She Stole $40 Million Without Anyone Noticing [The Bad Hire Ep. 40]

00:00:00 The resume gap between stealing $2.2 million and getting hired to do bookkeeping, again, was zero days. For the next 10 years, she treated it like her own. And I think they're talking about the money. Starting in 2014, she began creating LLCs, fake companies that perform no legitimate business, and writing public funds directly into their accounts. Then she'd move the money again from those accounts into her own. She did this 187 times over a decade. Listen to this, $38.7 million. What? No way. How? The police have been actively monitoring his social media accounts. Oh, no. So then a SWAT team shows up. Are you kidding me?

00:00:40 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 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.

00:01:22 There you go. My favorite line. I'm back today with Morgan and Nathan. What's up, guys? Hey. What's up? How you guys doing? We're back. Good. Yeah. Super. Yeah. And Nathan, tell them why we're here. Oh, that was me this time? All right. That's fine. That's fine. Morgan, you want to tell them why we're here? We're here to tell the worst hiring stories. Yes. That were either sent in to us or found somewhere. You got it. Okay. Tell them about the contest. There's a $10,000 giveaway going on right now for the worst hiring story, so make sure you guys send us your bad hire stories, or you can get on a call and meet with one of our producers and tell us over there. Yeah, so it was the best of the year, so we're coming up on...

00:02:02 Yeah. Almost a year. About 12 weeks, I think. Yeah. Less than... Yeah, 8, 12 weeks. We're on show 40. 67 weeks. Really? A couple weeks? Give or take. Yeah. Yeah. They've studied. And so, yeah, it's good stuff. So, hey, tune in. We've got great stories. If you're in HR, talent acquisition, recruiting, or you just hire people, and you're running a business, and you've got to hire people, own a company, you know what we're talking about. There are just stories that are just kind of jaw-dropping, like it's hard to believe. It's either they've smoked an interview,

00:02:43 you know, just blown it up from the floor to the ceiling, or it's some OG burnout. It just finally loses it, or first they flame out, you know, like shows up and just so many of those great stories. And, you know, what we're trying to do is just, you know, we want to lean into them a little bit. Hiring is hard work. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, for the HR people and the pros who do that for a living and are responsible for that, you know, kudos because it is hard work. And our stories essentially remind everyone that how challenging it is. If, you know, if I'm hanging out at Subway with a bunch of HR pros, talent acquisition, and we're drinking a beer, this is what it always turns to, you know. A podcast.

00:03:24 A podcast. We turn it, it does. It turns you to a podcast. We go live. You start telling stories. And, you know, they really kind of make light of some of the really hard things they have to deal with in terms of just finding great talent. So, I love it. I love the stories. It's been fun. You know, I'm excited about closing on the final chapter in a few handful of shows this year. And I'm looking forward to giving away $10,000. So, go to thebadhire.com. 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.

00:04:06 That's B-Checks. Lightning-fast results. Unmatched accuracy. Built-in fraud prevention. We help you hire the right people. 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. Submit your story. That'll be a win $10,000. Or submitted during this live for an extra chance to win. Yeah. Yeah, we had two submissions. Just in the last show. We had four stories submitted just in the last show while we were on air.

00:04:46 It was great. Yeah. I picked up about 40 followers in the last hour. So, you know, it was super cool. It's fun. So, let me get going, all right? So, in January 2022, New Jersey prosecutors charged a 52-year-old bookkeeper from Howe with stealing, listen to this. Oh, no. $2.2 million. Oh, okay. From her employer over seven years. Over seven years. Yeah. Unauthorized checks written to herself, sometimes made out to cash, sometimes to cover personal expenses. What else would it cover? $2.2 million over seven years. That's crazy. So, maybe I'll buy a gift from my employer every now and then. It's the kind of charge that ends a career in finance.

00:05:27 No, it's the kind of career. It's the kind of charge that ends your career, period. Yeah. No matter what. So, she gets a new job in finance. Oh. Oh, wow. I have this story. I live this story. I know where this story is going. Oh, okay. I live this personally. It wasn't me. Okay, good. Oh, okay. While her $2.2 million case is still pending, she's hired as a bookkeeper. Wow. You'd think they would have caught that. At an excavating company in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, clearly she's going to have legal expense. A lot of pressure for money, I'm sure. Yeah. The new employer has no idea about the charges. How do they even know? No idea about the check scheme. No idea about the $2.2 million. From November 2021 through January 2022, roughly three months overlapping directly with the period her first case is being processed.

