university, she said they do a survey every year of the people coming in. Like, why did you join? And there's a write-in option. And she said you wouldn't believe the number of people who write in that Moe is the reason they joined. Oh, that's great. That's awesome. I love that story. That was a good hire. We all need a Moe. Yeah, that was a good hire.

00:07:44 That was a good story. Oh, yeah. That's a great story. Yeah, I love that. Oh, I feel bad having to go read a bad story after that one. I'm like, we can just wrap up there for the day. That's great. Thank you, Moe. Let's end on a really positive note. Again, Tom's a great guest. We really appreciate Tom. Yeah. He gave us a couple great stories. Yeah. But today I have one story, and it's, so I'm a hiring manager, and I've got a new hire starting on a Monday. Everything is ready. The desk was set up. IT access provisioned. Team debriefed. We're good to go. Monday morning comes, and he's a no-call, no-show. Then a few minutes before he's supposed to walk in, I get a text. He needs to push his start date back a week.

00:08:25 Very sorry. Can't explain right now. I was baffled. Annoyed, honestly. But fine. One week. We'll manage. I wasn't until much later that I found out what actually happened. On that Monday morning, he had been pulled over for a routine traffic violation, and during that stop, police discovered an outstanding warrant. He spent his entire first week of employment in jail. He hadn't told me because, I mean, what do you even say? Hey, minor logistics issue. I've been arrested. See you next week. And he did eventually start, and I found out the real reason way later down the line. But looking back, I didn't know how to feel about it. And part of me almost respects the audacity.

00:09:06 A background check run before his start date would have flagged the warrant. We have waived it to move faster. I actually have another story after this. I just realized. Did she say what? We had waived it? It says a background check before his start date would have flagged the warrant. We have waived it to move faster. Yeah, because they're trying to hire him quicker. So they waived the background check. That's also why you need good background checks that come back in 24 hours, so you don't have to waive a process like that. That's right. That's why we use B checks. That's true. Or maybe some, oh, I don't know, some continuous. Can you imagine having Chex 365 monitoring? Day one. And you add him. Like, when you hire him, you add him to the system.

00:09:48 Yeah. And then before his first, on his first day, you get an alert. That's insane. You're just like. I'd be like, really? Ready? Got a hit. Imagine logging into your Chex 365, and you're like, okay, automatically. Yeah, first day of the job, you get an arrest alert. That's insane. Oh, my gosh. All right. So my second story is, well, I've got a new hire coming in on their first day. They sit down in the lobby to fill out their new employee paperwork. Totally normal, routine stuff. My front desk is nearby, just doing their thing. Then right there in the lobby, in full view security camera that was not hidden in any way, this person reaches over and takes the front desk employee's wallet. And their keys.

00:10:29 Then just goes right back to filling out their paperwork like nothing happened. I guess a steel car. But it's like, okay. Then the whole thing was on camera. Crystal clear, timestamp, and everything. They were fired before the ink dried on their W2. What? What? I've just totally lost on this story. Literally. So someone's there. They're filling out their paperwork. Yeah, for their W2. And they reach across the desk and take. They steal their wallet and their keys to their employee. I guess the person at the desk was like paying attention to them signing out the form. And while he's like filling it out, he just. I guess they're just doing their own thing.

00:11:10 Discreetly. What they were saying. I don't know. Yeah, I was like. Yeah, that's what I was kind of wondering is like, how did they get his wallet? And maybe the guy got up and walked away or something. And when he walks away, he's like. Here's the end of it. Yeah, that too. When we reviewed the footage, the theft itself was pretty straightforward. But the one question nobody could answer was what exactly what they were planning to do with the keys. And we never found out. Yeah, that's. What kind of keys? Were they car keys? Were they house keys? It sounds like car keys. Let me move it back. It says. And their keys. So I'm assuming maybe car keys. I mean, I don't know. But like, what do you do? Just like wait till after you're done. That is some seriously. I'm going to steal our car. Interesting.

