She Faked Her Brother’s Death for PTO [The Bad Hire Ep. 20]

00:00:00 The conversation started with her screaming that a ghost was in the house and the house was haunted. Because I caught my man cheating, so I burned his house down. We paid her based on her word, but now know that her brother did not die and she was lying from day one. Oh, my gosh. 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. I'm your host, Ken Monroe, and every week we dive into real-life stories from the wild world of work

00:00:41 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 employees. So welcome back, guys. I'm happy to have you. This is Morgan and Emma. Hi, guys. Hi. Yeah. So we good to get back? Yep. It's been a while. We took a little bit of break for the holidays. For sure. Yeah. I don't know that it'll be a break when the release schedule, but we didn't. Yeah. We haven't shot since before Christmas, so I don't know. It's fun. We shot last week. Not last week, but week before last.

00:01:22 We did? With Nathan, yeah. Oh, I don't remember. I believe it. I was just telling you guys. I know. I believe it. I watched clips. I watched some clips, and I'd be like, oh, my God. I don't remember that. I don't remember doing that. I don't remember saying that. Yeah. It's pretty funny. Oh, my gosh. So you know the drill. Every week we dive into the wildest and weirdest, some jaw-dropping stories for real. You guys shocked me at what you scrumed up. But what's really kind of cool right now is that we're starting to get a lot of submissions and a lot of guest requests. And so we're getting submissions online. Our email outreach to people that we think would be great on the show is starting to do results.

00:02:08 I think we have how many guests in the pipeline right now that we're interviewing? We have 65 active guests in the pipeline right now. Wow. So a lot of interest. Yeah. 65 guests. 65 people lined up to try to come on the show. And so what we're doing now is we're shooting some segments with them instead of coming and trying to coordinate everyone scheduled to get here on the couch. You know, one of the producers, you or Nathan, you guys or Nathan, reach out to them and do a one-on-one segment with them and just get to know them. Yeah. And then let them tell their stories. And it sounds like it's working pretty well. And it's pretty cool. I think we played one now I remember. Yes.

00:02:49 Because we played the clip from the recruiter from Zoom. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was a nutso. And so those are starting to line up and stack up. And so we encourage you to keep going. You know, if you've got a story, you want to be on the show, you can be interviewed in a segment. One of our producers will reach out to you. Or you can submit a story online. You know, we've got a young man, Corey, who will reach out to you if you respond. He's going to reach out to you, try to set up a time to just quickly talk to you, help you understand what it's about. And then he'll book you into a time for the segment. And so that's what he does. Now, you could win $10,000 if you give us the best story of the year.

00:03:31 Yeah. Right? So you submit the best story. Whether you tell it on video, you write it. And we tell it. Either way, you win $10,000. We're excited about that. Yeah. Why not give it a shot? Yeah, for sure. All right. So let's get started. You guys ready? Yeah. All right. So now, where did this story come from? Which one? The first one? The Ghosting Candidate. I'm not sure. I don't think it was submitted to us. I don't know. I'd have to go pull it up. Because normally, if it's been submitted, I'll make a note. Okay. Because this sounds like a... I'm going to read the story, but it sounds like someone's trying to be a mystery writer.

00:04:13 Or it really spooks me out. So either way, I don't know that it's about a terrible employee, but it's about kind of a weird experience. And so when I read it, I was like, okay, not 100% here. But... It could have also been an anonymous submitted story. So I'll look for it while you tell it. It doesn't really matter. But you'll... Have you read it? Mm-mm. Okay. Well, you can... I have to react. Yes. So you react to it afterwards. So I scheduled a call with a candidate for a software engineer role whose name was Cy. There was no photo on LinkedIn. So I was unsure of gender or anything else.

00:04:54 So I called at the time scheduled and a woman answered. Okay. That makes sense. The conversation started with her screaming that a ghost was in the house and the house was haunted. In her house? Yeah. So... Okay. I called someone for an interview. Someone answers. They're screaming about a ghost. She was very scared and even wanted me to give her advice on what to do. And she didn't want me to hang up the phone as she was afraid to be alone. I don't think they even know this is the candidate who this is. She told me that she didn't want to go outside because the ghost was going to hunt for her.