00:06:17 She allegedly writes multiple forage checks at the new company as well. This time, investigators piece it all together. It's going to be an additional $67,000. Oh, my gosh. How many? $67,000. The new company goes back. The new company goes back through its financial records after being contacted by investigators, and they find a series of forged checks that nobody had noticed. Combined total across both employers, approximately $3 million. Wow. The resume gap between stealing $2.2 million and getting hired to do bookkeeping, again, was zero days. Wow. She did not hedge. She did not try different industries.

00:06:59 She just got right back on the horse, started up somewhere else, and just kept going. Wow. It was literally something psychological, like a psychopath to be able to do that. I also feel like we see so many stories about bookkeepers to the point where I'm like, I don't even know if I want a bookkeeper. Because you're so out of touch with what's going on, and then you don't want to have to go back over the bookkeeper. Bookkeepers put more companies out of business than you would ever make. That is insane. The local Boy Scouts of America here in North Carolina years ago had someone steal from them. Really? A lady stole $400,000. Ended up being, she stole like a major portion of their annual budget.

00:07:42 That's insane. No way. And, you know, she was a little bit older. She got a young boyfriend who figured out she had access to cash and started asking for gifts. And she ended up buying him all types of gifts. Marcus really lacked that one. Marcus what? Including a Harley Davidson. Wow. And until she ran out of money. Until she got called, he left her. Man, that's crazy. You know? Or all the story is, don't hire bookkeepers. Don't get an order. Don't hire a woman who's younger. Don't be a bookkeeper. I don't think that's true. I'm just joking. Disclaimer. Yeah. That's insane. I guess they just have access to all that money.

00:08:23 Yeah. And I guess sometimes they're almost, I feel like this happens when they're kind of out on an island and it's like, hey, you go over here and do this job. And then they're like, okay, I'll do it. And let me just cut myself a couple of checks along the way. Nobody will notice. Yeah. And that's how it seems like it happens. There's three prongs to fraud. Just like twice I've talked to you about fraud today. Yeah. I used to study. I used to study fraud a bit. So, but there's three, there's three prongs to fraud, but two of them are access and entitlement. Yeah. And, um, and, and the, um, number of fraud, the amount of fraud committed by women over 50 is, is stunning in terms of the percentage stole of fraud.

00:09:03 What's the third prong? I can't remember. Oh. I feel there's like a family guy parody of like how older women get a rush from stealing. And like, it's like, they say it's like a board housewife thing where you start like doing petty theft because it gives you a rush or whatever. Oh jeez, I can't remember. I'm like, I feel like, I feel like the statistic holds up though. Like it is like a very common thing for older women to. Well, I think a lot of times it, it ends up to like a pressure need. Yeah. You know, some type of external fluence of like, I, I, you know, I have to have this or something like that. But yeah. Or even like how she kept doing it because she needed to like pay for her other costs from, for the first time that she did it. So it's like. Yeah.

00:09:43 If she sold $2.2 million, she had to go right back to stealing $67,000. Yeah. It means she, the $2.2 million was gone. Yeah. Yeah. You know, she, she had raised her spending to the level she was living. Check to check. Or her boyfriend raised the spending level. I need more. So, all right. So here we go. Sorry. So Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, Arizona. All right. They elect a new county treasurer. Let's just start now for all. Right. In 2012, her name is Elizabeth Gutfar. She runs unopposed, wins the position, takes office, all that. One detail is worth noting. She had no background in finance or accounting. Okay.

00:10:24 That sounds like. It's a nubbit hire. Sounds like local government. Yeah. It's a nubbit system. None. But she ran. But she ran and nobody ran against her. Yeah. So. That's sus. Here she go. The voters of Santa Cruz County handed her control of the county's money. Wow. No background in finance. Not accounting. Runs unopposed. Why not? I wonder if there's any. For the next 10 years. It's a mafia situation. For the next 10 years. She treated it like her own. And I think they're talking about the money. Starting in 2014, she began creating LLCs. Oh, my. Fake companies that perform no legitimate business and writing public funds directly into their accounts. Then she'd move the money again from those accounts into her own. She did this 187 times over a decade.