00:11:50 That is some serious klepto behavior. Like. Like you cannot control yourself. What is the movie? It's like now you see me. Now you don't. It's like the magician who like. He thought he was doing that. Real. No good. He thought he was super. He thought his sleight of hand was serious. I don't know if that's actually a movie title. I know I'm going to get a hate comment for that. I got a hate. No, that's true. I got it. Okay, good. Because I got a hate comment for not understanding the difference between Fortnite, V-Bucks, and Clash of Clans. Whatever. I'm sorry. I apologize, guys. I don't know the difference. I work full time. Maybe you should as well. But anyways, I'm just responding back to my hate comments while I'm on the show now.

00:12:32 I remember that comment. I remember that comment. I was so impressed about that on him. I'm like. You know what? Let's just address all the hate comments for us. Well, the hate comments was like. The hate. The comment was about how. They're not the same. The difference between. V-Bucks, P-entry skins, and then Clash of Clans actually being able to see the game. Yeah. The difference between money on both games when that was not the point of the conversation. Literally not only. We are really focused on the wrong thing here. Right. Sorry. Trying to relate it to some of your generation. Okay. Trying to make the audience more relevant. But apparently it was wrong. So. You guys take a nut. Trolling. Let's just do a five minute episode responding to all hate comments. We should read all of my replies that I make to people on these accounts because they're

00:13:17 really funny. They are. They are really funny. Just a hair bit of sarcasm in them. Yeah. Just a little bit. I feel like most of them are on YouTube too. YouTube shorts. You would think it'd be like Instagram reels, but apparently it's YouTube shorts. That's where you get most. And then. And TikTok a little bit. Yeah. All right, Emma. What you got? Okay. I've got two stories. Yeah. Okay. Here's my first one. So I'm working in sale in a sales call center about 10 years ago and we get a new hire starting on a Monday morning. He gets trained on the basics, which takes about an hour, gets assigned to desk and gets to work. About 30 minutes later, someone notices what looks like little puffs of steam rising up

00:13:59 from behind his monitor. Turns out he was just vaping at his desk. Okay. Okay. The boss pulls him aside and explains that he can't vape indoors, but if he needs to, he's welcome to step outside on his break. Pretty reasonable. Okay. 30 minutes later, same thing. That's a pretty chill boss because... Yeah. I guess like, you know, like three strikes you're out, I guess. Yeah. I don't know. But 30 minutes later, same thing. Little clouds drifting up from behind the monitor. He gets told again, this time in no uncertain terms, if he wants to keep his job, he needs to stop vaping at his desk. Bro is so addicted. He can't even go an hour without having to step outside. I know. Well, that is one of the things about vaping because it doesn't do this crazy odor that

00:14:42 a cigarette does. Yeah. They think they can just slip it in. Yeah. You know, anywhere. Except just smell like fruit cereal or something. Yeah. They think they're doing everybody a favor. Yeah. I'm making the place smell good. Yeah. Sure. An hour after that, someone notices he's gone quiet. They look over and he's literally hiding under his desk, vaping at it. That does not surprise me. That's horrible. He was fired before lunch on his first day. Oh my gosh. Pretty much how all these stories end. And the kicker is like, he literally could have just gone outside. Literally, they gave him the option to go outside. Yes, he was given the option to go outside. Serious, bad habits. That's actually sad. I know. It was really sad. You know, I don't begrudge people who vape.

00:15:26 No. This is somebody who's got, who's let the habit kind of like. Take over. Become completely compulsive. Yeah. And now you got, you know, if you can't wait two hours so you can step outside for 10 minutes and vape it up. Yeah, I know. Or just don't hide under your desk. That's a little. Yeah. That. But that. What did you think was going to happen? That actually didn't surprise me because I've seen so many people like. Call from Lord of the Rings type crap. Can't wait for one second. Oh yeah. Play it off like that. For uh oh. It's coming out your neck. You know. It's like. You didn't get away with it. Yeah. Oh man. Some people. I mean, he was just letting it free flow straight out the back of his computer.

00:16:08 So I don't think he even knew the methods of trying to conceal it. I don't know. I think if you were in a call center and you looked around and you didn't see vape smoke everywhere, you'd be like, probably can't vape in here. Yeah. That's true. You would think. You would think. You shouldn't have to put up a big sign that says no vaping. Oh gosh. Yeah. You'd be surprised how many people can't follow basic instruction. Yeah. Yeah. For real. But um. Okay. Here's my. Here's my last story for today. I'm a hiring manager and I've got this candidate who looks great on paper. Solid resume. Interviews went well. You know. A lot of them start off this way. Yeah. It's true. They do. I was just thinking of that. But I had this nagging gut feeling that something was just a little off.