00:05:35 As happens in American horror stories, she says. It sounds like the show we watch. Supernatural. Oh, yeah. That does sound very supernatural. So is this a spoof off a show? Yeah, right? After several minutes of listening to her scream and trying to calm her, I finally ended up thinking I would just add this to my Rolodex of creepy recruiting stories, which is kind of funny in and of itself. I know recruiters have probably stacks of these weird recruiting stories. On the following day, I received an email from the same candidate saying that they didn't receive any call at the scheduled time. I told them that I did call and a woman answered and even checked with them that the phone number

00:06:15 was correct. And it was. We scheduled again. And when I called, a man answered. That was the real candidate. And said that the phone never rang the previous day. We had our conversation normally and moved him forward in the process, although he was finally not selected. But to this moment, I never found out who I talked to that day. That's really creepy. And he said that there wasn't anybody else in the house with him? Yeah, he just said the phone never rang. That's creepy. That's really creepy. Maybe she called the wrong number. Maybe. Someone just like. Yeah, maybe so. But still, to call the wrong number and that's who answers and that's what she said. Yeah. That's still really creepy. I got, you know, the number of times when you're just doing these kind of random interviews

00:06:57 and like you're just calling a complete stranger, it is an absolute crapshoot on who's going to be the other random. Yeah. You're looking at a resume. Yeah. They're writing beautiful things about themselves. You get them on the phone. They're like, you know, who is this person? Have you ever seen some of those clips of, of, uh, on TikTok or something where the guys, um, he like does these, like he'll get on an interview. Oh yeah. And he just messes with recruiters. And I feel so bad for them that he wastes their time. Yeah. I always say if it happened to me, I would hope that I would like, like just be a good sport about it. Yeah. Just like play along, you know, you got a busy day and you're, you know, and you're driving

00:07:39 hard and you, and you waste some time, but he, you know, like he'll be at a drive through eating and she was like, you're at a drive through. Uh, no, I'm not. Oh my gosh. He just. Wait, does he schedule these interviews? Yeah. He schedules these interviews that he puts himself in some odd place and then swears he's not there. And he's like, she's like, you're eating. He's like, I'm not, you know, right. He just rage baited me on you. Totally. Right. And I got to credit many of them. What gets me is for how, here's what tells you the life of recruiter is very challenging and they see a lot of stuff. Yeah. When you watch the front of that, right. The first 30 seconds, him acting a fool.

00:08:21 Yeah. They stay professional in most cases. They stay professional and just try to keep it moving. And you're like, it's clearly a troll, but you know, the recruiter staying locked in and it's only after like, it's gone to the extreme that the recruiter is like, okay, you know, dude, you're like, what they must see to stay locked in that long. Like you watch it on TikTok, you're like total troll right off the bat. You're laughing within the first 10 seconds and they're staying locked in. I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. I wouldn't either. There's no way. No. I don't know. Anyway, kudos to, kudos to those. Just whatever I see that just shows me how much they probably put up.

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00:09:49 The magician of this story was what we called the magician. One spun up. Okay. This has got to be a submitted story because someone's trying to be a... I don't think this is. I don't... Where did it come from? I think this is a Reddit one. Okay. So someone wrote this. Something that we pushed from last time that we didn't get to film. Okay. So someone wrote this and sometimes they try to be creative with their writing. Either way, I love them all so we'll try it anyway. Once upon a full moon, we had to reject a candidate after an on-site interview. The process went forward with a little fanfare or drama, but the real twist was later revealed.

00:10:32 The candidate was moonlighting as a magician. Oh. Okay. Okay. It's worth noting that this was not the reason for the rejection. Okay. You're a magician? Oh, I'm sorry. We don't take magicians. Yeah. What is... What is... Does it say what position he was applying for? Do what? Does it say what position he was applying for? Sorry, this is a job. It doesn't. It doesn't. It's just a chili. It says... It was worth noting that that's not the reason. We didn't... Okay. You know, but who doesn't love a little magic from time to time? A little while later, a new candidate appeared in our recruiting pipeline. This candidate had some striking similarities to the old magician friend. Tiptoeing forward cautiously, we asked if there was any relation to or if they knew this magician candidate.

00:11:20 What came next made our jaws hit the floor and solidified its place in our collection of weird recruiting stories. The candidate proceeded to tell us that the magician candidate was none other than his identical twin brother. Obviously, we're hesitant to believe this. I mean, what are the odds of having identical twin brothers following the same career path and applying for the same position? Yeah. To back up his claim, the candidate then whipped out his phone to show us doctored photos and fake social media profiles. It's probably set up there the day before. Yeah. Our recruiters were too sharp to be fooled. The magician then showed us his real despairing trick, ghosting us after that encounter.