00:11:08 Listen to this. $38.7 million. What? No way. How? Good God. How did nobody notice? The money went towards real estate, renovations on her family ranch, expenses for her cattle business. Her kettle business? Cattle. Oh, cattle. Okay. Just get a cord. At least it's vehicles. Dang. That's crazy fraud. Get 20 vehicles. It's like two cars a year for 10 years. To make sure nobody noticed, she falsified the county's treasury reports, reconciliation records, and investment account statements. It's a lot of work. That's a lot of work to cover all that up. A lot of cover up right there. And to get around the two-step approval process required for wire transfers.

00:11:50 She got around that. The safeguard that was supposed to prevent this from happening. She used a login token of a subordinate employee so she could both initiate and approve the transfers herself. Man, she'd all operate. She was the county treasurer. She was supposed to be the safeguard. Wow. When it all came out, she pleaded guilty to embezzlement, money laundering, and tax evasion. She had also never reported any of the stolen money as income. So she took in, what was it, 38? 38.7 million? And she reported she was making 50 grand a year or something. Right. So she never reported it as income, which is kind of funny to think about. Yeah. If the IRS came after you? Yeah. For $38 million in income? There's no audit of the fact that she's living like a $40 million lifestyle.

00:12:33 Yeah, I was going to say, it's like they didn't know. It's like, she had 20 cars. How did people not see what's going to be different cars? When it came out, she pleaded guilty to embezzlement, money laundering, tax evasion. She never reported that the federal judge at her sentencing looked at her and said, I sentence people every day who come into this country fighting for their lives, fighting to put food on their table. You don't have that. There's nothing here. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison in order to pay back $51.8 million. Wow. She had no finance background. She ran unopposed. And for 10 years, nobody checked. Nobody saw anything. Oh, gosh. That's insane. That's insane. I wonder what that process is for just becoming an elected official and they're like, okay, well, we only have one candidate.

00:13:17 So you win. Yeah. It's like. That's just how it works. That's crazy that there's not more of a process put in place. But I guess sometimes it's like you just need somebody to take the spot. Yeah. That's what they do. I guess. That's crazy. That's a. What's a. Earlier, last episode, I said there's another fraud story. Somebody got away with her for five months. Yeah. And I said, that seems like a long time. It is a long time. But then this person's 10 years. 10 years, yeah. This is. I don't think this is uncommon in frauds that last. Yeah. I guess. A lot of times it ends up, you know, they can only cover up the fact that they're depleting the amount of the money in the company. Once they start taking, there's never enough. Yeah. I mean, you think about it. If you, if, if someone realizes they can take money and there's no consequence, they just keep going.

00:13:59 Keep going. And their needs just keep getting bigger. Yeah. And eventually, you know, there's supposed to be $2 million in a bank account. There's actually zero. Yeah. And some owner finds out, I don't have any money. You know, this, this bookkeeper took everything I had. It happens all the time. Yeah. Uh, hey, listen, Casey's got a guest segment coming. I think we, I think we've seen a Casey video before. Yeah. You interview, you interview, you, you did a guest segment with Casey. Tell me about Casey. We also have some comments too that are coming into the live stream that are up right now. Okay, cool. Crisscross, Crisscross Apple. What's up? Somebody said, I picked cash back at a grocery store, forgot my money, went back. They pulled the camera, said an old lady was watching me the entire time when I walk off and took my money. Dang. No way.

00:14:39 The old lady. Hey, I said a comment about the old lady thing and the thrill of it. And Kim was like, don't approve this message. Well, thank you for proving my point. Crisscross Apple sauce. Don't be picking old ladies. And then someone online goes, oh, what about me? No, I love, I love old ladies. Yes. They're just little deeds. Wow. That's insane. I'm just saying like there's a statistic that like people, older women steal more than. Yeah. Like. I'll have to look and see if it is more, but I know it's, I remember looking at the study. It was the, the, there's an annual fraud report that's done, um, by, by fraud association organization. I used to read it and, uh, it's, it's really interesting. Like the demographics.