00:16:48 Mm. I couldn't put my finger on it so I pushed through and made the offer anyway. We ran a background check. The initial screener signed off and we were good to go. But something made me want to take a second look at it. Education verification. Hmm. I bring him into HR and we tell him that the university listed on his resume has absolutely no record of him. And I don't mean they couldn't locate the file or there was some administrative mix up. I mean no record. He had never attended. Never enrolled. Never even set foot on the campus before. He had listed a degree from a school he had never been to in his life. And the part I still think about is when we confronted him with this, he didn't get defensive. He didn't try to explain it away. He just calmly asked if there was any flexibility on this point.

00:17:30 Oh my gosh. He's like, you got it. And there was not. Here's the deal, right? He immediately went to like the education. Like, does it matter that I didn't go to school there? Yeah. Not the fact that he just... Lied. ...bold-faced lie. It's the character issue that is the issue, bro. Yeah. We... You didn't have to have a degree from there. Yeah. We would have hires you. Yeah. Yeah. But the character issue makes it a... It's a lot. It makes it a... It's a lot. It makes it a... It makes it a... It makes it a no-go. Yeah. I wonder if they were perfect on paper, though, because of their education or it was if the education had been removed, if they would still have been perfect on paper. Yeah. Because... I wonder what made them want to take a second look at the animation.

00:18:11 There are so many stories about executives, like high-profile executives, getting blown out of their job because they said, Yeah, they said that, well, I got an MBA from here. I got the special degree from there. And, you know, at some point they get where there's public attention on them. And then some reporter starts to do some background on them and goes, yeah, there's no record of you at Harvard. Yeah. He's like, oh. Well, Harvard is a pretty big lie. Like that is like an Ivy League or one of the big schools. I feel like that's insane to lie about when you're listening. I feel like if it's like some, like, you know, like community college or I feel like that's like not as bad, but like Ivy League.

00:18:59 Yeah. I mean, they're both bad, but in trying to. Trying to claim you went to. Trying to claim you went to. Yeah. Yeah. You went to an Ivy League school. Certainly is. And it happens. Yeah. And you just like, you know, and, and, um, you know, people show up now with certificates, you know, with, with graduation certificates that are completely bogus. I remember we call it one, one time because one of our, one of our adjudicators was looking at it and it didn't feel right. You know, she was like, is something's not right here. And so she looked up the name of the president. Oh, wasn't the right school president. It was who signed it, you know, the school president.

00:19:41 Yeah. Or chancellor, whoever they are. And it was the current one. Oh, but they probably went to school. And it was like 20 years ago. My God. And they just, when they did it, they just grabbed the chancellor's day. At least do your background research. If you're going to lie. Like, at least. You Photoshop this thing really nicely. You could have done the, you could have done the homework. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. I don't know. Yeah. So he was let go. I, I get, I totally get what. There was no flexibility. Yeah. There was. Like, apparently. He at least tried. He was, yeah. I don't know. The thought was there. Yeah. The thought was there. You know, you go on Reddit and you find these just threads.

00:20:23 He probably saw that form. People are just going, just lie, lie, lie on your resume. Yeah. Like, what? Yeah. He probably saw that form and was like, oh yeah, I'm going to do that. Oh yeah, yeah. I need a, I need a better education than I got. It doesn't work out guys. I'm sorry. Oh my gosh. Well, that's it for today. So, um, Hey, thanks for listening and, uh, to the bad hire and, uh, please subscribe, like, share, uh, uh, do all you can to promote the show and, uh, for us. Yeah. That's what happens. Thank you. If you do that, we love the interactions and we love the comments. Even when you're trolling us. Yes, we do. It's fun. I do get a good kick out of them. Yeah. They are funny. I had a good laugh about it because whatever, but don't, and don't forget, don't forget

00:21:04 your story could, uh, could win 10,000 bucks. Yeah. So submit your bad hire story, uh, now at the bad hire.com and your story could be featured right here on the show. Uh, perhaps a segment, um, like Tom's we saw and, uh, that would be great. Uh, be a lot of fun. So we encourage you to do that. Awesome. Thanks guys. That's it for today. Bye. Bye. Thank you.