00:12:01 This reminds me of impractical jokers when they try and have as many disguises as they can to check in for an interview. I should see how long it will take them to realize it's a different person. Like, it's the same person. See the recruiter? Yes. Oh, God. It's like they're checking in for an interview. It's like an interview. And they have the check-in person at the desk. Right. And they walk in wearing a certain disguise. Right. And then they come around and walk back through again in a different disguise and see if the check-in person notices. It's an exact same person. It's never happened to me, but it surely happened. Like, surely this happens where people just kind of reinvent themselves and try to reapply. Yeah. I mean, didn't do good in the interview, but I learned. I'll just try again. For sure. It was crazy.

00:12:43 All right. Morgan, I think you're up. Yeah. All right. My first story is titled The Felon with a Heart. So, it's not a horror story, but a heartbreak story. I was at a job fair years ago hiring for logistics employees when this young man comes up to me and asks me if we hire felons. I told him that it depended on whether the felon would be considered work-related or not, or the felony. For example, felony DUI would not hinder him from working for us since he was not a truck driver. He proceeded to tell me that he just finished a five-year sentence for distribution of drugs and his girlfriend was pregnant when he went in. He got out and only wants to focus on taking care of his daughter. It was his main focus in life, and that broke my heart.

00:13:25 We couldn't hire him, but I sure wish we had made that exception. That was a submitted story, right? That one was. I don't think that one was. Really? Okay. Yeah. So, someone posted that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But this has actually got a cool story. I mean, there's kind of a cool vibe in here to this. Yeah. And that it's been five years. Tell me he just finished a five-year sentence, so he's just out for distribution of drugs. And she's wanting to see if she can help. Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting in here is it does outline how some companies think, right? Yeah.

00:14:06 And how they're supposed to think. And that is, is it job-related? Mm-hmm. You know, some would say that, you know, many are job-related. There's lots of reasons how it could be job-related, but is it job-related in a, you know, since they're not driving. Yeah. You know, they could have a DUI. Yeah. But when you go distribution of drugs, typically an organization or a company is going to want some more time to burn off. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. Um, before they see them. Um, you hope they would do like an individualized assessment or personal, you know, and instead of just rejecting them totally, would give them a chance to tell their story.

00:14:48 You know, who knows? Yeah. When he was in prison, he could have gone back to school. He could have gotten his GED. Yeah. He could have taken all types of classes, you know, and really worked hard during his five years to, you know, that you could take into account. Um, but I don't know. Yeah. I wouldn't even consider that a bad hire. I feel like it's just a, like, in the process hire kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So. Hopefully he'll be a super great hire. Yeah. In the future. Yeah. For sure. All right. Uh, my next one is titled, It's All Up in Flames Now. We were in final rounds with a woman for an in-house designer role. She was a very promising candidate. We get back the offer on the table and she says, um, the final step is just a background check.

00:15:30 There's dead silence on the phone and finally the woman says, well, I have to go ahead and admit that I won't pass a criminal background check. We ask her why and she says, because I caught my man cheating so I burned his house down. Um, at least she's honest. Um, good for her, but. Yeah. Man. So, I feel like you could take that multiple ways. I mean, I don't know if she got the job or not. I don't know. I mean. Imagine the end of the episode. Oh, my gosh. I mean, what do you say? Straight up. Back. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm glad she told the truth, though. I mean. Yeah. At least she's honest. For a designer role, too.

00:16:10 So, like, she's, like, a creative, like, following. Because what if she didn't say anything and the background check comes back and they're like, so, um, why do you have, like, an arson charge? Hoping it slips through. Literally. Maybe attempted murder. No, I. She did the right thing. Yeah. She did the right thing. Yeah. She talked about it up front, said what it was, and gave them an opportunity to ask some questions. Yeah. I thought you were saying she did the right thing. No. We cannot promote arson on this channel. No, Emma. Emma was like, go, girl. Yeah. You do it. Good for her. Yeah. Oh, my God. No. Oh, my gosh. All right, Emma. What do you got?

00:16:51 Me? Okay. I've got two today. Um, both of the, yes, both of my stories were submitted for our contest, but they wanted to stay anonymous. So, gosh, I'm not going to say, like, who submitted it or anything. This first one sounded, sounds like really ominous. Like, there's, it's not super specific. Gotcha. But I'm, I'm going to read it anyway. I still remember how confident I felt the day we made the offer. On paper, this hire was perfect. Impressive resume, strong interview answers, glowing references. They spoke our language, understood our mission, and assured us they'd hit the ground running. After months of searching, it felt like a win.