00:15:20 So tell me about Casey. He's the growth leader and strategist at service pro, uh, professionals. Yep. And they help trade company. They help, helps a trade company where he helps a trade company where they're marketing, their recruitment. Yeah. Their growth. I think you said he really enjoyed Casey. Yeah. He, he knew his stuff cause he pretty much handles, he wears multiple hats, which we know a lot of these hiring people do. Yeah. So he like does marketing, does sales, does hiring, like tries to help the company grow essentially. And I think that they kind of help, uh, trades companies find the right trades people, that kind of thing. And so he knew what he was talking about. So I was talking to him about some of his hiring woes as he's trying to go out and grow this business, grow this company.

00:16:01 I'm sure he's trying to grow it, hire the right people. And, uh, he's a short story here about some, some people that he's not, not got a well. Check out this segment. So here's Casey T. My, my last role, I was in a leadership position. So I, I did more full desk. I also did some of the sales work, got the accounts. Um, but we had this engineer whose resume just looked like. Perfect coming from, you know, a hot new startup. Um, and he was like, Oh yeah, I basically built it. I basically set all the infrastructure up, ran it full stack. It was, it was my whole, my whole project. Didn't work out there. They weren't paying me enough. Classic. Um, didn't work out with that candidate, but we actually ended up talking to that startup

00:16:46 later on as a potential client. And I met that hiring manager and he was like, yeah, we had this, this idiot that I just fired, almost deleted the whole code base. It was this, uh, trying to take credit for it. And the, you know, the, the lead engineer there was brilliant. And it was very obvious that the, the young buck was, was lying, but, you know, pretty rarely was I able to see the full, like lying verification that that was a lie. And we ended up being really cool with the hiring manager and did some good work for them. But that's awesome.

00:17:27 Well, Hey, at least I turned into a win. I mean, Casey is, um, um, yeah, he's, he's got good stories. He, that's why he avoided hiring somebody like, oh yeah, he ended up being, you know, he, he, he, he missed, you know, dodged a bullet or something, you know, he's able to, he's able to stiff it out. Sounds like the guy was trying to show somebody else that he had done all the work. Cause he was like, let me copy it all and then control a, and then he, so, and tell it, oh, he almost just deleted all the, you can't mess around with the coding. And I feel like we hear those stories of people trying to over, the over-coding duration, bro. Over-coding duration is what we talked about the other day. It was like someone, some recruiter, maybe that clip we looked at the other day and some

00:18:08 recruiter was telling someone how to lie. Oh yeah. On their resume. And they were like, oh no, if you, you know, if you did something that improves something by 3%, just say 25%. What? Yeah. That's like this guy's like, Hey, if you've been built a little bit of the code, just tell him you did the whole thing. Yeah. You know, then, then you're in, you're in the meeting and you start asking questions like, uh, you know, you can't answer. Yeah. You know, and maybe, maybe Casey's got some sixth sense about these guys that are, you know, spending, spending yarns. So. I mean, I understand how it is. People are out there and they're trying to find the right strong bullet points to put onto their resumes. And they're trying to say, I did this and I did that because they want to be hired. And it's, it's tempting just to be like, oh, and I, I grew the company by a million, billion,

00:18:50 trillion. But really like, they actually just picked the font, you know, and it's like, it's, but then you actually, like you said, you get into that interview and then to back up all the stuff you've lied about on your resume, you got to back it up with more lies. It's just like, it's just a better strategy. It's like, you take the guys that, you know, you take the guy, the recruiter's advice and you stack up your resume. So you get through. Yeah. It's like, at some point you're going to, if you've done, if you've really exaggerated, like, like his recommendation go from three to 25%. Yeah. Yeah. A guy like me is going to look at that and go, bro, that's super cool, man. Tell me how you did that. How'd you do that? And they're like, oh, I, uh, I, here's the code. Here's all of it. Just look at it.

00:19:31 Right. Yeah. I'd have rather heard the story of like how you grew at 3% and how hard it was. It was really challenging. It was difficult. And what problems you face and what you learn from it. I'd have been like, I love that. Yeah. Ideally you just want to hire genuine people who are just can't tell you what they did and what they didn't do. Yeah. You know, but I think a lot of people get off the right, the wrong foot of trying to make themselves look better. So they inflate everything they do. I'm sure, I'm sure recruiters, um, see this all the time, but. You know, I guess when I'm looking at resumes and people tell me what they do, there's the, you know, they write, they did, they do resumes or write resumes and it's a long list of responsibilities. Right. And rather than a long list of results and it's frustrating, but also when I read it, right.

00:20:16 It's like these long lists of over-exaggerated responsibilities. Like I was an office admin and, you know, in the thing, I was responsible for the strategic, uh, uh, intent of the marketing team as I sat in their meeting and, you know, and you're like, what was it? Like just this, if you read it, you'd be like, wow, they were near the CEO of that company and they were really, really important. Yeah. It was that just, you know, Hey, listen, I crushed it and assisting some of the, you know, senior people there and keeping their days organized and keeping them on point and helping them out, you know, just like, I don't know.

00:20:56 It drives me crazy. But then there's like those reference checks, like he's talking about show a little bit more inside of like, Oh, actually this guy almost broke our website. Yeah. That's right. You hear what actually happened. Who was that clip we did today? The one that you, Aaron, where she gave me advice. She was like trying to, I thought she gave me advice. Yeah. Yeah. We should have her on the show. Yeah. She has some good advice. Yeah. She's awesome. All right, Morgan. What do you got? All right. I bought on, I brought on a temp to handle customer service calls, pretty standard role. Customers call in with questions or requests. He helps them moves onto the next one. Nothing complicated about it. Somewhere along the way, he decides that the calls are also a good opportunity to pitch his own private crew sales business on the side. His private what? Cruise sales business.

00:21:38 What? He's probably like a travel agent or something. He started it the night before when he saw the TikToks, they start your cruise agency now. All right, cruises. Silled out a form. Yeah. Customers who are also calling in to ask about the receipts for purchases they've already made are being directed into leads for his personal cruise operation. On my time. On my phones to customers who called him for something completely unrelated. He had apparently decided that a steady stream of inbound calls was too good of an opportunity to waste on just one job. I like this guy's initiative. I love his initiative. He did not last long. And as far as I know, he did not book many cruises. What the owner should do here is just turn this into, hey, I love it.

00:22:22 Let's turn it into a rev share opportunity. Yeah. If you give me 20% of what you make, you know, you could. Have you been on any of those customer service calls now and send to large companies? At the end of the call, like, hey, we got a special offer if you want to listen. Yeah. Please stay on. And, you know, suddenly you called in for support on your tablet and next thing you know, you're getting pitched a vacation. Yeah. You know, it's the same. I mean, they're doing some. I feel like everybody's somehow a travel agent to some degree. Somebody has some connection to it. Can you imagine if one of the sales people here were like, okay, hey, I'm calling you about beat checks. Sorry that didn't work out. Can I interest you in a leave form? Can I interest you in a timeshare? A timeshare in Boca Raton? Yeah. That's kind of on the side. Like on your time. Special deal.

00:23:02 Yeah. That's insane. You have to act now, though, while we're on the phone. That was gutsy right there. That's funny. That was gutsy. That's insane. Oh, my goodness. All right. So that was my first story. This is my second one. So I bring on a brand new second lieutenant, fresh out of officer school, his very first commission. On just his second day, I organized a get-to-know-you meeting so he can meet all the senior government civilians he'll be working alongside. The room is full of stiff, no-nonsense, mostly older professionals who have been doing this for a very long time. He stands up in front of everyone and announces he's prepared something. He then proceeds to go around the entire room, person by person, and tell each of them what they were doing the year he was born.

00:23:45 Oh. Oh, geez. He had spent time researching everyone beforehand, LinkedIn, Facebook, public records, and had put together a thorough list. Births of their children, awards they'd received, previous deployments. He had even had one person's divorce in there. He liked it until then. I was like, oh, okay, this is interesting. Oh, he worked his... He was like, yeah, when I was one, you were divorcing Sally. He worked his way slowly and methodically around the entire room, which included a number of high-level supervisors, systematically reminding him... systematically reminding every single person present just how young and inexperienced he was compared to all of them. Wow. The room was completely silent for the whole entire time.

00:24:26 He then finally finished. I paused for a moment and said absolutely nothing about what had just happened and moved on with the meeting as none of it had occurred. I still don't know fully what to make of it. I had to excuse myself afterward to go laugh hysterically in the bathroom. What was he thinking? Like, maybe this would earn their respect or something? I mean, we were out every single person. If you think about it, if someone came... And that was their first deal. Impretion. It just probably wasn't the right audience is what it was. Because if someone did that and said, hey, I'm new here, you got a ton of experience. And when I was one, you were this. You had become a manager. You had done this. And you wrapped it up with some type of message that was like, I'm happy to be here.