00:17:33 Spoiler alert, it was not a win. Within the first few weeks, small, famous, like, last words in a good hire, right, or bad are, after months of searching, it felt like a win. Yeah. When we hired this person. Yeah. Within the first few weeks, small red flags began to surface. Deadlines were missed. Communication was vague. Tasks that should have taken hours dragged into days. At first, I blamed onboarding. Then the workload. Then myself. I doubled down on support, offered clear instructions, adjusted timelines, anything to make it work. Instead of improving, things quietly unraveled. Projects stalled because others had to redo their work. Team morale dipped as frustration grew.

00:18:14 Meetings became tense, with more energy spent managing problems than building solutions. What hurt most wasn't just the lost productivity, it was the slow erosion of trust within the team. The biggest lesson came when I realized the issue wasn't skill, it was alignment. This person didn't take ownership. Feedback was met with defensiveness instead of curiosity. Accountability was always redirected, never absorbed. What we thought was confidence turned out to be overconfidence, and what we assumed was experience masked as unwillingness to adapt. By the time we made the difficult decision to part ways, the cost was far greater than their salary. We had lost time, momentum, and a sense of psychological safety within the team. Rebuilding took months. That bad hire changed how I lead forever.

00:18:57 Now I listen more closely to how candidates talk about failure, not just success. I prioritize values and accountability over polish. And I trust early signals instead of explaining them away. It was an expensive lesson, but one that reshaped our hiring process for the better. Wow. I thought it was worded very well. Yeah. I just also, I just felt like it wasn't super specific on like, and I think it was probably because she was trying to maintain that. Yeah. Like, trying to be anonymous. Yeah. And I guess, I guess also she was trying to be relatable, because I'm sure that there's been. Where did this come from? This is a submitted process. It is? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this, you know, who wrote this is not just telling the story, but like trying to help you understand like how you can be better.

00:19:48 Because she's freaking out like, listen, here's, here's, here's what I did. Because that's kind of the point. She lists out things. She'll, you know, she got early warning signs. Yeah. Because that's kind of the point of the show anyways, to learn from. Yeah. The, you know, well. To tell, to learn from, yeah. To learn from the stories that we tell. Because we were just laughing at someone burning down their house. Yeah. But. And like, to keep her like anonymous still. The industry that she works in, because we do know who the individual is. She just doesn't want everybody else to know. Yeah. It's a super important industry. Safety is super important. Yeah. And I think like, whatever happened must have been a big enough deal for her to write this. Yes. When you've got somebody failing and then not taking accountability and then resisting back and getting defensive. You know, it, she's right to point out, it just starts, it just starts deteriorating the entire team.

00:20:33 And, you know, I remember talking about, you know, skills versus behaviors, traits and behaviors. And this is a traits and behaviors mishire. And, you know, skills can, you, you, skills don't necessarily lead the way, or I don't think they lead the way when you hire someone. Because this is certainly someone who probably was high on the skills list. Yeah. And I just failed. And I understand how they probably wanted to like also respect the privacy of the person that they were talking about. Probably. Yeah. The way that the story was worded. Yeah. It sounded super professional. Yeah. You can tell written by a very, with somebody very professional. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And some good learning there. Really.

00:21:13 I loved how she, or he, I don't actually know, said they, they overlooked early warning signs in the interview process. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. What's next? The next one is called the ghost of insurance pass. Oh, wait, another ghost story? It was submitted for our contest. Okay. All right. I love that. But they wanted to stay anonymous. Okay. Crossing my fingers for them. Okay. Okay. I was hiring a benefits manager in Q4 2025. I considered myself lucky to find a great candidate with almost 30 years of experience. She joined on the Thursday, did orientation, and then came back Friday for training. That Sunday night, she called and told me that her brother had passed away and she needed to go to New York for a week.

00:21:55 I worked for a generous company with a great culture. So we went ahead and paid her three days of bereavement, a holiday because it was Thanksgiving week, and a vacation day because she had earned a half day. I checked on her well-being frequently while she was away. The following Monday, she asked to work remote because her flight had arrived late. I agreed and told her to do online training. She showed up Tuesday. On Wednesday, she came in, picked up her check, and said she'd be right back, and she never returned. Oh, my God. Wouldn't answer our calls or texts and had us very worried. We called her emergency contact. They did, like, a police well-being check on her or whatever and still didn't hear anything back. When her next check was due, it was a paper check, and then she called us raging that her check hadn't been direct deposited.