00:25:10 I took the time to get to know each one of you and learn something about you. That can really come across great. But if you're an audience... Divorce. Divorce is crazy. Why did you just waste 25 minutes of our time? Yeah, a big presentation. Yeah. It just seemed like it landed wrong. He didn't... Yeah. If you went around and you're like, hey... No, I think it's weird either way. I think if you go and you meet people and you ask them, tell me about your life and you remember details. That's a good, nice thing. If you're like, hey, I looked you up on Facebook in 2008. Yeah. You were going to the prom. Like, this is weird. So weird. You could come across like you're trying to make somebody look old. Yeah. Or you're just, you know... Young and inexperienced. Yeah, that was... I don't know. This gave me a great, good idea, though. Product. Company meeting.

00:25:50 Yes. It's like when Randall was however old, I was the ex. Right. Don't do that to me. I won't. I want to keep my job. We have a guest segment with John. John. John was a keynote speaker for over 25 years and he has helped executives and entrepreneurs scale their company fast by utilizing time-tested, scientifically proven systems. Cool. And I think the company he owns is called The Talent Genius. So... Oh. Okay. Yeah. So John helps executives and entrepreneurs scale their companies. Okay. Very cool. I love it. And young entrepreneurs, too. That's really cool. He's on... You can find him at The Talent Genius on LinkedIn.

00:26:31 Cool. Not that long ago, I was asked to speak as a keynote speaker at three talent acquisition conferences. They're loaded primarily with Fortune 1000 executives. So they had done a survey prior to all three of these conferences. And what they found is that the two single greatest challenges that were consistent pretty much across the board were faster identification of talent and compressing or shortening the time to hire because too many companies have a process that's too lengthy and it takes too many steps and it's too long. So when I'm standing in front of hundreds of people, the question that you would want to ask intuitively based on this feedback and based on these opportunities is to say, okay, if identifying talent faster is the crown jewel, the single most important thing that we need to master, how do you define talent?

00:27:23 What actually is it? And then the follow-up question to that is, how do you assess? How do you identify? How do you evaluate to make sure that you are hiring someone with the right set of talents? Do you know that not one executive knew the right answer? Wow. That's crazy. That's a great point. That's interesting. That reminds me of, you know, we talk about this in Good Jobs, our company Good Jobs. We have the traits and behavior assessments and how we go in and help companies assess and create what, I guess, what talent would be. What's talent look like? Talent looks like these traits and behaviors. Yeah. For a good fit for somebody.

00:28:04 And potentially the set of learned skills alongside of these quality traits and behaviors. If I can get both, I have a really high chance of success. Yeah. But so few companies have done the work to go in and identify what are the traits and behaviors that drive performance in every specific role and how can we assess those in advance. Right. So I think that's in the hiring process and use that as a data point to hire. So I'm looking forward to, you know, been redoing that company and that software. I look forward to rolling it out in the next quarter or so. That might have not been John. Because, wait, was that John? Okay. Yeah. Sorry. The top just freaking out. Never mind.

00:28:44 Sorry. The name change for the top. It was Blaine Gorman. Okay. That's the next. That's my next guest. Okay. I was like, wait, I thought that was John. Yeah. So here, we have it up now. So let me just play Blaine's clip if you're ready, Marcus. So this is Blaine Gorman. He's out in California. He actually lived 25 minutes away from me. Oh, crazy. So we found that. It's so funny. So he's like head, you know, talent people person at Kiva who does a lot of cool stuff. They help like different things with refugees and all this like really cool stuff. Nonprofit? Yeah. I think it's, I'm pretty sure he said it was a nonprofit. Okay. K-I-V-A. Looked them up on LinkedIn. Oh, wow. So he's out there in California. That's awesome. But yeah, we had a good conversation.

00:29:25 So here's Blaine Gorman. So I had a friend who I'd met at the gym. We actually had a lot in common. He'd graduated from FBA and finance and decided, hey, I need a job in FP&A. And my company actually had an opportunity that was in FP&A. And I shared it with him. And I was like, hey, here's the JD. Like I would refer you for the job because I trust you kind of thing. And this all went sideways. So essentially still a good friend. But he ended up getting the role, decided it was like the right fit. The people internally trusted me that this was a referral. And he was in the role for probably six months before they started to realize probably not the best fit. However, he really liked the culture.

00:30:07 It just wasn't the right fit for his skill set. And I think after kind of going into that year mark, they wanted to evaluate him some more. And essentially, he was about to go on a pip. And he had reached out to me. He was like, hey, can we chat about this? And I was like, absolutely. So we talked about it. And I felt really awful. Like I didn't set him up for success. I didn't set the team up for success. And then obviously for him, like I didn't want to let him down. And I felt like in some regards, I kind of did. But essentially, it was, you know, a few things that just really were not working. And knowing that he was potentially going to get fired, I just felt really bad in that circumstance. But he ended up transitioning out of the organization. He decided to move his kind of career in a different direction.

00:30:47 Yeah, we had a good conversation about like these, you know, recruiters, hiring managers, a lot of times they're put in a tough spot because they have this job. And then they have a buddy who's looking for a job. Yeah. They're like, hey, can you give me a job? And sometimes, you know, they put themselves out on a limb like that and it just doesn't work out. But they're in a tough spot. I guarantee it's happened every single recruiter. Referrals are just a messy thing. As soon as you lose your job, you're like, oh, I know blame. You know, blame. Yeah, exactly. I mean, let's see what he's got. You know, hey, buddy, can you hook me up? So blame put his best effort into it. But he was saying, we were kind of talking about that's a common thing. Blaine, and I think he represents a lot of people in talent acquisition, is how he just had a lot of personal responsibility and wanting the success of the role.

00:31:37 Exactly. Yeah. Right. I mean, it's like. That's a court trait. It wasn't like he just, you know, hey, you guys hired him. I just referred it. Yeah. You know, he cared. He cared about it. You know, and I think probably blame would have cared if it was his friend or not. Yeah. Exactly. You know, it's just, he had that kind of vibe about him. It's like, you know, his job is to find great talent, put it into place, and he wants it to be successful. Yeah. And when he sees it just kind of grinding and not, you know, and there's just like this personal ownership of trying to figure it out, you know. Yeah. That's the best characteristic of a good recruiter. And I think it's common, like you said, in a lot of them. The best recruiters I've worked with who've helped put me in jobs are calling me, emailing me like, hey, is there any update? Hey, I'm trying to put in a good word for you. Yeah. That's why it matters even more that, like, that people are legit.

00:32:21 They're checked. They're put in the right spots, you know, because these people are working hard and going on a limb for you. They care. Yeah. I mean, it's their job to hire, but I still believe that, you know, the majority of recruiters I spend time with, talent acquisition folks, you know, like really care about their success. They're passionate about it. They're not just checking a box or throwing somebody, you know, just throwing bodies at somebody. They understand, you know, their connection, their role to success in the business. Yeah. All right. So what else you got? Yeah. So I appreciate Blaine. He loved it. Yeah. Thanks, Blaine. That was super cool. Oh, yeah. I got a couple of stories to read. So here's my first one. So I brought in a new hire and his first day seemed completely normal. He got settled in.

00:33:01 He meets the team and he goes through their usual routine. So during lunch, this is his first day. He pulls out his phone and he tweets about his new job. He's excited. He's got first day energy. And he tells all of his followers about his new chapter of life. What neither of us knew is that the police have been actively monitoring his social media accounts. Oh, no. So then a SWAT team shows up. Are you kidding me? Dude. At my office, not long after lunchtime, he was arrested on the spot in front of his entire new team. That's horrible. He was carrying an unregistered concealed weapon. And when everything came out, he pleaded guilty to a whole string of felonies, including robbing an elderly couple at the park, which is never good.

00:33:44 Don't do that. Why is he almost robbing this episode? It also came out that he had faked his entire resume to hide the fact that he had spent the previous three years in prison. A local shop owner had given him a fake reference to help him get the job. And I made sure that the entire town knew about that afterwards. Dang. Isn't that insane? That's horrible. It all happened so fast, so happy. Yeah. It's like... He was like trying to show his new job. The police are monitoring his social. I feel bad for him. That's crazy. I'm like, hey, man, he was excited to have a job. Yeah. Or it's like the TikTok we watched earlier. It was like, your boss follows you. Or whatever. Which one? It's like the TikTok we watched where it's like your boss follows you and you're trying to post things to impress him.