00:22:38 She called the Department of Labor, cussed us all out, called incessantly, et cetera. We paid her based on her word, but now know that her brother did not die, and she was lying from day one. Oh, my gosh. It's like that one guy that lied and said that his mom died. Oh, yeah. And then his mom, like, called. It was like, hey, is he okay? There was another. Or there was also one where she was like, oh, my husband died. Her husband got sad the whole time. Yeah, and then her husband called the office and asked for her. It's crazy. Yeah, deaths in the family happen a lot around the holidays, to extend out the holidays. Really?

00:23:19 Go. It's crazy. I just think it's an insane thing to lie about. How many family members do have them to lie about, though? It was that company, though. They pay bereavement. Yeah. They give her a half a day PTO right off the bat. What happens if your papaw actually dies, though? Yeah. You know? For real. What do you do then? Well, I have, you know, I don't know. It's crazy when people do that. And they do it to get time off. It's crazy. I don't know. But what I liked about that story was how good the company was. Yeah. It was like they're sending all these signals that they're a really good company. They're super generous.

00:23:59 First, their first thing was, after she doesn't show, they isn't to think bad. It's like be worried about her. Yeah. They must have been all. They were generous. And they just took advantage of it. They were like, yeah, this isn't their person. You know? They didn't think negative. They thought, oh, no, something must be wrong. Send, call the police and do a welfare check. I mean, she was a benefits manager, too. Yeah. So they were. Then they give her the time. Yeah. You know? Wow. And then, well, she turned around on them. And I'm sure that was a complete and utter shock because it sounds like a great culture. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So is that it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those were good. Yeah.

00:24:40 How are we looking on our submitted stories? We got a lot. Good. I think next time we film, they're all going to be submissions. Is that right? It's kind of fun. It's been fun to watch this kind of. Yeah. I mean, we're like 19 times into this. Yeah. It's been a little bit of a labor of love just to keep going when no one's paying attention. Yeah. And then, but then people start paying attention, you know, and you start seeing, you know, submitted stories, people reaching out saying, hey, I'd like to tell a story, be on the show. Yeah. You know, all that stacking up. I, you know, it would be, hopefully we'll soon be in a place where we can play clips of people telling their stories. Oh, we have lots in the queue right now.

00:25:21 Yeah. And then also, um, and still read a few where people who don't, who just want to submit stories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good and fun. Cause you know, we, we were, you guys were doing a lot of internet research trying to find stories and there's, you know, everyone's got a story. It's very time consuming. I can't tell you the number of times people have said to me, I was talking to a CEO the other day, um, of another background screening company and he goes, yeah, everybody's got a story. I was like, oh yeah, you're right. You know, everybody who's been hiring has got a story. Yeah. And that we, and he loved the idea of what we were doing and he goes, I've got one. I want, you know, and so I think he's going to do a segment. Oh yeah. And it doesn't matter what industry you're in too.

00:26:02 Everybody has some sort of story. Like, yeah, it's all across the board where you can have a bad hire. So. Yeah. So I've loved, I love the traction we're getting. Um, and you know, the views we're getting, not necessarily on the, uh, podcast itself. Yeah. It's not like a podcast you call and listen to for like, you know, two, two, three hours a day. Like news source. But we're, we're, we're using that to turn all these stories into clips and you know, they're really getting a lot of traction online. So I love the idea of people enjoying the clips of the show. Yeah. That's kind of fun. Yeah. All right. So, uh, that's it, uh, for today. So thanks, uh, for listening to the bad hire and, um, please, uh, subscribe, rate view,

00:26:45 you know, review us, uh, share it, you know, and don't forget your story could win $10,000. So submit them. If you get an email from us, respond to it. Say, Hey, I'd love to be on the show. Think of one of those. Everybody's got a story stories and, uh, get on. You'll talk to, uh, Morgan, Emma, or Nathan, um, and they'll interview you and just do a segment for the show and you'll see it spin on here and we'll react to it. Um, it could be super cool for you, or you can just submit when you don't want to do that. You want to be anonymous, but you want to submit a story like the one today, just submit it at the end of the, uh, at the end of the season, um, we'll pay, uh, $10,000 to the winner of the best story of the, of the year. So we're excited about doing that.

00:27:26 And, but I'm just really excited about the number of submissions we're starting to get. So thank you guys. You can submit it at thebadhired.com. Yep. True. So appreciate it. Y'all did good. Yeah. Yeah. Good stories.