00:34:26 He was like, first day of work. And then it's like the police were like, no. There he is. He's at the office. Let's go get him. Let's go get him. Yeah. That's insane. And I wonder if he knew he was being monitored by the police. Maybe not. I guess not. Probably not. Because he just kind of walked right into that one. But that's insane. They say never post your location. You got another one? Don't do that. I got one more. Okay. So here's another one. I bring on a new hire and he shows up a full hour early on his first day. Here we go. Which I take as a good sign. A colleague mentions pretty quickly that something seems a little bit off. He's visibly nervous, which is normal. And he appears to be trying to hide something underneath his keyboard. So the two of us decide to take him into a room to welcome him properly, do some introductions, get things started all out on a good note.

00:35:12 So he walks in with us. And without making eye contact, without a single word, he reaches into his pocket and he hands us an envelope. And then he bolts. Yes. So out of the room, straight through the office, out of the building. He's gone. So we open the envelope and it's a resignation letter. His working day was contractually set to begin at 9 a.m. He had shown up at 8, apparently spent an hour working up the nerve. And by the time we process what had just happened, he was already gone. So his total employment was negative 36 minutes. And whatever he was running from, it wasn't the job because technically the job had not even started yet. Listen, I'm going to avoid it, but this is some next level.

00:35:53 Well, he showed up. No, he did. No, he did. He showed up. Negative 36 minutes. You know, he could have just no-showed. Yeah. Yeah, we appreciate that, right? I appreciate the fact that he showed up day one and handed a written resignation over somebody, you know? Oh, poor guy. I feel bad for him. Is that weird? Like, I guess he's just so nervous that he's just like, here's my letter and get out of here. He just goes. Yeah. This is the same person who would definitely struggle to break up with their girlfriend. Yeah, here's a letter. Five years in, it's like, I can't do it. Yeah. I can't do it. That's a very unique story. I thought that was crazy. Yeah, that is. What an interesting story. That is, it's not even a first hour resignation. Yeah. It's a pre-hired resignation. So he got there early and then quit, like, within a few minutes of his job.

00:36:35 Before his official day started. Yeah. So he's a nice guy. The wild one. But it was not the job for him. Yeah. Something just wasn't sitting right with him either. Well, I had fun today. It was good. Yeah. We had some good stories. Blaine was good. Who else? Did we do another one today? John. Casey. Yes. Oh, we did Casey. Yeah, we had a whole bunch of guests. So thanks for sending your stories. I love listening to those stories. I love listening to people tell their own stories. Yeah. Because it just feels so real. Even when they send them in to us. I mean, I love reading them. But when you see somebody tell a story. Yeah. You know? They lived it. Yeah. And you can see they're just like, they tell them like, this is, I mean, this is the world we live in. This is it. This is what it's like. Yeah. You know?

00:37:15 I don't know. I love that. So. But listen, thanks. Thanks for joining us. Stay on the podcast. And for listening to The Bad Hire. We enjoy doing it. We did a little extra stories this week. We're adding a few stories to the show to extend the show a little bit. Yeah. Heard somebody commented not long ago on the, that we should add more stories. Yeah. To a show. Yeah. So, yeah, we're doing that. A bliss is. And we're doing that also because we will increase the level of content that we're doing on some of our short form stuff. Yeah. And so we're excited about that. But listen, subscribe to us on YouTube. Like us. On Instagram, on wherever you follow us, wherever you watch us, TikTok. Subscribe to us. Follow us. You know, rate us.

00:37:57 Whatever it is. Write a review. And share us with somebody. You know, repost something for us. We'd love for our stories to get told. Yeah. And we'd love for you to be a part of the story, a part of telling the stories and be on the show. And if you do, you get a chance to win $10,000. We'll give it away at the end of our first year. And so, yeah, that'd be kind of cool. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So go to thebadhire.com to do that, all right? And your story could be featured like you saw some of the guys today. But until then, until next time, thanks for listening. Appreciate you guys. You guys. Thanks, everybody. Thanks. Bye. Bye.

00:38:46 Thank you.